It has been hilarious watching the formerly government funded propaganda mills that cater to urban elites and college towns suddenly becoming concerned about rural areas they despise. The pretense that the year is 1965 with three television networks and only a few radio stations for rural areas demonstrates their degree of desperation. This is an old trick. The late great Tennessee Ernie Ford had concerts on PBS during fund raising drives. (See, we aren’t commies. We have Tennessee Ernie Ford singing quaint Christian hymns!) The country card no longer works.
Maybe they would feel better if we placed the funding that PBS received into the FOX network. Make it a little more obvious for them.
As I was reading Mr. Schama’s comment I could faintly hear the sound of dueling banjos rippling off in the distance.
How in the world will those poor people cope without being reminded to use the proper pronouns when faced with close contact with the mentally ill?
Without the federal funding, the little “beg-a-thons” PBS stations are notorious for will go from 30 hours a week to 40 hours.
No one will notice the difference.
What’s bizarre about this is the federal legislation in 1934 provided for ‘clear channel’ stations to fill gaps in the coverage of local and regional broadcasters. There were about 20 clear channel stations and there were rules about nighttime broadcasting by ordinary stations meant to allow the signals of clear channel stations to be heard. There was a clear channel station in my home town. Supposedly its signal reached 38 states, i.e. everywhere in the continental United States east of Denver.
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You’ll recall that ‘public television’ was originally called ‘educational television’ and the legislation providing for it was supported by some commercial television luminaries like Fred Friendly. The rationale was to provide quality programming which was not broken up by advertising. It got off to a rough start but eventually did do that, more or less.. NPR was inspired by this example. The problem was that each cohort entering the news business was more inclined toward the Democratic Party than the previous cohort and instead of resisting this, the tendency in public broadcasting was intensified. You did have luminaries in public broadcasting who resisted this (MacNeill & Lehrer, to name two), but on the whole their public affairs programming grew more and more sectarian. Coverage was not the issue (and public television was found on UHF stations which had ca. 1970 wretched reception even in bulbous cities).
Schama is a British subject whose time resident here was spent in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Manhattan.
Where I’ve lived, they have a few weeks a year devoted to fund drives. In my home town, there was a continuous ongoing fund drive on public television at one time, but I think that had ceased by about 1980.
Yeah, I enjoyed his French Revolution, not so much the rest of his books. His view of this country is conventionally liberal.
In my Appalachian days, if we wanted to spread some news, why, we’d just haveta write a fiddle song ’bout it and wait fer the square dance.
The ONLY NPR stations in my state are connected with colleges. And they aren’t in rural areas.
Most states don’t even have a single AM station that broadcasts NPR.
I can think of several in Illinois that do.
That’s how they view rural folks tho, isn’t it?
Not only am I in rural area, I have satellite.
I never let my 11 yo grandson watch Sesame Street etc bc it had gotten that bad back then. I used to listen to NPR just for classical music until they decided propaganda was more important. Now I have a thumb drive to listen to my favorites.
Mr. McC – My mother grew up in a coal camp in southwestern WV. And my father was the son of Sicilian and Irish immigrants in industrial northeast OH.
I do not appreciate caricatures of either culture. Both families, though living in differing circumstances, placed a high priority on education and being aware of current events in the world beyond their front doors. Both families were very poor and dealt with prejudice and bigotry from their fellow Americans. My father’s older sisters, who were little girls at the time, were in fact viciously heckled and frightened by the KKK – grown “men” – for wearing Catholic school uniforms in the 1930s as they walked home from school, when the evil KKK had its mitts on politics in the Midwest for a short but ugly time. My grandfather, who usually slept during the day after working the 3rd shift at Goodyear, always walked them to school after that, holding their hands.
NPR and PBS both have some very worthy programming that I would hate to see taken away. But they have misused the tax money they have been given over the years by broadcasting highly partisan news programming that often falls into the category of propaganda, in my opinion.
I would be all for giving NPR and PBS an ultimatum – cease news broadcasts and place programming under the oversight of the Government or disband entirely. Perhaps this is impractical or impossible, but that is the only option I see, respectfully.
My father’s older sisters, who were little girls at the time, were in fact viciously heckled and frightened by the KKK – grown “men” – for wearing Catholic school uniforms in the 1930s as they walked home from school, when the evil KKK had its mitts on politics in the Midwest for a short but ugly time.
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The KKK had a five-digit membership coast-to-coast during the 1930s.
Art Deco: Indiana was the Mid-West center of Klan activity during the 30’s. Never quite understood that but it ended after WW II. All without the intervention of NPR, PBS to aid their departure.
“…cease news broadcasts and place programming under the oversight of the Government or disband entirely. “
Heh. I meant to comment that NPR, PBS, and every other broadcaster already have government oversight, as they must follow FCC rules. I intended commenting further how PBS and NPR actually have more oversight than others; being quasi- government agencies.
Instead, in checking to confirm this, …I find Google giving me lots of double-talk. Google says NPR is part of PBS, which receives funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Congress created this and it operates via both federal and local membership-drive monies. Likewise, Google declares the FCC to be an independent organization, created by Congress.
TECHNICALLY, these statements are true: Strictly speaking, these are not part of any Department, ..I expected Commerce, maybe Education collaborating. Seems they’re Legislative branch babies, not Executive. So, for my 20’s self of days gone by, no, they’re not part of government. Not quite.
Realistically, I’d say that’s near pure baloney.
They “belong” to Congress, so if Congress doesn’t fuss much, they act as they see fit. Mr. Deco more or less indicated this. Now, Pres Trump et al are pestering Congress to fuss, so we’re having the howls coming from the Left. Go figure.
I’m glad we’re beginning to have this argument though. It’s long overdue. The NPR/PBS editorial mentality is only the bare tip of the iceberg. I recall in college encountering many attitudes by which I was insinuated intolerant, possibly hateful, if I didn’t agree to this or that…approach… to living or education that might favor minorities or women. I also recall being horrified several years ago when an employee commented about “needing to behave herself”; she might lose custody of her 1-year-old son to state concerns if she “misbehaved”.
Over the last 30 years, I have encountered far, far too much of “how can THOSE people possibly survive if WE don’t tell them what to do??”.
*snorts* …So much for respecting the rights and intentions of parents….
Neither NPR nor PBS are public agencies or affiliates of public agencies. IIRC, in each case, they are formally owned by their member stations which in turned are owned by those holding the original broadcast licenses. Where I grew up, it was a membership corporation which you joined when you sent a contribution of a certain level. In other places, it’s a local college or university which holds the license. Fairly unusual back in the day when broadcast television was king for a licensee to see his license revoked and I’m not sure this has ever happened to a public broadcasting licensee. IIRC, NPR and PBS have federal charters, which is fairly unusual.
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You’ll recall that in 1982 some disaffected NPR stations formed American Public Radio. (I think some stations joined both). American Public Radio was the primary distributor of A Prairie Home Companion at one time.
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The public agency is the ‘Corporation for Public Broadcasting’, which is not a government corporation like your local water authority or mass transit authority or state college. It’s a grant distributor. AFAIK, NPR and PBS do not receive a remittance from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The grants go to local stations, who in turn pay a fee to the network and purchase programming from them and purchase it from other producers and vendors as well.
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Personally, I doubt NPR ever had many dissenters producing editorial matter. It had people like Uri Berliner and not like the commissars who run the place today.
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The broadcasting outlets actually run by federal agencies are Armed Forces Radio. the Voice of America, and the RFE / RL franchise of services. These were always short-wave services back in the day. I could get VoA on my shortwave, but its mission was to broadcast abroad and IIRC its equipment was supposed to be placed to minimize reception in the United States.
Art,
I don’t dispute the legal distinctions you’ve drawn. Mostly, I’ve highlighted how … if they aren’t majority funded by federal, state, or local dollars, ..they still originally stemmed from Congress and are subject to it. More important, they declare themselves public radio, public broadcasting. They teach “values” on Sesame Street and the like, yet they don’t admit the origins of these values. They aim to provide “for the common good”. Thus, while they may not be “public agencies” in the strictest sense like AFN, they still intend filling the same role. They are, in essence, public services.
…and now they’re screaming because a whole bunch of us are supporting Pres Trump’s efforts to curtail their budgets. They don’t like the idea that we all dare to dispute their ideas.