Editorial

Mitt Romney, ironically considered the most moderate of the Republican presidential candidates, dropped a Republican “truism” recently. "We're not going to kill Big Bird,” he said, “but Big Bird is going to have advertisements, all right!"

This was not a sweeping statement, just a short couple of lines. But the overall idea is a media nightmare for Americans. Romney and many other Republicans believe no taxpayer money ought to support public communications, especially PBS.

But PBS offers Art, philosophy, history, science, children’s programming, unencumbered news plus many other subjects that its audience might not otherwise encounter. Programs on the Public Broadcasting System must earn readers interest, not advertising dollars. Yet Romney would change that, creating a system similar to network television where the audience, the public, only has a peripheral say: the major direction would be determined by the mysteries of the television rating system with the real say coming from corporations and their advertising voices.

Once programs are based on what the advertisers dictate and the ratings systems indicate, the content of PBS will change profoundly. On Sesame Street, for example, the whole question of whether Bert and Ernie are possibly gay will be swept under the rug; just not the sort of stuff children should be exposed to at all, even in such an understated, humanistic manner.

All shows will be produced according to advertiser’s interest and they will naturally want to set content criteria that will avoid anything controversial or thought provoking, since they will want all programming to reflect well on their products and brands. Science shows and programs illustrating the nature of evolution may well be found too controversial. The news will become softer if it is not simply expunged.

News is already is disappearing from networks and cable carriers, replaced by happy talk about sports and soft features about local people, combined with fire, police and accident reporting. But public television is where viewers can still obtain a different – often more complete and complex – take on the news of the day, including politics.

PBS is a huge national asset, is it not? It comprises 360 television stations, all making separate public decisions. Those who want to take away the money and the power of the PBS network dislike this independent grouping; it is too messy, too hard to influence. It would be far better, critics like Romney and his supporters feel, to do without all independent voices in the national debates, with all their introspective points of view; it would be much better to control the uncomfortable subjects brought before the public.

President Barak Obama, a year ago in February 2011, sent to Congress a 2012 PBS advance of $451 million. That is not much. A federal budget of just $451 million is tiny. Clearly Mr. Obama is being cautious in the face of the GOP influence in Congress. This year, Paula Kerger, PBS President and CEO, will be asking Congress to add ‘Ready to Learn’ funding, and perhaps she will ask for more of an advance than the $451 million.

But any funding for PBS will be an uphill struggle as long as the GOP dominates the House of Representatives. And if Republicans win the presidency, it could well mean that public free discourse by way of PBS will be disassembled indirectly by advertising.

President Obama’s $451 million advance budget projection is just a small piece of the overall financial picture of PBS: private donations, large and small, together with some advertisers, make up the rest of the budget. Yes, PBS stations do accept some ads, but PBS controls the content.

If PBS is forced to switch to commercial programming, it will no longer be public; it will belong to the advertisers. Once advertisers hold sway, the game ends. There will be no controversial topics, no unbiased news, no exposition of actual scientific progress and accomplishments or in-depth illustrations of human history, together with classic literature and dramas.

But perhaps most importantly, Big Bird will no longer be free in all his glorious yellow; he will be colored by ads, and so the last bastion of healthy children’s programming will slowly disappear in the swamp of mainstream children’s television, with its racy and violent cartoons. This is Mitt Romney’s GOP vision. The GOP claims it simply wants to curtail spending public money on PBS, but it has long been clear that what it truly wants is to curtail public free speech as practiced by the PBS stations.

January, 2012