Are we now facing legislated ignorance? (Re: U.S. Public Broadcasting funding)

Not content with suppressing the implications of science when they contradict neo-con policy, our current adminstration now seems bent on undermining the financial of support of the only non-commercial educational programming available to the American public. The Bushy Republican stooge in this case is Kenneth Tomlinson who has repeatedly accused PBS and NPR of blatant left wing bias. He has proposed (and may achieve) major funding cuts for these organizations on the basis of this allegation. Here is an article on the story.Steep Cut Proposed for Public BroadcastingBy STEPHEN LABATON
Published: June 17, 2005WASHINGTON, June 16 - The House Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill on Thursday that would slash spending for public television and radio nearly in half.Broadcasting executives say the action reflects the political bind in which public broadcasting now finds itself. Some traditional supporters are turning lukewarm in the growing belief that conservative Republicans are taking over the system, while traditional critics are mounting another campaign to reduce taxpayer support for the programs.By voice vote, the committee approved a measure, approved by a subcommittee last week, that would reduce the financing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization that directs taxpayer dollars to public television and radio, by 25 percent, to $300 million from $400 million.The measure would also eliminate $39 million that stations say they need to convert to digital programming, $50 million for upgrading the aging satellite technology that is the backbone of the PBS network and 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."All told, the cuts in the budget of the corporation and other programs for public television and radio amounted to a reduction of nearly 50 percent."What has happened under the committee proposal will be disastrous for public broadcasting as we know it," Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the committee, said. This article appeared the day before:BUSINESS/FINANCIAL DESK | May 16, 2005, MondayNPR Conflict With Overseer Is GrowingBy STEPHEN LABATON (NYT) 1478 words
Late Edition - Final , Section C , Page 1 , Column 6ABSTRACT - Executives at National Public Radio are increasingly at odds with Bush appointees who lead Corporation for Public Broadcasting; corporation is considering plan to monitor Middle East coverage on NPR news programs for evidence of bias, has told its staff to consider redirecting money away from national newscasts and toward music programs, has named two ombudsmen to judge content of programs for balance and blocked NPR from broadcasting its programs on station in Berlin owned by US government produced by NPR stations; Kenneth Y Tomlinson, corporation's chairman, repeats his belief that public broadcasting's reputation for being left-leaning is (the) problem"So here is my question. Forget for a moment whether you sympathize right or left.Is it not valid and justified for publicly-supported press agencies to take adversarial positions toward the policies of elected government without having to fear financial retribution from the party in power? Isn’t that part and parcel of their job - to take the opposing position and challenge the dogma of the times?
Aren’t journalists the only independent representatives of the public in a position to effectively criticize the status quo ?
Isn’t this a good thing that keeps our leaders honest ?
Otherwise, doesn’t the party in power hold all the cards for propagandizing the nation ?
Isn’t a political withdrawal of public funding for public broadcasting an insidious and malicious attack on public representation in the press ?
How is this any different in principle from any other form of censorship imposed for opposing the policies of a ruling party?
Is it not indirectly designed to accomplishing the same objectives of Stalin or any other dictator, silencing of criticism ?I strongly urge everyone to sign the petition here opposing this legislation.This message has been edited by EZscience, 06-21-2005 09:59 PM{Added the "(Re: U.S. Public Broadcasting funding)" part to the topic title. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 06-24-2005 01:21 PM

I don't think PBS should be used as an "official government viewpoint" organ (left or right).I do think it should be completely privatized.I don't think the government should be in the broadcasting business.Sesame Street and Clifford would be fine, the merchandising tie-ins would more than support the private funding needed to keep these programs (which have huge popularity) going.I find it disingenuous that the argument is constantly advanced that these programs MUST be publicly funded. Purely on the economics, if Sesame Street needs public funding, so does NASCAR (as uniquely American cultural touchstones...) Yes, and a privatized, free press is a far better vehicle for this.The rest is frankly a little silly. Air America, The Nation, Mother Jones all exist and there are no attempts AFAIK to interfere with their operations on the part of the administration. A privatized PBS would indeed be freer to criticize anyone they'd like to criticize, all funded by sales of Big Bird, Tickle Me Elmo , Clifford, etc. merchandise. And we can cut the Federal deficit while we are at it.Now that's what America is all about

The one thing I have certainly learned by travelling about is that having a publically funded station can be very useful to a nation.News and instructional shows on public channels are hands down better than any kind of similar shows on private (aka commercial) channels. They are more free to deal with the subjects in an objective fashion and also in less hyperbolic fashion.Although I sympathize with the concept that gov'ts really shouldn't be in the broadcasting business, I guess I have learned to view it as less of a "business" and more of a central information source for the public.The gov't only works well with an informed, and that means an accurately informed, populace. Given that publicly funded news media is practically the only way to avoid overhype and partisanship in reporting, that is a very useful tool for any citizen.One could almost look at it as an intelligence agency for the masses. Wouldn't it also be useful to have at least one source of educational material that is not selling things to your kids?Given that people will have to pay for it anyway, why not do it through taxes and save you and your kids the agony of having to sit through commercials? This is the exact argument for why we need PBS. Yeah, right. Why don't we privatize gov't if that is the best way to operate everything?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I find your viewpoint quite rational on the surface, but I think I side more with holmes on this one. I think we have to look a little deeper and contrast public television with commercial television (very little of which I can stomach anymore). Providing a very modest budget for educational programming does not put you in the 'broadcasting business' - it puts you in the 'public service business'. But then our current adminstration has little concern for that. They want to run up astronomical debts without improving any services to their own citizens. That's not the argument dude. The argument is that they are deserving of public funding because they provide progamming of superior quality and depth than any available on commercial stations. And as holmes said, that commercial free status is invaluable. Commercials are one of the reasons my tolerance for network (and cable) television programming has been reduced to very low levels. NPR morning radio is the best news radio programming I have found to listen to during my morning workouts. Sorry, nothing else comes close. So you would consider watching a Nascar race to have educational value for your children? Possibly. But you dodge the question of principle I raised. This another veiled attempt at censorship. The overt reason put forward by Tumlinson for the cuts is that the stations are too 'leftward-leaning'. Political stance, bias, opinion, whatever you want to call it is part and parcel of journalism and valuable public services should not be dismantled because the party in power doesn't like some of the messsages they are hearing. Do you seriously think this kind of line item reduction will have a budget impact !? Be realistic. How about scrapping the useless prescriotion benefit program for seniors that benefits only drug companies and and will cost billions? If you are truly concerned about deficit reduction by this administration there are a thousand more meaningful ways to achieve it. These are not cuts for deficit reduction. This is a mean-spirited, purely partisan attack on two valuable educational instituions of the country. Another brick in the wall of the neocon plan to dumb down the whole country.

I see a system that produces everything from Mother Jones to The Weekly Standard as far superior to the sort of homogenized democratic socialist echo chamber the state supported media of Western Europe tend to provide.I think there is a place for a homogenized democratic socialist echo chamber in US media, but it should be privately funded by those who enjoy that sort of thing (some of whom have considerable cash, e.g. George Soros). How's that different from the "official propaganda arm" that the OP is concerned about?Far better, IMHO, to have a vigorous cacophony of biased partisan voices from all viewpoints and let the "masses" decide for themselves.It's a lot closer to a peer review system. I think that many functions of government could and should be privatized, so I don't see this as a counterargument.

Anything can be a teaching moment. I could explain vehicle dynamics, crash safety engineering, resource management strategy(when to pit/keep going)...Sesame Street certainly has educational content, but it also has pure entertainment as an effect, if not an objective. Children won't watch a man in a suit reciting the alphabet in an affected British accent, but they'll watch entertaining colorful puppet characters doing it. Of course not. Let's have a little fun with this thread as we discuss the issues. Let's do. Never liked it. Yes, although I am more concerned with economic growth rates than deficits. C'mon now. I think you have some argument in favor of the idea that the current CPB administration is trying to make PBS a propaganda arm for the neocon viewpoint. I don't care for that either, but I have long thought PBS could be privatized. Let's solve two problems at once.

It's my airwaves. I don't want the government to give my airwaves to someone else. It isn't. The public is. The spectrum used by PBS is owned by the public (well, technically it all is, but this is the spectrum set aside and never liscensed to any private group). The public broadcasts on it. If NASCAR raced on race tracks owned by the public, then it should be financed by the public. We shouldn't just give away the racetrack. Oh, yeah. They've been doing great so far. Bang-up job. That would be entirely inaccurate.Soory, but they're partly my airwaves, and I want PBS on 'em. I sure as hell don't want to just give it away. Or even sell it, for that matter.

I'm sorry, what the hell are you talking about? Perhaps you can tell me which channel you were watching as I seem to get many of them... except scandinavian ones.I also get CNN and MSNBC and now the FOX channel. None of the news channels stay as objective and rational as the state funded ones. And the educational programs on the state run stations are better than the constant commercializing on the commercial (educational) channels.I am uncertain why you believe anything is being twisted or run as some sort of echo chamber.But hey, I guess you must have heard about in on Fox right? I agree, now lets talk about PBS. Are you seriously calling Sesame Street, Nova, Mr Rogers, etc etc dem-soc echo chambers?How about William F Buckley Jr and Tucker Carlson? Or maybe you never noticed they are on PBS from time to time (well Buckley ended his 24 years of work with PBS in 1999, but he still does NPR gigs). Frankly I really enjoyed watching him and his show, and it was PBS that was to thank for it. Because a good intel system is apolitical and so will not be grooming data and analyses to fit specific agendas. That is pretty damn ignorant. Good information and analysis has never come from biased partisan voices bickering at each other and simply reasserting their position, and then letting people just "decide".Believe it or not in science the peer review system generally has people adhering to certain rules about evidence gathering and analysis.He said/ She said is not that at all.Man, I thought you spotted the lameness of such arguments when ID supporters were making them.Oh yeah, and that is without going into the fact that they all have to be wasting time selling you something. You end up paying for the news anyway, only now you get to have a reason for it to not give you the full story and to bother you with commercials. I think you missed my point. While many functions could be privatized, there is a limit and pretty much everyone except utopian anarchists and libertarians (the latter group is where I come from) understand and accept some functions are best run through public funding.The question for any function then is if public funding is a way to achieve something one could not get through private funding. I am making the argument that to obtain a serious information and educational resource, public funding is better.Unless you can raise your game above equating serious programming with talking heads spewing spin between commercial spots, then my point is made.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The Beeb will do nicely. I'll grant you they do a much better job with international news than any US network...but politically, they're completely homogeneous. Maybe British politics are more homogeneous and this is a reflection of that, but if the BBC were your only choice, you'd hold certain unchallenged opinions as defaults.Granted, this would be equally true if you watched only Fox. But that isn't your only choice...In any case, television has inherent limitations as a medium for serious news and analysis. One needs other media to truly be informed. I don't really care for Fox, it's pretty simplistic.FYI, John Stuart Mill asserted that most stupid people are conservatives, but not the converse. No.I'm arguing that these programs need not be publicly funded and that there is nothing inherently superior about the public funding model.Now suppose you try and convince me that these programs could not exist on a privately funded network.Or are you inviting us to the viewpoint that "the masses" need to hold the opinions that their betters in an unelected technocracy supply them? IE, Sesame Street would never have succeeded unless it was forced on an unwilling American public for their own good ?You need to do more convincing... Red herring.Political opinions are not as precisely defined as scientific ones, and the rules of evidence are looser. Still, either the populace can be trusted to make informed decisions or they can't. If they can, more viewpoints and information sources are better.If they can't...well, we have a fundamental philosophical disconnect then... Well, then please continue. Choose one PBS program of your choice and convince me thata) it is really necessary to the betterment of society, andb) there is no way it could succeed (at its actual ratings level) in a private market.

First of all I do believe politics outside the US are a bit more homogenous in general. I believe that is because most have parlaimentary systems which alleviates the acidic polarity of our two party system. People in the US keep seeing things as black and white stock dilemmas, and people outside tend to see things more as consensus towards a solution. BBC probably does reflect some of this attitude.Second you are way off on suggesting that the BBC does not challenge all sides, including social democrats (remember you were the one that called it an echo chamber). I have seen some pretty clear factual revelations against soc-dems and most certainly some biting interviews. How long have you watched BBC? They have a show called HardTalk which is excellent at raking every position over the coals.Third just because the news is presented in a homogenous fashion would not necessarily result in one adopting only one view. Homogenous does not necessarily mean attacking other view points or distorting news to fit a preferred view point. While that is certainly the case in US biased media, who live by getting people riled up, that is not true in Europe.Fourth, I think you just pointed out what I am talking about and so undercut your own position. If you want factual news or educational material the best can be found outside commercial programming. That is it hands down. Increasing commercial control of news channels have weakened US news sources. Agreed, but it is a reletively common media for most citizens. It would be good to have a channel dedicated to accurate information, instead of EXCITING NEWS so that you'll stick around through the commercials. He had not seen Fox. No and I find it interesting that you are continuing to hold the line that you refute when IDists use it. Can you explain how this works for PBS and not for public schools?What you have already admitted is that we have examples that noncommercial sources of information can beat commercial sources. That would itself argue for the public treating itself to such a service.That could include children's educational television. I am uncertain how you get to "technocrat" when someone is discussing factual info like the alphabet and addition.You ask me to show that it could not be done the same with commercial sources, and I can only respond that while some of the quality could be seen in any one show, the fact that it is a COMMERCIAL STATION will inevitably reduce the quality of the station and to some degree the majority of programming. That is they might be willing to put on a quality show like Sesame St, but only if it is packed between two other MORE EXCITING shows that also sell them the latest candy bar.By public funding a station, that means it does not have to hawk wares at people, nor dumb itself down to the lowest common denominator. That is its added value which you cannot get in commercial programming.As a side note, I am not trying to bash commercial programming per se. I like TV and most of it is commercial (though I do hate commercials themselves). What I am saying is that noncommercial programming is best suited for informational programs (and vice versa).The only commercial way I see things like PBS getting recreated, is not by an individual network, but perhaps by a broadcasting medium creating a channel from a portion of its profits. For example cable suppliers use the money generated from all the commercial channels they supply to form an independent informational channel.As far as I understand though, that could run into regulatory issues, and I am uncertain that it could maintain noncommercial status for long. It would inherently be a loss for the company. And ironically if we say that's okay because they can write it of taxes, THEN WHY NOT JUST FUND A CHANNEL? Opinion is opinion. I am not discussing political opinions which might be slanted at any station. I am discussing information and educational material from which one forms opinion.That is the problem with commercial news, in order to gain a base audience of some kind, they no longer provide information. They supply entertainment. When it comes to handling acts and information they wrap it up in opinion, or discard it when it does not fit an opinion. They are all about opinions that you can hate or you can love, as long as you feel something, instead of just providing facts which creates brainwork for the audience.You cannot trust a populace to create informed opinion when they do not have accurate information. Yes I absolutely believe that most people have the capability to make informed decisions, but in an information drought they will not make very good ones.I think the best that can be said in a practical sense is that with the new news media US citizens are capable of making well entertained decisions.The fact that over 60% of Americans believed Iraq had something to do with 911 at the time we went to war, crushes any assertion that the majority of Americans are making well informed choices. I think that is an interesting observation. The more sources and viewpoints the better. In the corporate news paradigm there is actually a shrinking number of sources and viewpoints. Bush just deregulated the industry so that there can be even less viewpoints and sources.Still worse than singular entities gobbling up more and more news sources, is the fact that commercial entities cannot make money by catering to diverse points of view. They must by necessity try to capture and cater to a specific kind of audience, otherwise they will lose that audience.Minority or contrary viewpoints will get lost in that shuffle. You can already see that when something is shown which a large group does not like, they will boycott products which will result in a stifling of that being seen again. That includes news. Okay, how about Tucker Carlson's program, or William F Buckley Jr's. Both failed to make it in the private sector and so found a home in the public sector. Important for Buckley is that it was at a time when private media was largely liberal and he could not get a hearing there. He sucked off the public tit for 24 years and he's pretty conservative... I'll note with some irony that his print magazine is currently trashing PBS as a liberal bastion.I cannot in any honest fashion argue that any one program is necessary for the good of a nation. I also cannot argue that any single program (especially if it is popular) cannot make it in the private sector.That is of course why my argument was not that. It is that a noncommercial CHANNEL can provide something which commercial CHANNELS cannot. It is perhaps not of utter necessity, but it is quite valuable which one can see based on comparing quality between commercial and noncommercial news and educational programs, as well as the difference in public knowledge where commercial channels have reign on the news.Put very simply, you admit the best news coverage (at least international) comes from noncommercial sources, and demographics show the US population vastly ignorant about current events and in a way that was supported by the OPINIONS of commercial stations. If I can throw in the fact that you could have a station where you can get info, or have good educational material for you kids, where they don't have to be sold something every 10 minutes, then that argues a very high value for noncommercial programming.Just to let you know I watched the congressional hearings last time this happened (about 10 years ago). It was highly educational to watch the review. Given that it resulted in the Congress finding value in it then, and things haven't changed since then (or has 911 changed PBS too?), why is it suddenly different now?They had people who worked in BOTH commercial and noncommercial programs (successful ones in both) explain the difference and the reason why noncommercial programs (and so a channel) were valuable. You seriously ought to review that.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Couple of differences.First the IDists want to inject ideas into the curriculum that are demonstrably refutable on the plain facts.Whereas political viewpoints, broadly stated, involve multiple philosophical motivations and conjecture and guesswork, and often neither side has an unambiguous factual case.Secondly the IDists are motivated by a particular ideology, and the "technocratic" approach to political opinion, I am arguing, is also more ideology driven than fact driven. Hence I am arguing for more "ideological diversity" in political media, not less.I'll need to digest the rest of your post, but one thing that needs to be pointed out is that I am not criticizing the value of the content of PBS, and many of your counterarguments seem to be structured around that theme.Indeed I agree there is much high-quality content. My issue is that such high quality content, IMO, can find a market if privately delivered. Thus I am trying to refute the OP's assertion in that proposals to privatize PBS are not necessarily motivated by a desire to "dumb down" the nation, but are motivated by a philosophical viewpoint of limited government in at least some cases.It's quite true that the current administration has largely abandoned the concept of limited government, but the idea of privatizing PBS is what's under discussion.

Maybe they are not motivated by that desire, but that is going to be their effect. But surely concerns about 'limiting government' are more appropriately directed at government programs and agencies. You can hardly argue that cutting funding to public programming relates to a philosphy of 'limited government'.But I would really like to take issue with your other contention, that the quality educational programming can survive on the basis of its own merits on commercial channels. This is not likely to be the case.Commercial programing is motivated by COMMERCIAL objectives, not EDUCATIONAL objectives. Just look at the pathetic, content-free mind-pablam that draws the biggest Neilson audiences on network television. Fear Factor, Survivor, American Idol, Desperate Housewives, etc. Not much educational value there. But these shows have the broadest audience appeal and are therefore the most useful for flogging all the crap corporate America is trying to sell.If we rely on commercial channels for educational programming, the profit motive, driven by the need to sell advertising time for specific demographics, is sure to conflict with the content, simply because the very word 'educational' is never going to be a selling point for advertising. Commercial television is most successful with very trivial, content free television wiht an emphasis on light entertainment value, not education. Education doesn't sell. The truth is, for many people 'educational' equals 'boring', or their reaction is "I want to watch something light", or " I don't want to have to think hard about what I'm watching". I still remember these exact comments from some of the air-head girlfriends I used to date when I was younger.As holmes quite rightly pointed out: Thinking objectively, wouldn't you rather have your kids able to watch an educational program without some profit-motivated corporation trying to flog them junk food and video games?And if we extend your reasoning ever so slightly, why not privatize the whole public school system and give corporate America the responsibility for educating our kids in return for surrendering them as a pliant and captive audience to commercial promotions in the school system? You may recall the controversy a few years ago about Pepsicola Corp. offering troubled school districts in the south financial support in return for advertising and product placement opportunities. Would you be you in favor of that, because that's the direction you're headed with this line of reasoning?So there is absoluetely no doubt in my mind that holmes has it right: No, the true motivation of this action is NOT the reduction of the government's role in broadcasting, it is to punish and indirectly censor outspoken critics of this administration, a very selfish and short-sighted objective of the party in power and not in the best interests of the public. But what else is new in Jesus-land.This message has been edited by EZscience, 06-23-2005 09:56 AM

I'm sorry but the point is that they are claiming things like "evolution" and "methodological naturalism" and even the definition of science involve philosophical motivation and conjecture.How do you get to say "no really there are such things as facts and good analyses" without them replying that you are simply a technocrat trying to enforce your vision?To me there are facts and accurate analyses or there are not. And that will include things like science and history and world events... or not. It seems inconsistent to claim that political or government topics are inherently devoid of facts to a degree it cannot be observed and reported objectively.I do agree that shows which express overt opinion are not credible, but the fact is that noncommercial news is better capable of reigning in that type of behavior than commercial news. They have been doing it for years, so why try and reinvent the wheel in a media (commercial networks) which is obviously failing at the task already? But that really isn't true. Corporations are buying up the media. We are already facing a situation where most news sources are owned by a handful of companies. This will get smaller with the new deregs and as they naturally try to buy out the other guy. And each company is dedicated to a pretty singular view.What you are appealing to is the fact that across a number of channels there seems to be diversity. But on any one commercial channel there really isn't. And thus as the owners and so numbers of media diminish, so too does the number of voices heard.Public broadcasting, as I have already pointed out, has allowed the communication of diverse points of view for years. That is where conservatives could get heard as well as liberals, all on the same channel. Take your time analyzing my last post. You'll see that that one is not based on value of content. I am trying to get across the value of format itself as opposed to content alone.I understand that you think there are quality shows. You believe they can then find their niche in private markets. I agree that is true. Certainly things like SSt can go crazy in a market. And there is no reason that any network cannot or will not make really good individual programs like SSt.The problem is you are missing how things will be changed, and I don't necessarily mean about the show itself (though clearly there will be a diminishment as some degree of sales will enter the show). A quality show will be used (placed) to get kids viewing other lesser shows, which may have a higher entertainment/sales value.Thus instead of watching a stream of quality shows, a child will have their viewing broken up with entertainment and pure sales, then quality, then sales etc etc.I think on top of being irritating, it will further degrade people's ability to discern between fantasy and reality, mere opinion and good facts and analyses.We are served by having a solid source, a format, which is objective and noncommercial. In the past that might have been true, in this case it is as true as ID theorists claiming they simply want better and objective science taught in classes, not religion. Just remember that I come from a libertarian (practically utopian anarchist) background. I am hard pressed to accept funding for the arts (especially federal). But I have come to understand that in an information age, it is extremely valuable to have a public forum free of commercial influence.If anything I think the gov't should get more active in using that media to help disseminate factual info to the public (the people they happen to be working for). By this suggestion I do not mean political wrangling for specific legislation, but how things work in gov't and what info the legislators (as well as other organizations) are working with. It could do wonders to make gov't less mysterious.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

... made some really good points about the accusations neocons are levelling at NPR and PBS, starting out with saying it was "bias going after bias".The other point he made was about the value of a 'firewall' between journalism and the political party in power. The current adminsitration has broken down that firewall by infiltrating the adminstration of CPB with a right-wing Republican implant, Ken Tomlinson, in order to further their interests at the expense of independent journalism. This is not in the public's interest.And the cuts will not 'directly' affect programming, but they will affect the stations' ability to make the major upgrades to digital technologies that are required to stay abreast of modern advancements in broadcasting.This message has been edited by EZscience, 06-24-2005 12:34 PM

It appears that the House voted to restore the $100 million cut from the budget for PBS.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle...