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Save PBS. It makes us safer

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Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#111

Post by yostrovs »

tptacek wrote: post #63

The President's budget proposal might tell you something about what the Administration is about, but it's not a serious legislating document; the budget is one of a few subjects that is entirely delegated to Congress. Meanwhile, PBS is a rounding error in the non-military discretionary budget (which is itself dwarfed by mandatory entitlement spending). It's been said, most recently I think by John Dickerson, that con…

It's just don't not a straw man. PBS influences the decisions of millions of Americans, and steers them unequivocally to the left. If 15% of Fox news's budget would come from federal government you'd understand that the money is not a "drop", but enough to influence people.

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#112

Post by [deleted] »

JakeAl wrote: post #105
gavinpc wrote: post #35

To me, anybody who argues that PBS should be cut loses all credibility as a budget hawk (if they had any to begin with). PBS is an incredibly valuable public-private partnership. For every dollar the federal government spends, two or three listeners listeners voluntarily contribute a dollar of their own money, much of which goes to their local community. Other programs should be looking to public broadcasting as a fi…

I'd say PBS is no longer necessary thanks to YouTube, Periscope, Minds, Kickstarter and hundreds of other sources of content actually created by the public. And I actually know several VPs who work there. You mention the financial model to be emulated - that would be Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Patreon, etc. The best argument for why PBS funding should be cut is because the amount of government funding that goes to runnin…

[deleted]

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#113

Post by tptacek »

yostrovs wrote: post #110
tptacek wrote: post #63

The President's budget proposal might tell you something about what the Administration is about, but it's not a serious legislating document; the budget is one of a few subjects that is entirely delegated to Congress. Meanwhile, PBS is a rounding error in the non-military discretionary budget (which is itself dwarfed by mandatory entitlement spending). It's been said, most recently I think by John Dickerson, that con…

It's just not a straw man. PBS influences the decisions of millions of Americans, and steers them unequivocally to the left. If 15% of Fox news's budget would come from federal government you'd understand that the money is not a "drop", but enough to influence people.

Comments like this are pretty much what I mean by the GOP wanting PBS around as an issue to beat up.

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#114

Post by emcq »

yostrovs wrote: post #110
tptacek wrote: post #63

The President's budget proposal might tell you something about what the Administration is about, but it's not a serious legislating document; the budget is one of a few subjects that is entirely delegated to Congress. Meanwhile, PBS is a rounding error in the non-military discretionary budget (which is itself dwarfed by mandatory entitlement spending). It's been said, most recently I think by John Dickerson, that con…

It's just not a straw man. PBS influences the decisions of millions of Americans, and steers them unequivocally to the left. If 15% of Fox news's budget would come from federal government you'd understand that the money is not a "drop", but enough to influence people.

Why bother with rounding errors in the budget when every large spending has some biased influence on the population?

Of course it's much harder to make real effective changes to the budget than bicker.

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#115

Post by gibbitz »

gingerbread-man wrote: post #74
gavinpc wrote: post #35

To me, anybody who argues that PBS should be cut loses all credibility as a budget hawk (if they had any to begin with). PBS is an incredibly valuable public-private partnership. For every dollar the federal government spends, two or three listeners listeners voluntarily contribute a dollar of their own money, much of which goes to their local community. Other programs should be looking to public broadcasting as a fi…

From an ideological perspective, the idea of any state-run media is pretty dissonant with my views. Being opposed to the very idea of PBS or anything like it is a totally understandable position. The case for PBS is a pragmatic one: it serves millions of kids everyday and supplies unrivaled public educational programming, for what most would consider a very reasonable public expenditure. I completely agree that other…

I see media as being at least partly behind this. They can't advertise toys and games to kids on PBS. Regardless of how much time kids spend watching ads on non-PBS channels, there could always be more. The broadcaster hunger for these ad dollars can't be greater than now, when kids and their parents have other media vying for control of their time (internet video, I'm looking at you). It's completely in the wheelhouse of broadcasters and cable providers to try to meddle with policy through lobbying and strategic placement in policymaking positions. If only our government were transparent enough to follow the money...

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#116

Post by jazzyk »

tofupup wrote: post #102
jazzyk wrote: post #83

As a long-time (but now, former) financial supporter of PBS, I am of two minds here. There is a lot to like - focus on the arts, science. serious topics, quality children programming. But in recent years, the news and politics programming has turned - almost to a caricature level - unabashedly partisan and ideological. Not a single white male to be seen on the cast of NewsHour, other than a couple of low-level field…

"they completely ignore white male citizens of the US are left to rot (and die from opioid abuse and suicide) in West Virginia, etc." : A simple google search yields : - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioid-abuse/ (1 stories) - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/ (7 stories) - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting-life-s... West Virginia - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/another-west-virgin…

OK, so "completely ignore" was an exaggeration. They do talk about opioid abuse as a problem in general, but rarely ever mention that the affected segment of the population is about 65% white male (in West Virginia, not sure about other areas). If there is a program on PBS or NPR about it, it is almost always a young female being interviewed - just my subjective observation. Details, but they add up quickly and create an ideological bias, where there should not be.

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#117

Post by astrodust »

cvwright wrote: post #99
astrodust wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the shitty state of affairs today. History Channel: "Ghosts did it" Discovery Channel: "Aliens did it"

It's like they replaced our educational programming lineup with the one from Idiocracy or Wall-E, just to see if we'd notice. "Really Big Things" "Animals That Could Eat You" "Stuff That Blows Up" "Loud, Shiny Cars/Motorcycles" "Redneck Family Living in the Woods" Yes, we noticed.

"Ow, My History!"

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#119

Post by [deleted] »

vachi wrote: post #12
nightski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world has changed a lot since 1969. Many homes don't even have network television anymore.

PBS news hour has 390k subs on youtube and does 50k views on their nightly 50min. Compared to other news networks this is not too shabby. So yeah don't worry they have many other ways of getting to viewers.

[deleted]

Re: Save PBS. It makes us safer

#120

Post by tofupup »

jazzyk wrote: post #116
tofupup wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they completely ignore white male citizens of the US are left to rot (and die from opioid abuse and suicide) in West Virginia, etc." : A simple google search yields : - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioid-abuse/ (1 stories) - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/ (7 stories) - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting-life-s... West Virginia - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/another-west-virgin…

OK, so "completely ignore" was an exaggeration. They do talk about opioid abuse as a problem in general, but rarely ever mention that the affected segment of the population is about 65% white male (in West Virginia, not sure about other areas). If there is a program on PBS or NPR about it, it is almost always a young female being interviewed - just my subjective observation. Details, but they add up quickly and creat…

"If there is a program on PBS or NPR about it, it is almost always a young female being interviewed"

I posted the link : http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/

So I read through a few of the stories, and of the first few that focus on the stories of individual addicts all three are white males.

- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/montanas-pain-refugees-l... - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/opioids-as-a-first-respo... - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/painkillers-controversy-...

Although they fall short of giving the specific statistic you quote take a lot at these stories : "white" is in the title and url and they both mention the toll males are taking.

"He’s been seeing a lot of dead white males of late, especially ages 45 to 54." : http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting-life-s...

"So, here is a male with no identity. He’s not working. He’s supposed to be a provider for his family. He can’t even do that. So that low self-worth, along with that hopelessness feeling, we start seeing tremendous depression." http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/feeling-falling-behind-fuels-...

I just don't know how you get from "subjective observation" to what I am reading. I stay this as I also worry your perception is alienating you from folks that have your interests in mind as I am doubtful it is the folks calling for cuts do.

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