The tumultuous managerial shakeup at National Public Radio
headquarters for trivial verbal miscues once again has highlighted the
ludicrous corporatist right-wing charge that public radio and public TV are
replete with left-leaning or leftist programming.
Ludicrous, that is, unless this criticism's yardstick is the propaganda
regularly exuded by the extreme right-wing Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
These "capitalists" use the public's airwaves free-of-charge to make
big money.
The truth is that the frightened executives at public TV and radio have long
been more hospitable to interviews with right of center or extreme right-wing
and corporatist talking heads than liberal or progressive guests.
PBS's Charlie Rose has had war-loving William Kristol on thirty-one times,
Henry Kissinger fifty-five times, Richard Perle ten times, the global
corporatist cheerleader, Tom Friedman seventy times. Compare that guest list
with Rose's interviews of widely published left of center guests--Noam Chomsky
two times, William Grieder two times, Jim Hightower two times, Charlie Peters
two times, Lewis Lapham three times, Bob Herbert six times, Paul Krugman
twenty-one times, Victor Navasky one time, Mark Green five times and Sy Hersh,
once a frequent guest, has not been on since January 2005.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the widely-quoted super-accurate drug industry critic, who is
often featured on the commercial TV network shows, has never been on Rose's
show. Nor has the long-time head of Citizens for Tax Justice and widely
respected progressive tax analyst, Robert McIntyre.
Far more corporate executives, not known for their leftist inclinations, appear
on Rose's show than do leaders of environmental, consumer, labor and poverty
organizations.
In case you are wondering, I've appeared four times, but not since August 2005,
and not once on the hostile Terri Gross radio show.
The unabashed progressive Bill Moyer's Show is off the air and has not been
replaced. No one can charge PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer with anything other
than very straightforward news delivery, bland opinion exchanges and a
troubling inclination to avoid much reporting that upsets the power structures
in Congress, the White House, the Pentagon or Wall Street.
The longest running show on PBS was hard-line conservative William F. Buckley's
show--Firing Line--which came on the air in 1966 and ended in 1999.
Sponsorship by large corporations, such as Coca Cola and AT&T, have
abounded--a largesse not likely to be continued year after year for a leftist
media organization.
None of this deters the Far Right that presently got a majority in the House of
Representatives to defund the $422 million annual appropriation to the umbrella
entity--Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). About 15% of all revenues
for all public broadcasting stations comes from this Congressional
contribution.
Though he admits to liking National Public Radio, conservative columnist David
Harsanyi, believes there is no "practical argument" left "in the
defense of federal funding"in an era of nearly unlimited
choices"."
Really? Do commercial radio stations give you much news between the Niagara of advertisements and music? Even the frenetic
news, sports, traffic and weather flashes, garnished by ads, are either
redundant or made up of soundbytes (apart from the merely 2 minutes of CBS
radio news every half-hour). If you want serious news, features and interviews
on the radio, you go to public radio or the few community and Pacifica radio stations.
Harsanyi continues: "Something, though, seems awfully wrong with
continuing to force taxpayers who disagree with the mission--even if their
perceptions are false--to keep giving"."
Public radio's popular Morning Edition and All Things Considered are the most
listened to radio shows after Rush Limbaugh's, and any taxpayer can turn them
off. Compare the relatively small public radio and TV budget allocations with
the tens of billions of dollars each year--not counting the Wall Street bailout--in
compelling taxpayers to subsidize, through hundreds of programs, greedy,
mismanaged, corrupt or polluting corporations either directly in handouts,
giveaways and guarantees or indirectly in tax escapes, bloated contracts and
grants. Can the taxpayer turn them off?
Here is a solution that will avoid any need for Congressional contributions to
CPB. The people own the public airwaves. They are the landlords. The commercial
radio and TV stations are the tenants that pay nothing for their 24 hour use of
this public property. You pay more for your auto license than the largest
television station in New York
pays the Federal Communications Commission for its broadcasting license--which
is nothing. It has been that way since the 1927 and 1934 communication laws.
Why not charge these profitable businesses rent for use of the public airwaves
and direct some of the ample proceeds to nonprofit public radio and public TV
as well as an assortment of audience controlled TV and radio channels that
could broadcast what is going on in our country locally, regionally, nationally
and internationally? (See: Ralph Nader & Claire Riley, Oh, Say Can You See:
A Broadcast Network for the Audience, 5 J.L. & POL. 1, [1988])
Now that would be a worthy program for public broadcasting. Get Limbaugh's and
Hannity's companies off welfare. Want to guess what their listeners think about
corporate welfare?
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