Public universities have a compelling interest in promoting student expression in a manner that is viewpoint neutral … This may be done by providing funding for a broad array of student groups. If the groups funded are truly diverse, many students are likely to disagree with things that are said by some groups [emphasis mine]. Thus, the issue of bias makes its entry. In insisting on objectivity and balance and banning editorializing, the drafters of the Broadcasting Act seem to have had a good sense of the Constitution.
When they let their guard down, NPR, PBS and their parent organization, the CPB, admit that their workforce is overwhelmingly progressive[] but reject that such lack of intellectual diversity has an impact on their output. For that to be true, however, one would have to believe that liberals are fully conversant with conservative perspectives and ideas.
More importantly, it would also have to be true that practically every Republican and Democratic leader since has been fundamentally wrong concerning their own political interests, the former in criticizing public broadcasting and the latter the opposite.
The argument that populating a newsroom with liberals will nonetheless produce objective reporting was well articulated on Sept. Bob Garfield : You and I both know that if you were to somehow poll the political orientation of everybody in the NPR news organization and at all of the member stations, you would find a progressive, liberal crowd, not uniformly, but overwhelmingly.
Ira Glass : Journalism, in general, reporters tend to be Democrats and tend to be more liberal than the public as a whole, sure. That journalists are more liberal than the public has been proven by countless studies. Washington Post media writer Erik Wemple did a good job of compiling many of those studies in a Jan.
Its very existence is a rebuke to a profit-driven society. He asked questions that would never have even occurred to the other moderators. The conservative commentator Arnold Steinberg, who in his youth in the s worked for Fred Friendly, raised the same point. Of course it is, and everyone knows it. The free-market economist Milton Friedman also had a documentary series in the s.
Buckley and Friedman, however, spoke of feeling like outsiders at PBS. Audiences have never been in any doubt. They competed mercilessly inside this environment, but at the end of the day they had million Americans to divvy up.
This oligopoly, moreover, relied on a finite spectrum, giving the industry the look of highly regulated utilities.
The presidents of ABC, CBS and NBC supported the creation of public broadcasting in Congressional hearings, arguing that commercial TV was incapable of producing the educational and cultural content that Johnson and the Carnegie Commission wanted because such programming did not appeal to mass audiences. The belief that broadcasters interested in profit were too crass to deliver education and culture permeated the creation of the CPB.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. The same reason was given for broadcasting to low-density rural communities with underserved audiences that only government-subsidized broadcasting could serve.
The commercial networks, in other words, were after advertising dollars, and the drafters of the bill promised that the CPB would not compete for those. Today, Leonard H. Cable, satellite and the internet have transformed this world, and what purpose the CPB serves that could not be served by others is hard to imagine. Will has a point. Any public-spirited person looking for information on radio or television that would help make her a better-informed citizen can find everything she needs on the commercial dial.
In terms of the in-classroom help that the former teacher at the little schoolhouse in Cotulla wanted, what we have today is if anything too much choice. I am always excited to learn about new technology, but overwhelmed at how much there is out there.
It is hard to find time to research it all, especially all the new education apps. The rapid growth in critically acclaimed commercial U. Technology, in fact, has made public broadcasting redundant. The removal of that overhead would relieve the taxpayer of his burden. As it is right now, public broadcasting gets about 35 percent of its revenues from taxpayers, a figure that includes The numbers are better for public radio, which is less than half as reliant on CPB appropriations as public television.
Finally, public broadcasters have an unfair advantage over their commercial competitors: Their reliance on taxpayer support helps them avoid automatic dial turning when an upcoming commercial break is announced.
Everyone in the radio business knows that when we go to a commercial break, radio listeners around the city are changing the channel. Some come back a few minutes later. That reality obviously drives our ratings in a downward direction. NPR never hits that wall. Their ratings in the D. Liberal area, to be sure.
Public broadcasting walked away from the promised emphasis on education and cultural promotion when it embraced public affairs, which conservatives have come to view as political indoctrination on the public dime. Public broadcasting figures such as Ira Glass say they want the bias measured, but attempts by Brookhiser, Tomlinson and Mann to do just that have been shut down after cries of censorship. Anything done on the public dime comes with accountability.
The only solution is defunding. In an Oct. Doing so is not practicable and may not even be possible. How can public affairs be separated from education and culture in a Ken Burns documentary or a NOVA program that constantly hammers home climate change? It would require the constant monitoring that liberals have decried for decades. It would solve nothing. The solution is to allow the whole package to go off public support and over to charitable foundations, corporations and individuals.
Clearly, with some creativity, a taxpayer funding shortfall could be made up. The membership model has been shown to work it sustains the foundation where the writer works, where corporations account for around four percent of funding and government for zero.
Corporate sponsorships are already working and could bring even more funds. Conservatives have sometimes demurred on the question of handing PBS and NPR over completely to private sector actors. Liberal and conservative views are already funded by the private sector, at MSNBC and Fox for example, where they compete in the market place of ideas. The goal here is not to suppress one side or the other but to remove the tyranny to which Jefferson referred.
Download the PDF. He left journalism to join the administration of President George W. In his new capacity he writes on national identity, diversity, multiculturalism and assimilation, as well as foreign policy. Gonzalez was born in Cuba and left at the age Gonzalez got his first regular reporting beat in , covering high school sports for one summer for The Boston Herald.
He went to work for Agence France-Presse in , reporting from around the globe for the news agency for six years. Between and , he served in the same capacity for the European edition in Brussels, before returning to Hong Kong as editor. Fluent in Spanish and French, he reads Italian and Portuguese. A new role for public media: Local government watchdogs. Public broadcasting: Its past and its future.
Topple the towers: Why public radio and television stations should radically reorient toward digital-first local news, and how they could do it. American Affairs Journal. Paglin, James Hobson, Joel Ronsenbloom, eds. League of Women Voters U. House Committee on Appropriations. Hearings, Ninetieth Congress, first session, on S. The Congress hereby finds and declares that— 1 it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes; [19].
Expedition — Available Now on Passport. Nova — Available Now on Passport. Reading Explorers The daily lessons will be taught by Fresno Unified School District teachers and are created to help students practice their reading skills and reinforce lessons. Recent Reading Explorers Videos.
At Home Learning. Educational Resources. Foggy Day Schedule. Family Circle. Family Circle Membership is a great way to create lasting memories as a family. Become a Family Circle Member. PBS Kids. Bright By Text. Play Math Games. Right Rail Next Avenue. While we invest our resources in initiatives that improve the lives of those living in this great community, we dedicate most of our time and energy to educational projects that make learning available to all.
As a c 3 nonprofit organization, we're governed by a board of committed volunteers: our Board of Trustees and Community Advisory Board. Click here for more information about our open meetings. Connect With Us. Our Focus East Tennessee PBS understands that substantial and sustainable growth can only be achieved through the collaboration of the entire organization and are united with a consistent message. These areas of focus are the pillars we rely on to achieve our mission and vision: Children and Lifelong Education -East Tennessee PBS provides an expansive range of programming, events, and opportunities that expands the minds of kids and adults alike.
We air the most trusted, award winning, educational programming for early learners, programming to support school-age children, and programs to expand horizons, knowledge, and skills of all. From music, crafts, story telling and visual arts, East Tennessee PBS is committed to provide our community access to the arts.
0コメント