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tion.
"It's become an article of faith on the left that the media is now dominated by the right, the same way that a decade ago the conservatives felt the reverse," Mr. Rosenstiel said in an interview. "This move to create a new media by political groups on the left should be no more welcome to citizens than the rise of an N.R.A. radio network or video news releases secretly sent to TV stations by the Bush administration."
But Ken Bode, a veteran television journalist and a visiting professor of journalism at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., said he saw nothing wrong with the two organizations deciding to help themselves actively to the airwaves.
"It speaks to the fact that there is a vacuum of serious journalism about the complicated issues the Sierra Club is interested in and the A.C.L.U. is interested in," Mr. Bode said. "Any time you have any organization putting responsible opinions before the public, I think it enriches the debate, rather than diminishes it. Anyone who takes the time to watch a program like that, they know the views of the A.C.L.U. or the Sierra Club."
Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said that there was room for programming with a point of view. "I don't believe the only space for communication should be 'on the one hand and on the other hand,' " Mr. Pope said. "There should be a space for advocates that is unfiltered, as well as a space where advocates' voices are balanced."
"Five years ago, our model was to produce something and get PBS to air it," he said. "The whole idea that the progressive movement needs to produce their own programming has taken greater hold."
Link TV, which broadcasts "Chronicles," is a noncommercial, independent network available in more than 26 million homes on the DirecTV and Dish satellite services.
In one episode of "Chronicles," "9/11 Forgotten Heroes," viewers hear iron workers and paramedics talk about medical problems caused by the foul air at the site where the World Trade Center fell.
"What I want to ask Congress is, 'Why are they leaving us like this?' " says a choked-up Mike McCormack, a ground zero rescue worker. He talks about pulling the flag that flew from a tower out from the rubble. "We're just as American as everybody else," he says.
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