MoveOn.Org is seeking to mobilize its members in defense of federal funding for public broadcasting, but is doing so in a misleading manner. The MoveOn website warns: “The House is threatening to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Reading Rainbow’ and other commercial-free children’s shows. Sign our petition to Congress opposing these massive cuts to public broadcasting.” As detailed here (and in an e-mail MoveOn is sending to its supporters), there is a threat. Congress is considering whether to reduce the federal appropriation for public broadcasting from $400 million to $300 million, as a step toward phasing out federal funding altogether.
Why is the MoveOn campaign misleading? The suggestion that budget cuts threaten popular shows, such as Sesame Street (as they do above) or Arthur and Clifford the Big Red Dog (as they do in their e-mail alert), is erroneous. Why is this misleading? Because such shows are not the sort of programming which need federal support to survive. These PBS shows are immensely popular — and hence immensely profitable. Such popular children’s shows are notorious cash cows.
Even if federal funding for PBS were eliminated entirely, these programs — as well as PBS mainstays such as the Newshour with Jim Lehrer (one of my two favorite news programs) — would almost certainly survive as they would have little problem attracting funding. For the childrens’ programs, much of the profit from product tie-ins could easily support their continued broadcast (although it might tarnish PBS’ “non-commercial” image.) It is the more marginal, and often more controversial, programming that might be at risk. Yet PBS defenders don’t emphasize this because it would undermine the case for continued federal subsidy.
This fight over federal funding of public broadcasting comes at a time when PBS and NPR are under fire for a lack of political balance. I agree that much of the programming on public broadcsting is quite skewed. Yet I am also uncomfortable with the content of public broadcasting becoming a political football. I don’t like the idea of politicians from either party pressuring any broadcaster to shift their coverage in one direction or the other. To me, this only strengthens the case for defunding public broadcasting altogether. After all, if PBS and NPR did not receive any federal support, the federal government would have no basis for seeking to infulence the content of either network, and would not have the same ability to put pressure on public broadcasters. I think public broadcasting should be defunded — for its own good.
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