if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Bye Bye Birdie
by Lee
Elmo say ouch.
A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government’s financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children’s educational programs as “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow,” “Arthur” and “Postcards From Buster.”
In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which passes federal funds to public broadcasters—starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB’s budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.
In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry’s total revenue.
Expressing alarm, public broadcasters and their supporters in Congress interpreted the move as an escalation of a Republican-led campaign against a perceived liberal bias in their programming. That effort was initiated by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s own chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson.
“Americans overwhelmingly see public broadcasting as an unbiased information source,” Rep. David Obey (Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said in a statement. “Perhaps that’s what the GOP finds so offensive about it. Republican leaders are trying to bring every facet of the federal government under their control. . . . Now they are trying to put their ideological stamp on public broadcasting.”
Actually, the problem is that public television is supposed to be an unbiased but it is anything but. It’s, literally, a taxpayer-funded mouthpiece for the American left. But notice how this article is written. The meat and potatoes of the story is the fact that the GOP wants to cut funding for public broadcasting because of its bias. Rather than focus on that they immediately, in the first paragraph, point out how this will affect Sesame Street. It’s a subconscious appeal to emotion. “What? Republicans are so heartless that they want to kill Big Bird!” This article is a perfect example of exactly the kind of biased reporting that the GOP is concerned about, the difference being that this article is from the Washington Post and thus not funded by taxpayers. I’d like to see a bill passed cutting funding only for PBS’ news programs, but there’s really no specific way to do that. The only thing they can do is cut funding for the organization that gives the money to PBS, and by doing so they also affect other programs like Sesame Street. Perhaps if PBS wants to do its part to save Sesame Street they could try cleaning up their left-wing act in their news department. (Bill Moyers, anyone? Give me a break.)
But this brings up another point. Sesame Street has been on for, what, 40 years? How much money have they made during that time period from merchandising? How many lunchboxes and coloring books and t-shirts and stuffed animals and God knows what else have been sold during the past four decades? The revenue generated by these products has got to be in the billions. Why isn’t Sesame Street subsidizing PBS? It’s not like the show costs a lot to produce, their profits have to be astronomical. Why aren’t they “giving back to the community” that keeps them on the air? Why are American taxpayers funding a program that every network would give their eye teeth to be able to broadcast?
Comments
When the democrats complain of “Blocking free speech”, all we have to say is “Why don’t YOU pay for it?”. I’m all for freedom of speech. Doesn’t mean I have to pay for it.
But minorities! they’re oppressed and poor! They can’t afford to own stations/shows/etc!
Then hold a bake sale.
The GOP controls every elected level of government.
The GOP is removing funding (and thus influence) from public broadcasting.
Therefore, the GOP is trying to remake public broadcasting in it’s image.
Welcome to the Liberalverse.
And what the heck is “Postcards from Buster”?
And what the heck is “Postcards from Buster”?
I think it’s some show where a boy goes around visiting different places. Like a home with to gay parents. Paris.
If I recall correctly, which I rarely do.
What’s wrong with Sesame Street?
If you’re a Dr Who fan, which I’m not, you will be unhappy to know that the new Dr Who is sadly dotted with liberal bias. Damn the BBC!
"Postcards from Buster” is a spin-off of Arthur where Buster Bunny travels with his airplane pilot father all over the country and Buster chronicles his adventures on video to send to his pal Arthur.
Not too long ago this show came under fire for a piece on Buster visiting a family with two mommies in the northeast.
A lot of Buster’s visits focus on the PC story in the area. For example, Buster visits Madison, Wisconsin and the show focuses on a Hmong (vietnamese) family. Nothing about Madison being the state capitol of Wisconsin, no University of Wisconsin, not even a dairy cow for pete’s sake.
My daughter loves Arthur but if it goes off the air, well, OH WELL. (Aren’t I caring)
I wouldn’t mind PBS becoming a thing of the past in a way because there’s a local access channel here that people can put god-awful things on, plus there isn’t much worth watching on PBS anyway.
I think PBS is for people who are too lazy to go to the library.
I like “Arthur” and “Postcards From Buster”. So do my kids. You mean I might have to actually pay through other means for the shows my family watches? Perish the thought!
Fuck ya I’ll pay. I just don’t see why everyone else has to subsidize the stuff we like.
I smell a cable channel option in my future. Ah, the sweet smell of a free market. Mmmmm.....
They could change it to “The Private Broadcasting Service”, and be able to keep most of their “PBS” stationary.
It’s the principle of the matter, Aaron! If the government isn’t paying for those stationaries with taxpayer money, then what are they living for?
The scary thing about PBS is that 80% of the people in the country don’t think PBS is biased. Of course I’d find it harder to believe 80% of the people in the country even watched PBS. Like Lee said, Bill Moyers is enough to convince any truly reasonable person that PBS is not unbiased.
Hey guys im back for for tonight and i got my chnce to post a few pics of my new Son.
Teh doc want to keep him til monday, becase he was born 5 weeks early, but he is healthy and eating good.
he weighed 7 pounds 3 oz’s
I posted over at my web site and blog.
<a href="http://home.centurytel.net/harley002/Our Son/” target="_new">so here it is.</a>
Well, it seems that Sesame Street has been going downhill for a while now, anyway…
"Americans overwhelmingly see public broadcasting as an unbiased information source.”
I just don’t believe it. Not with Bill Moyers and NPR I don’t.
And that purple faggy dinosaur is on PBS too. If Sesame Street were offered to the free market, someone would pick it up in a second. So in sum:
PRIVATIZE SESAME STREET!!!
When Disney wanted to buy the Muppets in the 1980s to have Jim Henson work for them. But part of the reason the deal went south, was that they considered Sesame Street’s status as a “non-commercial” series to be sacred.
Yet, there has been merchandising of the show almost since its 1969 run began. Frank Sinatra covered “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green.” Two Sesame Street movies have been made, one released by Warners, the other by Columbia, with full cooperation of the Children’s Television Workshop (the company that makes it).
As much as I may like some of the characters (not that feeb Elmo, though), let’s be realistic: Big Bird and company don’t need PBS. I think it’s the other way around.
“C” is for capitalism, that’s good enough for me.
I’m not at all surprised that Dave Obey is whining about how ‘evil’ the Republicans are, plus that PBS isn’t ‘biased. Apparently he missed the ‘documentary’ I saw on the Duluth/Superior PBS station last summer on a Sunday night that featured some aging socialist hippy complaining about President Bush and his ‘fascist agenda’. Nope, no liberal bias there!
He’s been in office far too long anyway, time for the folks of NCentral WI to vote him out
Every time PBS funding is up for debate, the country’s newspapers chime in with their opinion that we need this extra broadcasting channel, which competes directly with existing networks.
Newspapers should advocate the government funding more liberal newspapers, to compete with LA Times, NY Times, Boston Globe, etc! Now
that would be cool.
I have a two-going-on-three year old. I’ve had so much of Elmo, Buster, Auther, et al that I could puke for months and not hit bottom.
And I have to agree about the merchandising angle. They merchandise the crap out of Elmo—and Sesame Street in general—toys, videos, games, dolls, puppets, etc etc that if given half a chance (or someone in charge that isn’t an American hating communist shit-for-brains), I believe they could easily fund all the Big Bird crap anyone could ever want.
And has anyone here ever sat down and watched what’s being passed-off as children’s educational programming? Let’s just say the hate anglosphere and hate America indoctrination starts at a very young age.
And you must check-out a show called “Between the Lions”. It’s supposed to teach reading skills. Holy shit. It’s over-the-top hate anglo programming ..... And the Big Ball Buster is that one of the lion characters wears a cap that looks just like the one Ol’ Uncle Mao wore around town during his “revolution.”
Fuck, I’m ranting again .....
In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which passes federal funds to public broadcasters—starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB’s budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.
Hell, I didn’t even see this post. This is great! Seriously.
Well, I think they try to hold onto the non-commerical aspect to not taint the show. Merchandizing is one thing, but once you start having to sell air time, the show has to start appealing to a larger and larger crowd and often times goes downhill in a hurry.
Bill Moyer is liberal, I might grant you. But Seasame Street? The only thing liberal about that is the fact that they live in a racial diverse neighborhood *shock gasp the horror*
The only thing liberal about that is the fact that they live in a racial diverse neighborhood *shock gasp the horror*
Yes, and there are no shows on private stations that have any diversity. They are all shows with white picket fences, and any minority is either opening the door for whitey or cleaning the house. Quit trying so hard to be stupid. It’s not doing you any favors by trying to make everything a race, female, or sexual preference issue. While most people are trying to extinguish the flames of intolerance, people like you keep fanning them just a bit so you can keep expressing your talking points. Exactly who are you trying to help by doing this?
Well, I think they try to hold onto the non-commerical aspect to not taint the show. Merchandizing is one thing, but once you start having to sell air time, the show has to start appealing to a larger and larger crowd and often times goes downhill in a hurry.
Why sell air time, as opposed to funding the show directly from merchandizing revenue? And it doesn’t seem to be a problem that nearly every other show on PBS is prefaced by a twenty second introduction to the corporation that gave them money for the show.
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It absolutely would be an interesting study to see where all of that $ goes.Does Henson’s estate still get some kind of cut? The whining up here in SF about this is quite amusing to me.