Depending on your thoughts as to how truly disgusting union-busting is, there has been a disturbingly common trend among GOP legislators to propose sweeping cuts or outright eliminations of funding and programs so often held dear to their Democratic counterparts. All this in the name of responsibility and shared sacrifice. Whether it’s collective bargaining or Planned Parenthood, we’re beginning to see that this “belt-tightening” amounts to much more than the fiscal sum of its parts.
Case in point, the proposed cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Rather than opting to put Clifford the Big Red Dog to sleep, we may want to look at stepping up our support of public broadcasting.
Steeped in the federal government’s largess (a mere $430 million), the CPB has come under attack yet again by establishment Republicans who hope to do the budgetary equivalent of selling off that Beanie Baby collection in the basement when the second car needs to be sold.
So why is public broadcasting and not defense spending on the chopping block? Because the vast majority of National Public Radio tote bag owners leaned Obama the last time around, and will likely lean the same direction until the funding runs out. There’s quite simply nothing in public broadcasting for the GOP, and until the Juan Williams debacle, there were few easily-packaged moments of feigned disgust and disappointment to shill to the masses.
The Left-slant, while certainly detectable at times, does nothing to justify the elimination of a variety of other programming. The Republican opposition to the drop in the bucket that is the CPB and its affiliated stations could be better-grounded; but as a thin-skinned liberal whiner, I know that’s far too much to expect. So, Whad’ya Know? Financial hardship, Mr. Feldman. Robert Siegel could very well be on the streets scrounging through dumpsters for a meal, All Things Considered indeed.
But in the past when all that was necessary was to bring in Bert and Ernie to testify before Congress for PBS to save itself, today’s GOP is all too happy to slash away through all the felt, canvas totes and Antiques Roadshow reruns that come its way. Self-sufficiency, a noble goal for any organization in today’s media marketplace, is what is lacking from PBS in the eyes of legislators. But when self-sufficiency today means falling prey to any number of commercial interests, the answer may not in fact be less government funding, but significantly more.
Many democratic nations also host a vibrant public broadcasting system of some sort. But what separates them from us? Some of the most watched and well-respected programming in these nations receives federal funding leaps and bounds above the 40 percent we contribute to American public broadcasting’s budgets.
This is far from China’s Xinhua or North Korea’s state news arms though. Institutions we should aspire to, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation which receives upwards of 70 percent of its funding from the government, are far from mouthpieces of their respective governments.
While some may bemoan the $3.75 we each contributed in 2008 to public broadcasting in the United States, the United Kingdom’s citizens contributed $90.70. The BBC’s revenue that same year was nearly twice that of American public broadcasting.
The quality of the BBC’s programming is far and away superior to and more extensive than that of the programming in this country. It is only able to do this because of this funding. And when Republicans decry the Left lean by NPR and their ilk, where is this outcry with respect to BBC?
Financial dependence, contrary to the opinions of some on both ends of the political spectrum, does not necessarily imply an ideology lock-step with that of the current administration. For far too long American media has been dominated by what can sell, what can garner sponsors and what can get eyes on screens. A system similar to that of the BBC, in which the government supports the public broadcasting to strengthen not the party line, but society, could go far to improve the sorry state of media and how uninformed a vast swath of our society is.
Cutting funding to the CPB isn’t going to get us substantially nearer to taking down the deficit. It will limit the availability of educational programming and severely hinder the ability of a high-quality news outlet to inform the public. These may not be the times to increase our society’s commitment to public broadcasting, but they are most definitely not the time to eliminate them.
Jake Begun ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.
