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Sam and Friends BookYou may think this has LITTLE to do with SS, but it actually has A LOT to do with it:
Honestly, what are they thinking? Of course, many of the programs on PBS, including SS are funded by the government and different companies plus the viewers, but really, would taking the goverment's funding out be enough to keep the station on air? I don't think so.
I don't understand why the Bush administration thinks the station IS biased. Each station varies of what programs are shown throughout the day. Some even show both sides. Can't they see that PBS has brought so many viewers because of the quality of their content? I don't see many people actually complaining about it, and don't see the need to.
I'm just worried that if the government drops its support for the station, that a wide percentage of the current viewers and companies that pay each year to keep the station running will drop. That's how it always is, if you want to support your president, support what he wants, not what he doesn't.
I don't want to see a generation of kids who won't have educational programs like SS, Barney, Between the Lions, Dragon Tales, and Clifford. That's like them saying that it's okay for your kids to be watching those nasty shows that they now show on Cartoon Network. Would you rather have your kid watch Cartoon Network or Disney? I'd say Disney.
I can't see any station that will be willing to show these programs again without fighting for who gets what. I mean, if FOX and ABC fight about who gets Supernanny and American Idol, I don't know what will happen next. I really don't want to see two versions of a show being made, especially once PBS programs. That would just disgust many viewers who once grew up with the original.
With the charges of 'liberal bias' and questions of federal funding, maybe it's best just to pull the plug on PBS
12:05 AM CDT on Friday, June 3, 2005
The growing controversy over the Bush administration's attempts to replace what it sees as a "liberal bias" in PBS programming with what would appear to be "conservative bias" has forced me to think the unthinkable – or at least the heretical, certainly in my cultural and ideological circle:
Do we really want or need PBS anymore?
I am not defending the Bush administration's assault on PBS, which is as appalling as it is predicable, nor do I mean to denigrate the fine, often brilliant work PBS has done through the years – Masterpiece Theater, Firing Line, Bill Moyers' Journal , Ken Burns' epic documentaries on the Civil War, baseball and jazz, among many others.
But when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent of PBS, was created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, we lived in a television world largely limited to three commercial networks, a world quite accurately characterized as a "vast wasteland" by Newton Minow, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
We now live in a cable world, a "500-channel universe," and while I would not argue that many of these cable offerings match PBS at its best, they (and Fox) do provide many alternatives to the three original networks we had in 1967.
Of course, cable has a major drawback because individual families have to pay for it – $30 or $40 a month or more.
But politics, not the availability of more alternatives, is the primary reason to question the continued viability of PBS. PBS has become a political football, and in our increasingly polarized and poisonous political climate, that is not likely to change.
Kenneth Tomlinson, the new Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has been pressing PBS so hard to correct what he and other conservatives see as liberal bias that many at PBS think the network's editorial independence is in jeopardy.
Two weeks ago, Democratic Reps. David Obey of Wisconsin and John Dingell of Michigan called for an investigation into the issue.
Although he was originally appointed to the CPB board by President Clinton, Mr. Tomlinson previously served as director of Voice of America in the Reagan administration and now also serves as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and what The Washington Post recently described as "other federally funded outlets that broadcast government-sponsored news and information around the world."
Mr. Tomlinson has denied that he wants to impose a political point of view on PBS programming and says he seeks only what the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 mandated: "objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."
In an op-ed article published in The Washington Times a few weeks ago, Mr. Tomlinson said, "To me and many other supporters of public broadcasting, the image of the left-wing bias of Now [with Bill Moyers] – unchallenged by a balancing point of view on public broadcasting's Friday evening lineup – was unhealthy. Indeed, it jeopardized essential support for public TV."
Mr. Moyers has never denied being a liberal. His program has featured reporting, often investigative reporting, and because the administration in power since 2001 has been Republican, yes, much of its reportorial firepower has been directed at that administration.
But that didn't make the program or PBS biased.
I was intrigued, though, by Mr. Tomlinson's reference to "essential support for public TV."
That "essential support" is, of course, financial. Although PBS depends heavily on contributions from civic-minded corporations and individual subscribers, CPB's records show that congressional appropriations accounted for 14.9 percent of its 2004 revenue. PBS received 24 percent of its 2004 operating revenue from CPB and federal grants.
It's not surprising that if the federal government is going to help finance public broadcasting, it may occasionally demand a say in the programming, even if public broadcasting is supposed to have editorial independence. This is especially true with an administration that has so little use for a free and vigorous press. But this problem could easily arise again under future administrations, as it has in the past.
It's that cliché come to TV life: Let the governmental camel stick its nose inside the broadcast tent, and the entire camel – foul smell and all – may follow. So maybe it's time to get rid of this particular tent and the camel as well, to do away with PBS and its unhappy status as a political football and political target.
David Shaw writes about the media for the Los Angeles Times. His e-mail address is david.shaw @latimes.com.
12:05 AM CDT on Friday, June 3, 2005
The growing controversy over the Bush administration's attempts to replace what it sees as a "liberal bias" in PBS programming with what would appear to be "conservative bias" has forced me to think the unthinkable – or at least the heretical, certainly in my cultural and ideological circle:
Do we really want or need PBS anymore?
I am not defending the Bush administration's assault on PBS, which is as appalling as it is predicable, nor do I mean to denigrate the fine, often brilliant work PBS has done through the years – Masterpiece Theater, Firing Line, Bill Moyers' Journal , Ken Burns' epic documentaries on the Civil War, baseball and jazz, among many others.
But when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent of PBS, was created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, we lived in a television world largely limited to three commercial networks, a world quite accurately characterized as a "vast wasteland" by Newton Minow, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
We now live in a cable world, a "500-channel universe," and while I would not argue that many of these cable offerings match PBS at its best, they (and Fox) do provide many alternatives to the three original networks we had in 1967.
Of course, cable has a major drawback because individual families have to pay for it – $30 or $40 a month or more.
But politics, not the availability of more alternatives, is the primary reason to question the continued viability of PBS. PBS has become a political football, and in our increasingly polarized and poisonous political climate, that is not likely to change.
Kenneth Tomlinson, the new Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has been pressing PBS so hard to correct what he and other conservatives see as liberal bias that many at PBS think the network's editorial independence is in jeopardy.
Two weeks ago, Democratic Reps. David Obey of Wisconsin and John Dingell of Michigan called for an investigation into the issue.
Although he was originally appointed to the CPB board by President Clinton, Mr. Tomlinson previously served as director of Voice of America in the Reagan administration and now also serves as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and what The Washington Post recently described as "other federally funded outlets that broadcast government-sponsored news and information around the world."
Mr. Tomlinson has denied that he wants to impose a political point of view on PBS programming and says he seeks only what the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 mandated: "objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."
In an op-ed article published in The Washington Times a few weeks ago, Mr. Tomlinson said, "To me and many other supporters of public broadcasting, the image of the left-wing bias of Now [with Bill Moyers] – unchallenged by a balancing point of view on public broadcasting's Friday evening lineup – was unhealthy. Indeed, it jeopardized essential support for public TV."
Mr. Moyers has never denied being a liberal. His program has featured reporting, often investigative reporting, and because the administration in power since 2001 has been Republican, yes, much of its reportorial firepower has been directed at that administration.
But that didn't make the program or PBS biased.
I was intrigued, though, by Mr. Tomlinson's reference to "essential support for public TV."
That "essential support" is, of course, financial. Although PBS depends heavily on contributions from civic-minded corporations and individual subscribers, CPB's records show that congressional appropriations accounted for 14.9 percent of its 2004 revenue. PBS received 24 percent of its 2004 operating revenue from CPB and federal grants.
It's not surprising that if the federal government is going to help finance public broadcasting, it may occasionally demand a say in the programming, even if public broadcasting is supposed to have editorial independence. This is especially true with an administration that has so little use for a free and vigorous press. But this problem could easily arise again under future administrations, as it has in the past.
It's that cliché come to TV life: Let the governmental camel stick its nose inside the broadcast tent, and the entire camel – foul smell and all – may follow. So maybe it's time to get rid of this particular tent and the camel as well, to do away with PBS and its unhappy status as a political football and political target.
David Shaw writes about the media for the Los Angeles Times. His e-mail address is david.shaw @latimes.com.
Honestly, what are they thinking? Of course, many of the programs on PBS, including SS are funded by the government and different companies plus the viewers, but really, would taking the goverment's funding out be enough to keep the station on air? I don't think so.
I don't understand why the Bush administration thinks the station IS biased. Each station varies of what programs are shown throughout the day. Some even show both sides. Can't they see that PBS has brought so many viewers because of the quality of their content? I don't see many people actually complaining about it, and don't see the need to.
I'm just worried that if the government drops its support for the station, that a wide percentage of the current viewers and companies that pay each year to keep the station running will drop. That's how it always is, if you want to support your president, support what he wants, not what he doesn't.
I don't want to see a generation of kids who won't have educational programs like SS, Barney, Between the Lions, Dragon Tales, and Clifford. That's like them saying that it's okay for your kids to be watching those nasty shows that they now show on Cartoon Network. Would you rather have your kid watch Cartoon Network or Disney? I'd say Disney.
I can't see any station that will be willing to show these programs again without fighting for who gets what. I mean, if FOX and ABC fight about who gets Supernanny and American Idol, I don't know what will happen next. I really don't want to see two versions of a show being made, especially once PBS programs. That would just disgust many viewers who once grew up with the original.
