LAT: Getting a Foot in the School Door (no buck left unmade!!!)

[DeepModem Mom]

Getting a foot in the school door
As the Corp. for Public Broadcasting enlists new-media firms to help teach history, concerns arise about commercialization.
By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer


NEW YORK — When the Corp. for Public Broadcasting announced in the spring the launch of an ambitious program aimed at expanding middle- and high-school students' knowledge of U.S. history and civics, it seemed to fit squarely with its traditional public service mission.

But an emphasis by corporation officials on how corporate investors could profit from the project has provoked controversy about the role commercial interests will play in the initiative and hints at new areas of conflict in public broadcasting's reliance on private-sector support.

The CPB — a private, nonprofit corporation that distributes federal funds to public broadcasters — plans to dole out $20 million in grants over the next three years as part of its American History and Civics Initiative. The money will go to projects that use websites, video games, podcasts and other new media to teach students about history and politics.

To get high-tech companies to participate in the initiative, CPB officials have urged producers to stress the profit to be made as schools across the country are exposed to their products. At briefings about the project, a CPB consultant suggested telling corporations that public television will be "a Trojan horse" to gain them entree into schools, according to attendees.

That idea has alarmed some producers, who fear the project represents a commercialization of public broadcasting....


http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-history1aug01,0,1226483.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[rodeodance]

1. i feel so down when I read stories like this.

[dcfirefighter]

2. I like PBS, and NPR

but have always chafed at the idea that they didn't raise enough money from well-meaning listeners and had to be supported by tax dollars.

But then I realize that we (the taxpayers) subsidize each and every radio and television broadcaster by enforcing their first-come, first-served broadcast rights.

Whenever a government license can be sold by the holder for a profit, we (the government) aren't charging enough for those licenses. IOW, the value of government issued licenses should be paid to the government, not the holder of the license.

Were we to collect the value of these licenses each year we'd have several beneficial effects: 1) we'd make a lot of money, such that we could reduce deficits, and/or regressive taxes, and 2) we would break up the monopoly / oligopoly in broadcasting.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Makes a lot of sense, dcfirefighter. nt