Farewell public broadcasting

Editor’s Note: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Friday, Aug. 1, that it would shut down next year.

On July 15 the Senate voted to rescind$1.1 billion in funding that they had voted to spend under the Biden administration for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization that funds National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).

For more than fifty years, Republicans have been trying to to cut off funding for public broadcasting. President Trump’s longstanding dislike of public broadcasting together with his threat to support primary challenges against any Republican who voted against the rescission all but guaranteed the 51 to 49 vote for the rescission with only the Republican senators of Maine and of Alaska voting no (all the Democrats voted no).According to Sen. Edward Markey (D; Mass.) who has led the effort to protect public media, Republicans who had supported PBS and NPR for decades this time voted to kill it solely because of pressure from President Trump.

Back in the mid 1960’s the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Newton Minow gave a speech in which he castigated commercial television for being ‘a vast wasteland’ of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder. He beseeched broadcasters to “make a conscientious effort to serve the public interest with higher quality fare”.

A study shortly after by the Carnegie Corporation concluded that the federal government should finance a system of stations to produce programming that was “of human interest and importance” without regard for the free-market incentives of ratings or ad revenue.

Although detested by President Richard Nixon who tried unsuccessfully to defund it, public radio and television were a success despite their small budgets.

In 1972 veteran newscasters Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil were assigned by the station to cover the Senate Watergate hearings. What at first appeared to be a boring event turned out to become a captivating spectacle as PBS covered it hour after hour.Their Emmy award winning gavel-to-gavel coverage led to a new half hour news program, a first for PBS, named in early 1976 The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. In 1983 the program expanded from one half to a full hour. Public television’s longest lasting and most notable news program continues today as its early evening newscast, The PBS NewsHour.

Throughout its 55-year history PBS has produced a remarkable array of memorable programs and long running series.

Many years ago while being interviewed for another public affairs program, MacNeil was asked about what made his program special, what set it apart from other news programs. “We have a motto here,” he said, “we dare to be dull!”In contrast, the most popular network news show these days is one that features excitement: killings, spectacular rescues, screaming fights, etc.The PBS NewsHour, at a slower pace, tries to leave its viewers more knowledgeable.

The day after Congress rescinded all federal funding for NPR and PBS, Edith Chapin, the top Editor and acting Chief of Content Officer of NPR announced that she was resigning at the end of the fiscal year. Although she said her resignation was totally independent of Congress’ decision, both events promise a serious blow to NPR’s situation as Ms. Chapin has been a guiding force at NPR for nearly a quarter century.

PBS and its member stations get about15% of its funds from the federal government, NPR only 2%. For some isolated tribal and rural stations federal funding represents nearly half of their overall budgets. The recent federal rescissions will hit all public broadcasting stations hard but for many rural stations, they may be a death knell as these stations have no access to big donors or corporations.For them the federal grants really matter, they’re a lifeline not a luxury.

Throughout its 55-year history PBS has produced a remarkable array of memorable programs and long running series. For many years the wonderfully avuncular Alastair Cooke introduced us to modern English drama and after his retirement, the extraordinary program Masterpiece Theater continued to flourish with its biggest hit Downton Abbey charming audiences for a decade. Julia Child’s The French Chef and This Old House each introduced these popular activities to the home screen. Characters from children’s shows such as Sesame Street were even called to testify before Congress and Mr. Rodgers became the de facto pedagogue for thousands of schoolchildren.Originally known as “educational television,” NPR continued educating its audience with The American Experience, Finding Your Roots and Nature.

The annual budget for President Trump’s ICE force is $28 billion and for continuing construction of his border wall: $46.5 billion.The total amount of federal funding for NPR and PBS that had been budgeted and then rescinded last week by Congress was $1.1 billion, little more than what budget analysts would call a rounding error. The $1.1 billion that the federal government has rescinded from the CPB represents approximately 1/100 of one percent of the federal budget.

This act has nothing to do with saving public money but was instead a shortsighted, vituperative move by President Trump and the Republican party to stifle independent expression not subservient to the President and the Executive branch.

Architect and landscape designer Mac Gordon lives in Lakeville.