The PUBLIC Broadcasting System
Could we play a little game here? Let's play like you've never heard of PBS, and I'm going to tell you some things about it. I really want you to try to discorporate from whatever suppositions you have about the network. Here's a 1-paragraph snapshot of its purpose:
PBS was created in 1967 "not to sell products," but to "enhance citizenship and public service." This vision was articulated by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, which proposed a system free of commercial constraints that would serve as "a forum for debate and controversy," providing a "voice for groups in the community that may otherwise go unheard" so that we could "see America whole, in all its diversity."
1. PBS was created to be free of commercial influence.
2. PBS was created to help Americans be better citizens.
3. PBS was created to be a forum for debate and controversy.
4. PBS was created to be a vehicle for the disenfranchised to be heard.
It's important to keep these things in mind because PBS is up to its eyeballs in criticism these days. In its attempts to be free of commercial influence, it's run donors and potential donors off because of programs which haven't pulled punches in their criticisms of those donors, or the industries they represent. People who give millions of dollars to have their names associated with PBS aren't fond of being criticized by same.
PBS lives up to its pledge to help make Americans better citizens by holding candidate forums and debates, both regionally and locally so that voters can become more acquainted with candidates' views. The Newshour with Jim Lehrer takes the time it takes to go into stories in depth. And there are dozens of other ways that PBS empowers viewers with information that will only enhance their understanding of our world.
#3 above is where PBS really gets into hot water. Its mission is to be a forum for debate and controversy has gone more unrealized than not. Though every few years some Republican or another gets so angry that tax dollars are going towards a network which doesn't cowtow towards him that he proposes de-funding PBS. As quickly as the politician proposes it viewers shout them down, and the de-funding attempt tends to rot on the vine. But now Republicans control the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. If ever there were a time when it could happen, now's that time.
And then there's #4: Gays are disenfranchised. Don't believe it? What other subset of our culture has had the President propose a constitutional amendment to keep them from having the rights that the rest of us do? If they'd been black, hispanic, oriental, the President would have been shouted down as a bigot. But since it was gays Bush was talking about, he didn't get his way, but he got his objective: to enflame his bigoted base just in time for last November's election.
That aside, I'm referring here to this controversy about this children's program on PBS. Postcards From Buster is about an animated rabbit who goes all around the country finding out how different Americans live. Well, how dare Buster go off to Vermont and visit a household with two mommies who were operating a farm that was turning maple sap into maple syrup. There was of course no mention of homosexuality or gayness. There were just two mommies in that house.
By the reaction of the right wing media you'd think Michael Jackson had declared he was opening up a home for wayward boys. In the firestorm of controversy, PBS pulled the episode from its schedule and took a pretty big black eye from right wing special interests. Going back to its charter, PBS failed to live up to #3 or #4, despite its best efforts.
So as you read this with your own opinion, and you're perhaps thinking that "yeah, but PBS needs to be fair and balanced" I'll tell you that no--it doesn't. It needs to live up to its charge. The ideas of the right wing and of conservatives, and of business and the mainstream culture is well represented in the media. There are what? 2 or 3 all business networks, plus all the cable news outfits have hour-long programs on about business + special cut-ins constantly letting us know where the stock market is going.
But let's just say you're disenfranchised. What the heck--I'll say gay. Where's your network? Which programs can you point to which represent your interests, push information that's important for gay people to know? I don't think a half-hour of Will and Grace every week quite cuts it.
My point is that the units of measure we might judge PBS--the fair and balanced one--is not a valid measure because that is not its purpose.
posted by VTexan @ 8:42 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
1. I have NO problem with their being a Fox News. I DO have a problem with them marketing themselves as "Real Journalism, Fair and Balanced." Neither claim is true, yet I suspect a large percentage of their audience believes it to be, and that the rest of the media is biased.
2. When you say about ratings that "PBS should be held to the same standard" as commercial stations, I say you don't understand the spawning pools of PBS, or its purpose. It was specifically intended to NOT be commercial, and to present challenging concepts and lesser-covered viewpoints because they would never find their way to commercial television.
Commercial TV represents the dominant culture, and the monied interests of those who own it. PBS--PUBLIC Broadcasting--should represent an alternative to that.
So your premise (that ratings should be what matters with PBS) I find faulty from the get-go.
3. Regarding your country music analogy: I hear ya. I don't like Rap, despite having listened to a lot of it (though I really DO like Eminem). Perhaps you won't like PBS even if you watch a lot of it. That's okay. Do you watch it sometimes?
4. When you say "The idea is to create shows that most Americans, who pay for the programming, would watch. I think that's reasonable, don't you?" I say NO, that's NOT the idea. "most Americans" already have their 300 channels. PBS is created for a different purpose. See #2 above.
5. And when you say "PBS has a very great reason to reflect the values and interests of all Americans. Don you think?" I agree. And there are a goodly number of perspectives not represented on commercial television...THOSE are the ones we sometimes hear on PBS. And that's the way it should be.
Simply put Maddog, we disagree. I comprehend that the powers that be are MORE than represented in the media and entertainment, and that the disenfranchised aren't.
People who HAVE the power aren't fond of doling out even a little to those who don't have power.
There are stories, MANY, that will go untold without PBS stations. As a for instance, one thing that's really popular for PBS stations all around the country are the local history series they've done. Many of them are priceless accounts of local history which would never have been documented without PBS stations to do it. They're not commercially viable opportunities, but they're culturally viable. And more importantly, they give communities which are exploding with people moving in from elsewhere a sense of place, an anchor to the past that they'd never have without their local PBS stations documenting it.
I understand: you don't see it the same way as I do. But then, I spent a good 10 years working at PBS stations from Austin to Orlando to Vermont, and back to San Antonio. I know things about PBS you'll never know, and really can't convey in a few typed lines.
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