181–190 of 646 posts
Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources of headline news and information available. (For their national broadcasts at least - local ... can be hit or miss). In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best. Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda. And the PBS kids apps are one of the…
I'm pretty certain that if public libraries didn't already exist and someone proposed the idea now it would be labeled "woke" and "socialist" and not get anywhere. We're in a very weird era, but pendulums swing and this too shall pass (in the meantime lots of damage is being done).
Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources of headline news and information available. (For their national broadcasts at least - local ... can be hit or miss). In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best. Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda. And the PBS kids apps are one of the…
There is a degree of quasi-political messaging in PBS children's shows. I can say this because I've watched more hours than I'd like of several of them, but I'd like to focus on on Molly Of Denali. It's a good children's show about an inuit girl who lives in Alaska and teaches children general good morals and specifics of inuit and Alaskan culture.
When I say it's political, I mean that it makes points without nuance on historical and current issues which range from widely accepted and important ideas (example: They didn't let Native Alaskan People vote in the past, so it's important to exercise the right to vote now), to what I would consider less widely agreed upon and important ideas, such as it being deeply upsetting and disrespectful for a "white" teacher to call a native child "T", because she had trouble pronouncing his native name. Another example is them introducing the importance of "land acknowledgements" in a children's show. A final example is the "clueless white" trope wherein the offensive rude white visitor has to be educated by the wise natives over and over and over.
I'm not trying to say that any of these examples are "right" or "wrong", but they do represent "politics" in the mind of wide sections of the population.
This said I like the show and of course we need to fund public broadcasting, I would just prefer if we did our best to keep the most controversial stuff for when the kids are a bit older to make it a smaller target for outrage (from the right or left).
The most jarring part, to me personally, is the drastic shift in tone and presentation for injustices with wildly different levels of impact. Perhaps rudely, I think to myself in the voice of the Inuit grandfather from the show "The white man took me from my family, did not allow me to speak my language, beat me and did not allow me to vote, and worst of all...... He did not let me smile in photos"
I don't mean any of this as racist or disrespectful and I hope this is a nuanced comment for consideration and not a kneeejerk reaction or evidence of my subconscious biases run wild.
I identify neither as a liberal nor as a conservative, but outsiders will likely see a left bent in me. The thing about PBS and NPR: I just don't have any alternatives! Wherever I've lived, all the other radio stations/channels just suck - liberal or not. MSNBC, CNN, Fox News totally suck. ABC, CBS, NBC mostly suck. The half-good radio stations are just way too biased and make NPR/PBS appear like paragons of neutralt…
I hear many things on broadcast media that are contrary to my values, and tend to prune those sources from my media diet. When I am obliged by law to support those sources anyway, I get resentful. So I have been wishing for this since Ronald Reagan proposed it. To me the bright line of "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" is crossed at least in spirit when the state seizes a dollar from a…
So the government should just not say anything? Let’s just get all our news from X, the famously truthful platform!
Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources of headline news and information available. (For their national broadcasts at least - local ... can be hit or miss). In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best. Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda. And the PBS kids apps are one of the…
> In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best. Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda. I dunno, the Odd Squad has almost as much green screen as a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. If that's not flashy, I dunno. And Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman was pretty out there; a space ghost style host ordering kids around the streets of Boston. Also, the reboot of CyberChase…
Peg + Cat relies on numerology and emphasizes DEI above all else.
Alma’s Way is pro-illegal immigration and unbelievably on the nose about it.
I can keep going. Point is, PBS Kids should have been shutdown a long time ago.
/s
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally, it would be entirely non-commercial, funded by direct donations from the public.
That is not what "public" means in ordinary language. Public is intended to mean "supported by taxes". Support by donations is always dependent on the largest donor.
The US government was the largest donor until now. No single non-governmental donor will ever have that level of influence again.
They also raised $100 billion from tariffs. No clue where all this money is being diverted to. Obviously not PBS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FYI, Odd Squad was/is a Canadian kids TV show. It really surprised me to learn this; it always felt so Ohio to me.
I believe GP was quite firmly tongue in cheek.
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> Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None. https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...
Just because conservatives hate kids and don't want to be teachers/educators/work at universities doesn't mean it's biased or bad. It's like if you wanted a diversity of opinions designing a rocket so you decided to pull in flat earth's as well as new earth creationist. You're not getting a better rocket. Perhaps a better fireworks show, though.