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Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

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Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#381

Post by abeppu »

duped wrote: post #352
abeppu wrote: post #235

As with many things, I wonder if we should start unbundling services the federal government provides. If many states like public broadcasting, what if a pool of states were to opt-in to continuing to fund it (and decide whether to limit it to supporting stations in those states)? Some things (defense, diplomacy) perhaps can only be done through the federal government. But so many things (national weather service oper…

> But so many things (national weather service operations, HUD housing assistance, grants for local PBS stations, SNAP benefits) have a largely local or regional benefit. You should look up which states/regions/counties provide the funding and which states/regions/counties receive the benefits, it's disproportional. Unironically, unbundling HUD, SNAP, and NWS would probably cause famine in Mississippi.

Oh I'm acutely aware that my taxes have been subsidizing people in red states that call me a slur.

But it's pretty messed up that presently the places that _were_ willing to pay for these things are deprived of the benefits. If instead we kept things alive on an optional basis, the participating states might get _better_ services and outcomes for a while because some poor red state communities would not be a sink for funds. But also, if the political pendulum swings the other way in a future election cycle, and more places opt-in, then having kept these programs alive in a reduced form would put them in a better position to resume activity.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#382

Post by autoexec »

moralestapia wrote: post #343
pfortuny wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Public is intended to mean "supported by taxes". For you, probably, for me it means "from/for the people".

Yeah, as in "We the people". As in "Of the people, by the people, for the people" Taxes are how "we the people" pay for public things (libraries, parks, highways, sidewalks, schools, etc.)

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#384

Post by Boogie_Man »

vel0city wrote: post #361
Boogie_Man wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be "that guy", but I often find myself as the "intolerable lib" in some situations and the "intolerable con" in others, so here we go: 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…

> 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. Imagine not finding it disrespectful for your teacher to just completely ignore and disrespect your heritage and you're expected to just accept it and be totally OK with it. IMO kids should be taught to be proud of their names. Apparently, that's a political stan…

I agree that it's generally important to respect other people and other cultures, both ethically because it is a ethical thing to do, and practically because it helps us all "get along".

I find, if we strip this from the colonial context, or remove it from the racial context entirely (this is now a conversation between two Han Chinese people of the same social class, for example) there is some relationship between what I perceive to be an increasing focus on the critical importance of a child being called their exact name and no abbreviation, mispronunciation, standard nickname, or contextually assigned nickname, to be a symptom of an American hyper individualism and "rights culture".

As an aside I have been told by more than one person with a foreign name before even attempting their name that they would prefer I just call them an Americanized abbreviation of their name for convenience. Obviously I want to try to do what they would like, but if they were to insist on a name I struggled with, I would consider them to be a generally annoying person.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#385

Post by tptacek »

vel0city wrote: post #319
tptacek wrote: post #296

This is a giant thread full of people lamenting the demise of public broadcasting so it seems like someone should write the comment that points out that CPB doesn't do PBS programming. They don't develop content. They're a grantmaking organization that manages the distribution of the congressional PBS appropriation. The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally developed and produced privately, and…

> and then purchased by local PBS stations If those stations go off the air, who is buying that content? It's like arguing it doesn't matter if the stream dries up the plants don't get water from the stream, the plants get the water from the ground. Where did that water in the ground come from? The stream! You're right, these shows aren't going off the air tomorrow. But this does affect the funding for the shows prod…

This would make sense if CPB cuts meant all stations were going off the air, but the major market stations where most of the money comes from are fine.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#386

Post by philistine »

not2b wrote: post #32
heavyset_go wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PBS themselves[1] state that CPB funding is what kept local stations solvent, so without funding, they will likely close. They also state that the bulk of CPB funding pays for national NPR and PBS programs, so those will see cuts, too. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-gives-final-appr...

Rural stations relied heavily on CPB funding; urban stations get most of their funding from donations or corporate underwriting. So big city public TV and radio will survive, but those in less populated areas might go under unless some other source of funding is found.

Yeah but the shows that the urban stations are running and producing are all bought by the rural stations. So the whole ecosystem needs the rural stations to help fund the productions.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#387

Post by ascagnel_ »

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #248
Arubis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The institutions WERE strong. It’s taken decades to unwind them. But yes, we’ve definitely crossed a big acceleration lately.

Capturing the Supreme Court so completely was the turning point, in terms of ability to enact their agenda quickly. It's been conservative my entire not short any more life, but it's strongly packed with disingenuous, ideologically-motivated jurists vetted and guided by the "correct" organizations, now. I wish anyone with even a little power were talking about ditching the position of "Supreme Court Justice" and just…

The problem with the Supreme Court is the handshake-agreement to limit the court's size in combination with lifetime appointments and the Senate majority leader's pocket veto. Going back to 1992 (eight Presidential terms, three served by Republicans and five by Democrats), Republican presidents have successfully nominated six justices while Democrats only five (including a no-vote for Merrick Garland).

The better thing to do, in my mind, is to limit the term length of a justice and eliminate the pocket veto, but I can't think of any way in which the elimination of a pocket veto also can't be exploited in some way (eg: with a 6-3 court, if a Republican-aligned justice stepped down, a Republican president can knowingly put forward a candidate they know won't get approved to keep the margin 5-3 vs. 5-4).

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#388

Post by caycep »

jaredwiener wrote: post #143
atonse wrote: post #12

According to this page [1] PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding. The rest is from donations. 1: https://foundation.pbs.org/ways-to-give/gifts-to-the-pbs-end... So this certainly won't be the death of PBS, as I had feared. Update 2: For the record (easier to respond in this original post than to each response), I am not defending the decision at all. I grew up listening to NPR, and have been o…

PBS and NPR do not operate like the commercial networks -- ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/Etc are big corporations that produce (or commission/license, it gets...weird) shows to be distributed on their affiliates, that, depending on the city you are in, can be owned by the network OR another company that operates it like a franchise. Their affiliate agreement governs how much of the network programming they play -- though there are…

ah so like the cathedral vs the bazaar...

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#389

Post by tptacek »

mulmen wrote: post #290
tptacek wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but drastically fewer people are consuming linear NPR/PBS content. My guess is that at this point most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40? there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper shift to the PBS streaming site. Like, for elderly viewers, availability of linear media still matters (something I've learned tediously through se…

> Right, but drastically fewer people are consuming linear NPR/PBS content. My guess is that at this point most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40? there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper shift to the PBS streaming site. Is the source of that 60/40 more substantial than any part of your anatomy? > Like, for elderly viewers, availab…

I know you're looking for someone to take the other side of the "these funding cuts are good actually" argument, but miss me with it, OK? Not where I'm coming from.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#390

Post by tptacek »

JeremyNT wrote: post #200
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public television and public radio isn't going anywhere, at least not anywhere any of the rest of linear media isn't already going.

Of course, if you live in a large metro the local stations will survive due to large numbers of wealthy and middle class benefactors. This is not necessarily so if you live in a typical red state middle size city or less. Somewhat ironically a lot of the extreme cuts (this included) only serve to reinforce the status of major blue state metros as more desirable, since they have more resources available to fill the ga…

People in red states mostly watch PBS online. Linear media is obsolete and has been for a long time.
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