Movement Grows to Push 'Public' Broadcasting off the Taxpayers' Dole
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.comWASHINGTON – Americans who have long resented having their hard-earned dollars confiscated to fund the trashing of their values on "public" broadcasting could get relief.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Under plans being formulated, Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio would likely still be around. The “great unwashed” just would not be forced to pay for it. Instead, the hat would be passed to wealthy supporters.
At the core of the issue is the fact that public funding of PBS is declining, in voluntary tax-exempt contributions and in taxpayer-funded appropriations from Capitol Hill.
Neither source of funding “is adequate, in part or as a whole to ensure the future of public television,” according to PBS. “For our television stations to be subjected to the voluntary donations leaves [them] vulnerable to [the fact that] people do not give money to charities as much as they used to.”
“The Republicans’ budget proposal for 2004 is quite harsh,” PBS spokeswoman Lea Sloan complained to NewsMax.com.
CEO Pat Mitchell has said that her long-term goal is to “change the funding model for PBS,” Sloan reminded us, and the thinking in the upper reaches of PBS is that “our current model will not work on a long-term basis.”
One method under consideration, according to the PBS spokeswoman, is “a major donors initiative ... as opposed to seeking $35 contributions. Although [the smaller donation solicitations] could continue, the focus of the energy would be on raising large dollar amounts.” Sloan emphasized that this planning was in its early stages with an announcement likely “sometime in the next few weeks.”
The smaller contributions are highly profiled whenever PBS hauls out the metaphoric tin cup for a pledge telethon in the midst of a special program that people actually want to watch. Though that might not be discontinued altogether, Sloan said, the corporation needs to find some way of filling the funding gap.
A lackluster economy? The proliferation of news, information, history, and science cable channels that were not available when PBS started in the 1960s? Middle America's disenchantment with PBS elitism and leftism, as exemplified by commentator Bill Moyers? A combination of the above? For whatever reason, Middle America and its elected officials at the White House and on Capitol Hill are voting by withholding dollars.
"Raising large dollar amounts” would depend on moneyed PBS enthusiasts, presumably including the “liberal elite.”
The money crunch is reflected in the fact that, according to figures provided NewsMax by PBS, the Bush administration “has declined to request advance funding for CPB," the parent Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Next: NewsMax.com will explore the implications in a future installment.