Privatize PBS And NPR
By Hans Zeiger (01/06/04)
After the 1994 Republican revolution, Congress did some talking about the end of the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. After all was said and done, public television and radio stuck around.
Both NPR and PBS are organs of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). CPB was formed by Congress in 1967 to encourage "the growth and development of non-commercial... programming that will be responsive to the interests of the people."
Like most other socialist programs that emerged from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the CPB acted in the "interest" of the people only after it robbed them from acting in their own interest.
There is a role for taxpayer money in media that is in our interest government is more open and accountable, thanks to C-SPAN and state public policy networks.
Yet, PBS and NPR are not in the "interests of the people." The free market is always responsive to the interests of the people through the wondrous operations of supply and demand.
While driving through Montana on Interstate 90, I've observed that the Big Sky radio market is much more saturated with country music than is the Seattle radio market. The folks in Montana like their country music, and us Puget Sounders have more diverse musical tastes.
If there is a television demand for Big Bird and Mr. Rogers and Teletubbies, and Black Adder and other British comedies, along with various historical and nature documentaries, surely the free market will pick it up.
If on radio there is a demand for relaxing jazz music and in-depth news and commentary, the market will pick that up too.
Yet, of programming on PBS and NPR, supporters of public broadcasting cannot simply say, "Don't watch it if you don't like it."
Though we are accustomed to speaking in terms of the free market, such lingo crumbles with public broadcasting. Between state, local and federal jurisdictions, the public covered nearly 42 percent of the revenues that flowed into PBS and NPR last year, according to calculations based on the PBS and the NPR Web sites as well as the NPR 2002 annual report.
It is no coincidence that the political forces that have sustained this evasion of free enterprise are able to mold the issues and programming of public broadcasting to fit their very Leftist ideals.
PBS became the object of outraged citizens when it broadcast a blatantly anti-Boy Scout documentary called "A Scout's Honor: in 2001. And last December, "Mohammed: Legacy of a Prophet" was more an infomercial for Islam than an objective documentary.
To a greater extent even than PBS, NPR has become a mouthpiece for the radical left. Conservatives have their talk radio and Christian stations while liberals occupy the mainstream media. But the radical Left has found its home at NPR.
Though NPR's budget has a smaller portion of taxpayer dollars than PBS does, its funding is primarily derived from major foundations, many of which hail from the far Left. Top donators of NPR include the John and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and the Overbrook Foundation.
Leftist intellectuals and not-so-intellectuals appear on an audio archives search engine at npr.org with great frequency. Noam Chomsky brings seven hits. Alan Dershowitz gets eight. Howard Zinn, 11. Michael Moore, 20.
Meanwhile, mainstream conservative names like William F. Buckley, P.J. O'Rourke, Ann Coulter and Michael Medved result in, "Sorry, we were unable to find exact matches for your search." Most mentions of Rush Limbaugh occur negatively in the same context that favorable attention is given to Al Fraken.
Nothing is illegal about Leftist propaganda so long as it plays the game of the free market. But don't ask the rest of us to pay for it.
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