Budget to Propose Cuts to PBS. This trending headline on Facebook caught my eye and I clicked on the story to read more. The link brought me to a wall of posts by people I had no connection to, but had shared the news article. Preparing myself to cringe at the comments, I scrolled on.
Unsurprisingly, many of the people praised Trump’s newest iteration of the federal budget, which promoted spending 4.4 trillion dollars on infrastructure, military, and border control. According to the headline that initially attracted my attention, the budget would also cut funding to PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service.
What did surprise me however, was the overwhelming lack of support for PBS. The people who shared the link claimed that PBS was liberal propaganda and leftist crap. The biggest concern that these people had was that their tax dollars were supporting a politically-charged network that opposed their political views. One commenter claimed that PBS had become a “dangerous and subversive organization now indoctrinating our masses” (this comment, posted on the FOX News article, has since been removed). Trump did not cite political bias (or fake news) as a reason to discontinue federal support. He suggested that public broadcasting channels did not need funding to provide services (“Trump proposes cutting all federal funds for NPR, PBS” FOX News).
PBS is the nation’s largest developer of public broadcasting and the only service to provide free children’s programming 24/7. PBS services 158 licensees that produce public television stations. 83 are community organizations, 52 are colleges/universities, 19 are state authorities, and 4 are local educational or municipal authorities. According to a study by Neilson NPOWER, 80 percent of American households watched PBS throughout one year. So who were these people adamantly opposing federal funding to PBS? Even my Republican grandmother loves Victoria, so I can only speculate.
Should the government fund public television? Is PBS liberally partisan? One of the major concerns of these people on Facebook was tax money supporting a political agenda. PBS states that the average US citizen contributes about $1.35 per year to the service, which provides free television programming to anyone with a TV. With Trump’s supposed deficit at 7 trillion, a quantity even I cannot fathom, are these people really concerned with the price of a pack of gum?
Should people be expected to contribute to a service which does not support their views? Eliminating funding for Clifford the Big Red Dog may seem like a Pyrrhic victory, but behind the sentiments of these people are more critical battles, such as federal support for Planned Parenthood or educational services. These people believe that PBS is “liberal” and “leftist” but what they truly mean is that they do not personally benefit from the educational programming, local television coverage, and educational children’s programs that PBS generates.
The discussion around funding PBS suggests that access to free, relevant global and local news is not a right. Those who wish to see PBS defunded believe that PBS can function privately like other news channels, and only those who see merit in PBS’s programming should need to contribute. But if you’ve ever watched PBS, then you know that they are primarily supported “by viewers like you.” Federal funding allows PBS to remain noncommercial and provide universal access to its services.
The proposed cut to PBS funding is just one aspect of the growing movement to eliminate federal programs that benefit certain groups of people more so than others. What these people on Facebook fail to realize however, is not only that they too can benefit from PBS’s free services, but that when the lives of other people improve, yours will also. Federal funding should continue to support programs that enrich Americans’ lives.
After twenty-one years, maybe these people on Facebook have finally revealed to me why I am a liberal. Elmo’s World and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which I watched religiously on my Nana’s television set, were just part of the leftist slock produced by PBS. Or so the droves of Facebook posts claimed. These people who do not support or watch PBS must have missed one of Mister Rogers’ key life lessons: “Because deep down we know that what matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.” BP
