Union Leader - Let PBS go: It simply is not needed

[paineinthearse]

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=51076

Let PBS go: It simply is not needed

THE Public Broadcasting Service is collapsing of its own weight. While PBS executives and Washington politicians wring their hands over the network's inevitable demise, we believe there is a simple solution. Let it collapse.

Last week PBS President Pat Mitchell lobbied Congress for more money, and Republicans on Capitol Hill floated ideas for keeping the increasingly irrelevant corporation alive. No one seems to be asking this simple question: In a world in which 85 percent of Americans pay for either cable or satellite television, and with educational videos available in shopping malls and Wal-Marts nationwide, what possible justification can there be for a publicly subsidized television network?

Every excuse for forcing Americans to pay for a television network has been exhausted. Educational and arts programs are widely available elsewhere. C-SPAN does a better job of informing Americans about government than PBS ever dreamed of doing. PBS news shows are drowned out by a cacophony of competitors who deliver news as well or better. What's left? Reruns of British sitcoms? Simply put, PBS has no mission that cannot be realized either in the for-profit sector or by converting the network to a private non-profit foundation.

[cyclezealot]

1. the union leader does a lousy job of reporting the news

why would they appreciate some form of media that is worthwhile.

[GainesT1958]

2. Oh, screw Ed Loeb...

And everybody who has come after him at that crappy Fascist dump-sheet!:grr:

B-)

[dave123williams]

3. What utter claptrap.

[Pithlet]

4. "Educational programs are available elsewere..."

Yeah. If you have the money to buy them. I will be devestated if PBS is destroyed. We watch a lot of PBS in our house. I grew up watching PBS.

[nytemare]

5. Nooooooooooooo

They can't do that. I like PBS. :cry:

[punpirate]

6. The last supposed bastion of liberalism...

... on television (which it is no longer) is now irrevelant, so they say. I suppose this would be the ignoble end to yet another good experiment. If PBS is expendable, it's because the Repugs pushed it further and further toward corporate sponsorship (and editorial control) by cutting its funds, then pushed it further and further to the right by flaming its liberal content and threatening further cuts.

No wonder it seems so much like any other network these days. Compared to the government investment of other countries in their public broadcasting systems, American investment is pitiful, and its governmental control over content and tone is substantial, if behind the scenes. And that situation has gotten worse since CPB and NPR have become headed by professional propagandists.

The real solution to the problem is to fully fund NPR and PBS, throw out corporate sponsors and the propagandists and guarantee full editorial independence.

[depakid]

7. Educational and arts...are widely available elsewhere...

Like, where?

Another stupid right-wing lying publication. Where will you get NOVA, Frontline or NOW? I am so sick of shortsighted greedy little ASSHOLES like that publishing their drivel or getting time on the airwaves.

Now, I'm a huge critic of what's happened to PBS, and part of me (as I wrote in another post) would say "good riddance," but the more the far-right IGNORANT assholes howl, the more it makes me reconsider.

All these people want to do dumb down and impoverish American culture so that everyone will be on their same vacant, insipid level.

[Chipper Chat]

8. There will be hell-to-pay -

if my grandmother does not get her weekly Lawrence Welk fix.

[Skink]

9. I just started Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail....

I thought it was hilarious when he calmly says the Manchester union Leader is the worst paper in the country. They endorced Lieberman,... as a democrat no less.

[98geoduck]

11. That's a kick! I'm feeling inclined to pick up a copy tomorrow.

Just finished the depressing "Bush on the Couch", and can use some humor to laugh at all these deranged idiots.

[applegrove]

10. If it needs some reorganization - then do that. You can't get rid of PBS

[doubleplusgood]

12. we don't need libraries either

I mean, after all, we've got Barnes & Noble & B. Dalton...

[MissWaverly]

13. The Neocons want the Pentagon channel

The Neocons want to establish a servile worker society to fight their wars, do you think that they aren't completedly pissed off that recruitment is down, in fact, that's is probably the only channel that they want to broadcast. To expect them to fund PBS is ludicrous. They are still pissed that we are able to communicate here and that satellite radio is operational. Did you hear that someone broke into the offices of talk radio left and stole their transmitter and went to one of the talk show commentators house and stole his car.

[The Zanti Regent]

14. I agree. Dump the rePublican Bias Service

I refuse to spend a nickel for the right wing shit they broadcast.

[Demit]

15. In a world in which 85% of Americans pay for cable or satellite tv...

I'm in the 15% who can't afford it.