$7 Billion, But Who’s Counting?

Free Market Project ^ | 6/22/2005 | Amy Menefee

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Media harp on PBS political controversy but ignore massive government funding of public broadcasting.

PBS advocate Bill Moyers is against subsidies – when they go to the wrong people. But the public broadcasting that airs the show he once hosted rides a $7 billion-plus wave of government funding – a fact that media outlets have omitted in recent coverage of budget wrangling.

“Favored corporations get their contracts, subsidies and offshore loopholes,” Moyers said in a political rant on “Now,” a weekly newsmagazine, on March 26, 2004.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), has been subsidized to the tune of more than $7 billion in federal funds since its charter, and local stations have received billions more from state and local governments. But the media are hyping proposed cuts – a fraction of the CPB’s budget – while ignoring these massive subsidies.

Public broadcasting advocates have taken to their own airwaves and appeared in the mainstream media begging to be spared from federal budget cuts. But the media have not checked out the numbers that advocates are using to make their claims. A Los Angeles Times headline on June 17, 2005, read, “Public Broadcasting Funds May Be Halved.” A closer look at the CPB’s budget shows that this is false.

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$7 BILLION??????

It's about time they stood on their on 7 billion feet.