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Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

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Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#201

Post by KaiserPro »

efitz wrote: post #101
thrownawaysz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just at what BBC is able to do in the UK. This is funny because BBC is a prime example of being a propaganda channel for the government of the day. And that's not new at all just look back at the coverage of the Troubles or the miners strikes in the 70s-80s. Yes it's not on the level of CGTN or Russia Today but BBC is not neutral at all https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-...

A lot of people are unable to see their own political bias; they look at BBC or Fox News and see “unbiased true reporting”. I highly suggest using Ground News (ground.news) for a week or a month as your sole portal into news stories, and then use their features to analyze bias in your selection of news stories and outlets. I use it regularly to try to offset my own biases.

I think comparing BBC new to fox news is a piss take.

of _course_ there is bias at the BBC. But to comparing it to Fox is uncharitable at best.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#202

Post by bbanyc »

When Congress passed the CPB defunding bill, the Republican sponsors paraded around the most deranged takes to air on NPR in the last few years and asked, why should our tax dollars keep going to this?

And I'll be the first to admit that NPR has completely lost its mind, it's losing its listenership, and it needs to be humbled a bit. But audio is much cheaper than video and NPR's remaining listeners will easily be able to make up the shortfall. Meanwhile we're going to see PBS, whose news coverage mostly avoided the pitfalls NPR fell into and who run a lot more non-news programming, take a huge funding hit and resort to even more pledge drives and reruns, while local affiliates in large swaths of the country have to close entirely.

This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and not even throwing out the bathwater.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#203

Post by radiofreeeuropa »

ygjb wrote: post #36
thevillagechief wrote: post #13

Woah! This stuff is unwinding faster than my priors. I'm going to have to re-evaluate everything I thought true about the US. I just always assumed "strong institutions" meant something here. That it was all a house built on sand is disconcerting.

Before you think this is happening quickly, do note that public institutions have been under attack from the right for generations, including publicly funded education, public broadcasters, public health and social programs. These attacks are not unique to the United States; there is a coordinated effort across many countries by public policy groups and private interests. The United States are highly visible due to t…

This has been a project under way since the friggin' John Birchers and the postwar "think-tank" boom. They've (this specific set of interests, not conservatism in general) been successfully ratcheting things toward authoritarianism since their Chicago school pals got the right people in the right places to radically change how we enforced anti-trust in the '70s (that is, they made it impossible for us to enforce in all but the most egregious cases, period) and have been winning one boring but effective battle after another ever since (plus the occasional headline-grabbing one).

Often these victories have contributed to further momentum—concentration of wealth means more money for the cause; death of the "fairness doctrine" opens up the possibility of wholly partisan media for propagandizing, which was instantly capitalized on with a boom in right wing AM radio; Citizens United decision de facto ending campaign finance regulation, well that's sure convenient; all kinds of things.

This has been more than a half-century in the making.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#204

Post by jordanpg »

AznHisoka wrote: post #3

Does this mean the end of PBS?

No, but I think it's likely that NPR and PBS will change because of this. A lot of people work there because of its explicit mission to serve the public. As with every other federal institution that's being pointlessly kneecapped, lots of good people will look elsewhere.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#205

Post by munchler »

bix6 wrote: post #145
munchler wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that are supported by a durable majority of the population. I wish that included public broadcasting, but it doesn't. Personally, I'm tired of hearing conservatives whine about public broadcasting. This will at least shut them up for good.

I guess we should just support the post office with donations while we’re at it. That’ll work well!

I suspect the post office is still supported by a durable majority. If it isn’t, then it will probably lose government funding as well.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#206

Post by sleet_spotter »

delichon wrote: post #132

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…

While I sympathize with the feeling, it’s a stretch to say “obligated by law”. You pay taxes, which your legally-elected representatives decide how to spend. We elect them to speak and choose on our behalf. It isn’t a “loophole” when this runs afoul of an individual’s values. It is simply that we have a representative government that makes decisions by majority votes. I don’t agree with most defense spending, but I acknowledge that a majority of this country wants it. This is the purpose of compromise. If there had been a good-faith proposal to reform CPB [1], we could have made it better. The collateral damage from destroying the good parts (e.g., PBS) due to our failure to compromise should not be celebrated. [1] Such a proposal isn’t hard to imagine. A key purpose of local stations is to give a platform to the voices of local people. Simply shifting funding from national programming to local programming (without changing the total) would have accomplished this “debiasing” and empowered the (tragically endangered) local news.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#208

Post by rectang »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #128
legitster wrote: post #38

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…

Conservative here. I wasn't very happy with the PBS defunding. One of their best shows was Frontline and the amount of just straight down the middle documentaries they did was great. For a lot of the issues that became very politicized, I would regularly turn to them for an unbiased view of what was going on. I agree on the educational stuff as well. How many generations of kids grew up watching PBS kids shows? My pa…

I’m socially liberal by American standards, but on the subject of government funding for media I feel like a small-c conservative. Government funded media faces constant pressure to become propaganda.

I’m rather looking forward to public radio programming that would strike you as liberally biased, now that public radio productions no longer have to please Republicans in government.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#209

Post by UncleOxidant »

dragonwriter wrote: post #193
UncleOxidant wrote: post #171

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).

> 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. Public libraries do already exist and they are labeled "woke" and "socialist" and are dealing with both assaults on their funding and on their function.

True. I'm fortunate to live in a community that funds it's public libraries well, but I do know that downstate there are rural communities that have completely defunded theirs. I just don't think the idea of public libraries would get any traction now given how far to the right we've gone.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#210

Post by [deleted] »

unethical_ban wrote: post #43
munchler wrote: post #20

I listen to NPR every day and, honestly, I think this might be for the best. It's going to hurt for a while, but in the end, I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its own without interference from politicians.

It hasn't been interfered with until now, what are you talking about about?

[deleted]
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