With the incoming Trump Administration and GOP legislative majorities, taxpayer funding of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting is under threat once again.
Although public media plays a critical role in bringing Americans fact-based journalism, quality programming for all ages (both editorial and artistic) and critical services to rural areas that only public media fulfills, there’s also a research and development aspect.
Thanks to NASA, we have Tang. Thanks to the military, we have GPS. Thanks to government-funded research, we have all sorts of important stuff. What about public media?
I wonder how much channels like HGTV and Magnolia Network owe to This Old House. How about what Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel owe Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street? What does the Food Channel owe Julia Child and The French Chef? Would streaming services be able to as easily import foreign movies and TV shows if Masterpiece Theatre hadn’t prepared the public beforehand? Podcasting is big; how much does contemporary podcasting owe to public radio for developing audio talent that helped start the sector?
Governments seed things before they are commercially viable, and then they turn things over to the public to grow and even profit from. As an American taxpayer, this is one of many reasons why I think that investing taxpayer money into public media is a wise choice.
Steve Petersen
Murray