The Power of Choice

Bob Chitester will be the speaker at the July Bastiat Society monthly meeting.

Mr. Chitester is President and CEO of the Palmer R. Chitester Fund, Chitester Creative Associates, Inc. and The Idea Channel®; and is managing partner of Free to Choose Enterprise. These companies produce television programs and program elements, create and operate web sites, create print and CD-ROM materials, and distribute curriculum materials to high schools and colleges.

Date: Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Hors d'oeuvres : 5:00 pm
Speaker: 6:00 pm
Location: Imaging Arts Gallery 175 King Street, Charleston, SC
RSVP to Stephanie Whitener

In 1977, Mr. Chitester convinced Milton Friedman to undertake a project which became, Free to Choose, an award winning PBS TV series and an international best selling book based on the series. Over 25 years later the series and book are still in wide use and have been notably influential. Mart Laar, first Prime Minister of a free Estonia and recent winner of the Friedman Prize, used Free to Choose as a guide in setting policies that gave Estonia a thriving economy.

The Palmer R. Chitester Fund is a 501-c-3 public foundation doing business as izzit.org (formerly In the Classroom Media) and Free to Choose Media. Its mission is: To use easily understood and entertaining popular media to reach inquisitive minds regarding the value and interrelationship of personal, economic and political freedom sustained by the rule of law.

izzit.org created the Stossel in the Classroom teaching units and services a nationwide network of teachers in over 68% of all secondary schools in the United States. Currently over 84,000 teachers use these and new video materials developed by izzit.org to supplement classroom curriculum for over 13 million students.

Free to Choose Media recently completed production of The Power of Choice a television biography of Milton Friedman to be telecast on PBS. In the works are several other programs, including a biography of Secretary of State George Shultz and commentaries by and about Hernando de Soto and Bjorn Lomborg.

In the mid nineties, working with TCI in Denver, Chitester Creative Associates, Inc. created Damn Right, a week-nightly, half-hour program, whose alumni, include David Asman, Eric Burns and Douglas Kennedy, currently regulars on the Fox Cable News Channel, Jonathan Karl of ABC news, and Richard Loury, editor of National Review. Another production, “National School Assembly,” with David Robinson, MVP Center with the San Antonio Spurs, is currently being offered to teachers via izzit.org.

The Idea Channel is a library of over 200 video recordings of intellectual discussions between the world's leading scholars, the collection currently includes more than 50 Nobel Prize recipients, including Friedrich von Hayek, Jim Buchanan, Christian de Duve, Norman Borlaug and Charles Townes.

Along with Milton and Rose Friedman, Mr. Chitester is the managing partner of Free To Choose Enterprise. Free To Choose Enterprise manages licensing and sales of “Free to Choose,” hosted by Professor Friedman, 1976 Nobel prize winning economist.

Mr. Chitester has more than forty five years of experience in television management and program development. He started educational television facilities at Buena Vista High School in Saginaw, Michigan and Edinboro State University in Pennsylvania. In 1966, he became the founding General Manager of the Erie, Pennsylvania PBS and NPR stations (WQLN and WQLN-FM), which he headed until 1982.

Mr. Chitester earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Michigan, and received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Allegheny College. He and his wife, Carol Lovell, have four children and eight grandchildren.

Image © 2006 Free to Choose Media. All Rights Reserved.