Why Support “Public” Broadcasting?

When one side of an argument resorts to dismissing the other by defining the other side’s position as an easily disparaged straw man it’s a clear indication that that side has no valid argument. A recent example of this type of posturing has surfaced recently as congress has moved to defund the corporation for public broadcasting (with the house already voting in the affirmative). The conservative side as defined by liberals seems to be two-fold. First, conservatives are too stupid to understand the high class, and therefore necessary, content of NPR and second that conservatives are “getting back” at NPR in defense of their colleague, Fox new contributor Juan Williams with momentum for defunding being driven by embarrassing comments coaxed out of NPR fundraising ex-personnel by an outfit called “Project Veritas”.

Let’s knock out these straw men in reverse order. I nearly spit out my coffee when the whole Juan Williams NPR firing fiasco was going on when he was described by many as the most conservative commentator on NPR. I’ve only listened to NPR briefly and have always been nearly instantly turned off by its programming either by boredom or being offended by their liberal commentary. All of my exposure to Williams has been on Fox news and if he’s a conservative then I clearly have no understanding of the term. To label Williams as conservative because of his employment at Fox news is silly nonsense. I believe that Williams is completely liberal, not that there’s anything wrong with that, and his new 7 figure contract (congratulations to him on that by the way) with Fox news after being dismissed by NPR hardly makes him a charity case.

On to the high class, indispensible content provided by NPR, and from PBS. If it’s so popular, so indispensible, why can’t it survive in the public sector? When I go to the toy store there are rows and rows of PBS branded toys sold at premium prices. The whole parents rioting and shortages of a popular toy at Christmas time was in large part originated by Tickle-Me-Elmo, a Sesame Street character toy. NPR supposedly has 35 million listeners, more than supposedly fat-cat Rush Limbaugh. Why in the world should I in addition to 88% of citizens in this country be forced to pay for something that none of us consume? Because only 10% of their listeners care enough to contribute to their unsustainable business model?

To pretend that NPR has no ideology is to pretend that no one does and to force supposedly free citizens to contribute to a network that they have no use for is asinine. If NPR really has so many listeners and provides such high brow content they should be able to lure advertiser dollars in the open market or be able to solicit some kind of subscription from listeners. If Sesame Street, Arthur and others can make many millions of dollars from toy sales they should be able to support PBS. When there were only three channels over the air and a dearth of radio perhaps the corporation for public broadcasting served an actual purpose. That is no longer the case. If they add value to society, let them prove it in the open market. Making the excuse that they can’t survive without subsidy is to insult their audience, and to the rest of us.