Even small or remote areas now have Starlink access - and if the previous administration had done anything positive it could have implemented that as a benefit 4 years ago.
Public libraries, YouTube, Khan Academy, etc is a way better solution than sponsoring ossified navel exams by costal elite folks with fake British accents.
Let them start a podcast or Substack or YT channel and serve their niche audience. But not with my taxes.
Keep in mind that much of PBS, like so much cultural work,.is a PMC jobs program that provides subsidized cultural content primarily of interest to the PMC.
The classic example is free admission to the opera. Bubba from the trailer park wouldn't go, if you paid him and told him that the coloratura soprano's prodigious mammariesn put Dolly Parton to shame.
Speaking as a reformed member of the PMC (I must confess!) you are certainly correct about that. And yet in my time I've heard from lots of fairly hardscrabble folks who can't afford streaming or cable who've come out of the woodwork to talk about how meaningful it's been over the years to have documentaries, classic films, etc, freely available via public broadcasting. As an indie Substack journalist who's seen the sausage-making, I scoff at a lot of the PMC conventional wisdom on PBS, but there are many people for whom that's their primary experience of a sensibility that seems bigger and classier than their immediate circumstances. It's no longer meaningful to me but feels meaningful to a lot of viewers, and non-news PBS at its best even now still provides much more than that, I would contend.
I grew up a barn cat, and have since acquired (I think) a reasonable amount of culture. I dodn't know how much role PBS played in that, but libraries and NPR sure did.
And that's the "pro-funding" argument in a nutshell - "if it leads one bubba who just came to the opera to impress his girlfriend and he leaves humming 'A cenar teco', then it has done some good."
Maybe, and I am not unsympathetic. But let's not pretend that cats looking for a spot to get away from the cold and cheap entertainment are the primary beneficiaries, here.
Idealistic at best. Moyer was not an honorable man but an underhanded propagandist. I still remember how he tried to make Reagan’s modest spending cuts look like some war on the poor.
PBS might have served a purpose 30 years ago. But with all the many options now both over the air and on the internet, it is past time for taxpayer funding to end.
I certainly understand people resenting Bill Moyers, I haven't always agreed with him and do think it's fair to say that sometimes his journalism crossed into advocacy that wasn't appropriate for public broadcasting. What I can say from close personal observation, though, is that he's pretty well always in earnest and trying to do the right thing as he sees it. I would also say that of most of my former colleagues at PBS, even as I've come to think that national news is something PBS has proven itself unable to handle responsibly.
Moyers reminds me quite a bit of my Dad in that they both grew up in grinding poverty and fundamentally credited their opportunities in life to the New Deal legacy and federal technocratic expertise. I think that was such a foundational experience for both of them that neither was really able to let go of that mid-twentieth century confidence in expansive government even as federal corruption and incompetence became more and more clear. To abandon the Great Society would be like asking them to forsake some precious part of themselves.
On balance I agree that PBS serves less purpose today than it did a few decades ago, especially in major cities with a lot of cultural resources. But at its best it still plays an important role, especially for lower-income people, and I believe could do a lot of good in trying to shore up some cultural common ground in our hyperpolarized society.
Lyndon Johnson said, "I want real loyalty. I want a man who can kiss my ass in Macy's window and tell me it smells like roses." So he hired Bill Moyers.
I do think Bill Moyers is a fiercely loyal person -- to the extent that I feel a little bad airing even mild criticism, since he was so good to me. And I think Bill felt that LBJ had plucked him from obscurity, and was owed a great deal, but my understanding is that they weren't on the greatest of terms when Bill resigned.
That old status quo, whether it was pushing progressive, technocratic, or apolitical values, was sustainable. The finances were not the problem, and we should reject the idea that we can't afford things that we've afforded for decades and which other countries manage fine. We're not a poor country.
When I argue that the status quo can't continue, I'm not necessarily saying that America literally can't afford some of the less defensible sinecures and programs that DOGE is targeting (presuming we can keep kicking the can of national debt down the road), but that those programs are increasingly corrupting the federal government and wrecking its perceived legitimacy. Without explicit public buy-in, the U.S. taxpayer should not be subsidizing social justice arts programs in South America, for instance, whether we can afford to or not. There are plenty of private foundations that can subsidize that sort of project if they wish, just as there are plenty of philanthropists who could keep the NewsHour and Frontline going with their pocket change. Sloshing public money around, especially to promote social views rejected by much of the electorate, increases cynicism and polarization even as the funds get flushed away.
I don't think it's right to say that DOGE is targeting anything; they seem to be just doing blanket cuts everywhere, wrecking the entire government. The research cuts are leading a lot of my fellow academes to look at doing their research elsewhere as the US isn't going to be a good place to do research anymore, and the cuts to medical research and programs are going to damage public health. The cuts to foreign aid will reduce US prominence and agenda-setting capabilities across the world, leaving the field wide open to Chinese and Russian influence.
Any damage to programs that actually should be cut seems incidental given everything else. I'm not a progressive, and I'm not a fan of progressive social values (although I'm not on the right either; don't get the wrong idea). Policy shifts to get rid of progressive social values creeping into everything would be great, done in a sensible and gradualist/moderate way. That's not what this is, and compared with appointing mostly the worst people available to every position and an air of belligerence to nations that share our values while cozying up to hostile powers like Russia and Hungary is the US throwing itself on its own blade, guaranteeing the end of its soft-power empire.
I tend to agree that a lot of DOGE cuts are exhilarating to populists in the short term but will have quite a hangover both in terms of damage to serious life-saving research and a ton of people who are cheering right now eventually having their oxen gored when they lose their jobs or services or whatever. As someone who studied public policy, I would prefer a more measured, methodical approach--but as someone who's worked in some fancy institutions, I am skeptical that they retain capacity to institute serious reforms in a gradualist/moderate way.
For many influential people who consider themselves enlightened global meritocrats and have the degrees and titles to back that up, the notion of they and their friends spearheading therapeutic technocracy is so appealing that they truly don't think of spending that the electorate would find insane as in any way inappropriate. Nobody at Frontline thinks they're being less than 1000% fair. Unfortunately, wacky identitarian woo has become so intertwined with legitimate work that it's almost like spinal cancer, there's no way to battle the one without inflicting serious damage on the other. So I'm awfully ambivalent, as with PBS, on how to balance the certain amount of shock and awe that might be indispensable with not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Radicalism is as bad on the left as on the right; I don't see this project of gutting everything as remotely acceptable, even if it were done right. The gradualism in policy shifts should be a firm commitment in governance; the harms of anything else are too great to be worth whatever part of these reforms might be healthy. Pair it with the degree of authoritarianism, disregard for constitutional checks and balances, and threats to invade allies and it's even uncertain if the Republic will survive.
My come to Jesus moment with public broadcasting came when I got slagged, on air, for saying that Bigfoot isn't real. I got hundreds of angry emails an hour for days.
Sorry, I don’t believe the entity is salvageable.
Even small or remote areas now have Starlink access - and if the previous administration had done anything positive it could have implemented that as a benefit 4 years ago.
Public libraries, YouTube, Khan Academy, etc is a way better solution than sponsoring ossified navel exams by costal elite folks with fake British accents.
Let them start a podcast or Substack or YT channel and serve their niche audience. But not with my taxes.
Yes, but how else are we supposed to recognize our betters if we aren't trained to spot the accent?
Here is a great start on DIY culture exposure and appreciation: https://x.com/historiesdaily/status/1895934380599627867?s=46&t=Z05T1FE-sryVgz51u-lPPA
Keep in mind that much of PBS, like so much cultural work,.is a PMC jobs program that provides subsidized cultural content primarily of interest to the PMC.
The classic example is free admission to the opera. Bubba from the trailer park wouldn't go, if you paid him and told him that the coloratura soprano's prodigious mammariesn put Dolly Parton to shame.
Speaking as a reformed member of the PMC (I must confess!) you are certainly correct about that. And yet in my time I've heard from lots of fairly hardscrabble folks who can't afford streaming or cable who've come out of the woodwork to talk about how meaningful it's been over the years to have documentaries, classic films, etc, freely available via public broadcasting. As an indie Substack journalist who's seen the sausage-making, I scoff at a lot of the PMC conventional wisdom on PBS, but there are many people for whom that's their primary experience of a sensibility that seems bigger and classier than their immediate circumstances. It's no longer meaningful to me but feels meaningful to a lot of viewers, and non-news PBS at its best even now still provides much more than that, I would contend.
I grew up a barn cat, and have since acquired (I think) a reasonable amount of culture. I dodn't know how much role PBS played in that, but libraries and NPR sure did.
And that's the "pro-funding" argument in a nutshell - "if it leads one bubba who just came to the opera to impress his girlfriend and he leaves humming 'A cenar teco', then it has done some good."
Maybe, and I am not unsympathetic. But let's not pretend that cats looking for a spot to get away from the cold and cheap entertainment are the primary beneficiaries, here.
Idealistic at best. Moyer was not an honorable man but an underhanded propagandist. I still remember how he tried to make Reagan’s modest spending cuts look like some war on the poor.
PBS might have served a purpose 30 years ago. But with all the many options now both over the air and on the internet, it is past time for taxpayer funding to end.
I certainly understand people resenting Bill Moyers, I haven't always agreed with him and do think it's fair to say that sometimes his journalism crossed into advocacy that wasn't appropriate for public broadcasting. What I can say from close personal observation, though, is that he's pretty well always in earnest and trying to do the right thing as he sees it. I would also say that of most of my former colleagues at PBS, even as I've come to think that national news is something PBS has proven itself unable to handle responsibly.
Moyers reminds me quite a bit of my Dad in that they both grew up in grinding poverty and fundamentally credited their opportunities in life to the New Deal legacy and federal technocratic expertise. I think that was such a foundational experience for both of them that neither was really able to let go of that mid-twentieth century confidence in expansive government even as federal corruption and incompetence became more and more clear. To abandon the Great Society would be like asking them to forsake some precious part of themselves.
On balance I agree that PBS serves less purpose today than it did a few decades ago, especially in major cities with a lot of cultural resources. But at its best it still plays an important role, especially for lower-income people, and I believe could do a lot of good in trying to shore up some cultural common ground in our hyperpolarized society.
Lyndon Johnson said, "I want real loyalty. I want a man who can kiss my ass in Macy's window and tell me it smells like roses." So he hired Bill Moyers.
I do think Bill Moyers is a fiercely loyal person -- to the extent that I feel a little bad airing even mild criticism, since he was so good to me. And I think Bill felt that LBJ had plucked him from obscurity, and was owed a great deal, but my understanding is that they weren't on the greatest of terms when Bill resigned.
I liked Mathnet. ^_^
That old status quo, whether it was pushing progressive, technocratic, or apolitical values, was sustainable. The finances were not the problem, and we should reject the idea that we can't afford things that we've afforded for decades and which other countries manage fine. We're not a poor country.
I can afford anything I want as long as I am spending other people's money.
Nice libertarian fringe politics slogan, but not relevant to the point being made
When I argue that the status quo can't continue, I'm not necessarily saying that America literally can't afford some of the less defensible sinecures and programs that DOGE is targeting (presuming we can keep kicking the can of national debt down the road), but that those programs are increasingly corrupting the federal government and wrecking its perceived legitimacy. Without explicit public buy-in, the U.S. taxpayer should not be subsidizing social justice arts programs in South America, for instance, whether we can afford to or not. There are plenty of private foundations that can subsidize that sort of project if they wish, just as there are plenty of philanthropists who could keep the NewsHour and Frontline going with their pocket change. Sloshing public money around, especially to promote social views rejected by much of the electorate, increases cynicism and polarization even as the funds get flushed away.
I don't think it's right to say that DOGE is targeting anything; they seem to be just doing blanket cuts everywhere, wrecking the entire government. The research cuts are leading a lot of my fellow academes to look at doing their research elsewhere as the US isn't going to be a good place to do research anymore, and the cuts to medical research and programs are going to damage public health. The cuts to foreign aid will reduce US prominence and agenda-setting capabilities across the world, leaving the field wide open to Chinese and Russian influence.
Any damage to programs that actually should be cut seems incidental given everything else. I'm not a progressive, and I'm not a fan of progressive social values (although I'm not on the right either; don't get the wrong idea). Policy shifts to get rid of progressive social values creeping into everything would be great, done in a sensible and gradualist/moderate way. That's not what this is, and compared with appointing mostly the worst people available to every position and an air of belligerence to nations that share our values while cozying up to hostile powers like Russia and Hungary is the US throwing itself on its own blade, guaranteeing the end of its soft-power empire.
I tend to agree that a lot of DOGE cuts are exhilarating to populists in the short term but will have quite a hangover both in terms of damage to serious life-saving research and a ton of people who are cheering right now eventually having their oxen gored when they lose their jobs or services or whatever. As someone who studied public policy, I would prefer a more measured, methodical approach--but as someone who's worked in some fancy institutions, I am skeptical that they retain capacity to institute serious reforms in a gradualist/moderate way.
For many influential people who consider themselves enlightened global meritocrats and have the degrees and titles to back that up, the notion of they and their friends spearheading therapeutic technocracy is so appealing that they truly don't think of spending that the electorate would find insane as in any way inappropriate. Nobody at Frontline thinks they're being less than 1000% fair. Unfortunately, wacky identitarian woo has become so intertwined with legitimate work that it's almost like spinal cancer, there's no way to battle the one without inflicting serious damage on the other. So I'm awfully ambivalent, as with PBS, on how to balance the certain amount of shock and awe that might be indispensable with not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Radicalism is as bad on the left as on the right; I don't see this project of gutting everything as remotely acceptable, even if it were done right. The gradualism in policy shifts should be a firm commitment in governance; the harms of anything else are too great to be worth whatever part of these reforms might be healthy. Pair it with the degree of authoritarianism, disregard for constitutional checks and balances, and threats to invade allies and it's even uncertain if the Republic will survive.
My come to Jesus moment with public broadcasting came when I got slagged, on air, for saying that Bigfoot isn't real. I got hundreds of angry emails an hour for days.
Yeah, some of my duties for the Moyers show included answering the phone and handling viewer mail, sometimes that could get pretty wild!