Mitt Romney mentioned that he'll cut federal spending on PBS.
OMG, people on facebook went ballistic!
People were acting as if Romney was going to make PBS illegal!
People were acting as if Romney had hatred towards Sesame Street!
HELLO PEOPLE, all Romney said was that PBS would no longer receive federal funding!
PBS could still receive private donations!
That's how it should be!
Let's put it this way ---- I may like hip-hop and rock music. I prefer those musicians get paid by their fans instead of receiving government subsidies!
I feel the same way about PBS!
I have NOTHING against PBS programming! I used to watch Sesame Street, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Reading Rainbow, Wild America and Caillou.
But I also think those programs should be 100% privately funded!
Governments shouldn't be running media outlets. Period. Exclamation Point!
Private organizations should be running media outlets.
I wrote a blog post about NPR (National Public Radio) a few years back. It was related to a controversy regarding one of its former journalists Juan Williams. Towards the end of that blog, I linked and posted quotes from Jeff Jacoby about why NPR (and PBS) should NOT receive government funding!
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2010/12/airport-secuirty-juan-williams.html
After the whole Juan Williams controversy, some right-wing conservatives were demanding the government stop funding NPR and PBS!
NPR and PBS are already mostly privately funded, though it still accepts government subsidises!
I do believe NPR and PBS should be totally privatized, but for a totally different reason from those Conservative Correctness Crowd!
Government shouldn't be owning any TV or radio stations. Government shouldn't be in charge of any journalism organization!
Jeff Jacoby made some following great points on the issue of government funding of NPR!
http://jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby112410.php3
1. They aren't fair. Other radio stations and networks, from Air America to Clear Channel to Univision to Westwood One, must sink or swim in a competitive market. They survive only if listeners and advertisers value what they do. Uncle Sam doesn't keep them afloat with tens of millions of dollars annually in direct and indirect subsidies. If they can operate without corporate welfare, NPR can too.
2. They aren't appropriate. In a free society, especially one with a robust tradition of press freedom, the very idea of government-underwritten media should be anathema. When news organizations depend on largesse from the treasury, there is inevitably a price paid in objectivity, fairness, and journalistic independence.
3. They aren't necessary. NPR's partisans claim that public broadcasting provides valuable news and educational content that listeners can't get anywhere else. That may have been a plausible argument in 1970. It is utterly implausible today, when audio programming of every description can be found amid a vast and dizzying array of outlets: terrestrial and satellite radio, internet broadcasting, podcasts and audio downloads.
4. They aren't affordable. At a time of trillion-dollar federal deficits and a national debt of nearly $14 trillion, NPR's government subsidies cannot possibly be justified. All the more so when public broadcasting attracts a fortune in private funding, from the gifts of innumerable "listeners like you" to the $200 million bequeathed to NPR by the late Joan Kroc in 2003.
AMEN to all that!
