The NYT says funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be cut “nearly in half.” The cut eliminates $50 million needed to upgrade “the aging satellite technology that is the backbone of the PBS network.”
The proposal by Ohio Republican Rep. Ralph Regula “also calls for all federal funding to the CPB to be eliminated in two years,” reports Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman.
Democracy Now! headlines today’s show with “PBS TV Station President Warns CPB Funding Cuts Will Launch ‘Spiral of Death for Public Broadcasting’.” Amy Goodman hosts (watch/listen) a round-table discussion with the presidents of two PBS stations as well as Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy.
Rants below:
RANT #1: Also cut: The “$23 million ‘Ready to Learn’ program supervised by the Education Department’:
That program provides some money for producing children’s shows, including “Sesame Street,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” “Between the Lions” and “Dragon Tales.”
By all means, let’s cut non-polluting industries that hire American workers for creative jobs and that educate our “left-behind” children.
RANT #2:
[I]n the face of charges from CPB Chair Tomlinson that it is has a liberal bias, and threats to its funding from Congress, the Public Broadcasting Service on Tuesday adopted an updated set of editorial standards and announced that it would add an ombudsman who will report directly to PBS President Pat Mitchell. (DN!)
I’ve been wondering if NPR and PBS would be better off telling the federal government to go to hell and produce their own programming without stupid congressmen — like Rep. Ralph Regula — breathing down their necks.
NPR and PBS have solid standing in nearly every U.S. community, and occupy excellent spots on our TV and radio dials.
What if NPR and PBS went truly public? And asked us to finance them, in exchange for which we ask them to let their hair down and be part of the truth-telling team 24/7?
PBS, for example, does a great job with truth-telling programs such as Frontline. NPR has some some great muck-raking journalism lately, and can do more.
Is it possible they could resign from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and fly free?
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From the Center for American Progress:
Big Bird Gets Plucked
For more than two decades, “political conservatives have been targeting PBS … with a stream of public relations campaigns designed to rein in public broadcasting’s independence and cut into its public and congressional support.” Both the Nixon and Reagan administrations attacked public broadcasting and, as speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich tried to end its funding. E-mail petitions — with “Save Big Bird!” subject lines — that implored you to save public broadcasting from destruction used to be the stuff of urban legend. But leave it to conservatives to ultimately succeed in turning fiction into reality. Right-wingers are taking over the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the agency intended to provide a buffer between independent public broadcast networks and the partisan government. And they are working overtime to put a conservative slant on programming, a move that completely undermines the non-interference mandate of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act. This week right-wingers in the House voted to cut all federal funding for public broadcasting within the next two years. Unless the public demands respect for independent and public broadcasting, soon nobody will be able to tell you how to get to Sesame Street. Write Congress and demand that they save PBS from partisan operatives. …
Read more.