During the summer of 1973, when the United States Senate investigated the Watergate break-ins, PBS aired the complete hearings, all 250 hours of them.
Between the 1970’s and now, PBS and NPR, two primary sources trusted by the public, have covered other significant events in our nation, including the two impeachment trials of President Trump and the Senate Committee’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Despite, or perhaps because of, its critically praised programming and news coverage and the millions who watch and listen, PBS and NPR have been in the crosshairs of the GOP.
The attack is made worse by social media, where the distortion of truth by anonymous voices is rampant. PBS and NPR are committed to responsible journalism, while others in the “news enterprise” are largely unconstrained by commitments to protect the public interest.
And yet, despite Republican efforts, Americans see PBS and NPR as more trustworthy than government institutions, commercial broadcasts, cable television, newspapers, and social media.
Knight Foundation reports in 2017 and 2023 found that public broadcasting viewers–exposed to more public policy-oriented news and current affairs programming–are better-informed, and more likely to vote, than non-viewers.
They also hold realistic perceptions of their societies, and are less likely to express negative attitudes toward immigrants. Citizens of countries with strong public broadcasters are less likely to hold extremist political views.
Fortunately, these sources of independent, reliable news coverage and noncommercial programming have been available for decades, thanks to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
While not the sole source of funding, federal dollars are significant for stations across the country. In addition to cutting-edge news and public affairs, these funds provide significant educational programming and, often enough, high quality entertainment.
Of course, the Trump administration is determined to end public support not only for PBS, but for NPR as well. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives and distributes over $500 million in taxpayer money to public TV and radio stations annually. Eliminating millions of dollars in federal funding to the two public media organizations amounts to a significant threat.
For NPR, that might lead to the elimination of as many as 181 local stations. Trump tried in 2020, but Congress blocked the move. He is back at it again.
With Congress hardly functioning, what, if anything, its members will do now is anyone’s guess.
PBS and NPR are fighting back.
They need visible, vigorous public support to demonstrate opposition to defunding of public media. A sense of history may help motivate viewers to engage actively in resistance.
THE CREATION OF PUBLIC TELEVISION
The private, nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created by Congress in 1967 to ensure universal access to noncommercial, high-quality subject matter and telecommunications services. It does this by distributing more than 70 percent of its funding to more than 1,400 locally owned public radio and television stations. WNET in New York and NJ PBS are among them.
A seminal figure in the creation of the CPB, Fred Friendly, helped lay the groundwork for public television after a career at CBS, where he saw first-hand the limits of commercial television.
“TV is bigger than any story it reports,” Friendly once said. “It’s the greatest teaching tool since the printing press. It will determine nothing less than what kind of people we are. So, if TV exists now only for the sake of a buck, somebody’s going to have to change that.”
With the advent of satellite communications, moreover, Friendly recognized that television journalism could deliver news quickly enough for consideration of issues as they unfolded rather than after the fact.
That was the potential Friendly saw in linking public television with democracy.
FUNDING PUBLIC TELEVISION
Friendly grew increasingly wary of connections between Hollywood and the television networks, because he saw its capacity to reduce television to a medium of entertainment and escapism.
Some of the same structural and political forces dominate today, compounded by the presence of cable networks that monetize partisan political interests—and by having a former TV personality occupying the White House.
It was through Friendly’s tenacious persistence and relentless persuasion that Congress chartered the Corporation and provided funding, annually, for public television. But Friendly warned Congress that direct funding was a threat to the new system’s independence.
He was nothing if not prescient:
“Of one thing we can be certain: Public television will rock the boat. There will be—there should be—times when every man in politics…will wish that it had never been created. But public television should not have to stand the test of political popularity at any point in time. Its most precious right will be the right to rock the boat.”
Since public television and radio were founded, there has been no end of efforts by members of Congress—and presidents–to cut them off. Which may be the best argument for keeping them.
And here comes a new threat: DOGE. Despite being a private corporation, the CPB has not escaped its prying eyes. Citing federal law that establishes the nonprofit’s independence, the Corporation is resisting and has filed suit against Elon Musk’s chainsaw team. There is a certain satisfaction in reading the CPB response to the Department of Government Efficiency’s request to embed. No welcome mat awaits.
PUBLIC TELEVISION IN THE FUTURE
Public television has a critical role in prompting and supporting informed participation by citizens in our democracy. We need to commit to it, invest in it and protect its autonomy. The need for reliable, well-sourced information has never been greater.
By aiming to unite, not divide, public television might be what saves us yet. That is what author Margaret Renkl had to say as she wished a happy birthday to PBS on its 50th anniversary:
“In a time when so many other forces are pulling us apart, this understanding of what it means to be American, of what it means to be human, underlies virtually every program on PBS: Children’s shows, documentaries, news reports, even an updated version of Firing Line.”
Happy Birthday, PBS.
“We have never needed you more than we need you now,” Renkl wrote.
It is Fred Friendly, though, who deserves the last word:
“…public television should not have to stand the test of political popularity at any point in time. Its most precious right will be the right to rock the boat.”