Views » August 5, 2009 » Web Only

Mr. President, Help Save the News

By Megan Tady

In late July, former CBS news anchor Dan Rather sent murmurs through the journalism world when he called on President Obama to form a White House commission on public media and journalism.

His plea couldn’t be more timely. As news outlets crash and burn and “investigative journalism” becomes a historical relic for the next generation to read about on Wikipedia, Rather said media reform must become a national priority because “a democracy and free people cannot thrive without a fiercely independent press.”

Tens of millions of Americans rely on PBS and National Public Radio for everything from ad-free children’s shows to rush-hour breaking news. Public broadcasting provides some of the country’s most hard-hitting journalism. Newspapers’ accelerating decline has only underscored this fact.

Established to serve the public interest, public broadcasters can and should play a major role in tackling journalism’s crisis. But there’s a problem: Under-funded media like NPR and PBS need a severe upgrade before they can become our anchor and move into the digital age. It’s time to put our public media system under the microscope—not to tear organizations like NPR and PBS down, but to prop them up.

A White House commission could point the way to better public media, and inspire the political will to get there.

Public media’s flaws

Public media produce some of the best reporting and programming on radio and television—and the American public values this quality content. In 2009, for the sixth consecutive year, Americans ranked PBS among their most valued institutions, second only to the military. NPR ranked third, tied with law enforcement.

But despite this impressive public support, lawmakers routinely fail to deliver the money needed to support a thriving public media system. The United States spends just $1.30 per person on public media, compared to (as of 2007) more than $80 per person in England and $100 per person in Denmark and Finland.

This paltry funding forces public broadcasters to perpetually pursue dollars, driving them away from their core mission. Too often our public broadcasters produce non-controversial programming that doesn’t offend corporate underwriters and satisfies elected officials. In other words, cautious and dull shows that lack diversity and are cheap to create.

A new vision and way forward

Sure, donating twenty bucks during NPR’s fundraising drive is helpful. But what we truly need are bold policy solutions that address the systemic problems facing public media. So what kind of vision might a White House commission be able to offer President Obama?

Public media need significant financial support and governance systems that are free of political influence. They should embrace new digital technologies to innovate and increase their reach and impact, and broaden their content to reflect the diversity of the U.S. population.

Finally, public media should expand the definition of public media to include other outlets, such as low-power FM radio, public access TV, independent print publications, viewer-supported satellite TV, and nonprofit Internet-based outlets.

While a White House commission cannot change laws, a public media commission could significantly impact—if not spark—a national discourse on media. If the president were to endorse and appoint such a commission, it wouldn’t be the first of its kind: A 1967 Carnegie Corporation-backed commission on public media led to the Public Broadcasting Act, which established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

A White House commission wouldn’t mean government involvement in journalism content. Its goal would be to maintain a vibrant marketplace of ideas—a concept firmly rooted in our nation’s history. The government has long created policies that would ensure a diversity of viewpoints and information, like public subsides for newspaper distribution and limits on how much media a single company can own in your neighborhood.

But reforms will have to occur in a number of places, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting itself—the organization that decides how government dollars for public media are spent. And we will need a true firewall that protects journalists and content producers from any government intrusion.

A great way to start would be by disconnecting media funding from the ugly annual dance of congressional appropriations. If we can stop tying funds to the political whims of Congress and the White House (say, by establishing a separate trust fund), we won’t repeat the kind of partisan meddling public broadcasting has endured in recent decades.

The stakes are high

What might a far-sighted commission be worth? Potentially everything.

To fix the massive slate of problems facing our nation today—from healthcare reform to foreign policy to the economy—we need a fiercely independent press that examines pressing issues and holds decision-makers accountable.

What we have now is journalism that pursues eyeballs for advertisers. America deserves better. Let’s hope President Obama agrees.

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• Reader Comments

  Cheers, Megan! If my memory serves me right, President Obama has stated that he doesn’t get his news from TV. As a very wise dude, he must have (as I do), no use for the ‘non-news’ and ‘info-tainment’ trivia and diatribe that now passes for “News”. To my mind, Fox and CNN both fail miserably, in being anything more than mouthpieces and bandstands for a tyrannical corporatocracy.

  I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the countries you’ve mentioned here, and their public programming is all an intelligent person could require for vital information and ever-expanding knowledge. Living currently in America, I don’t watch television at all. All dessert, no entre. Brainwashing ads and program drivel. It’s like Brittish coffee - undrinkable. Let’s hope the president sees it this way, too.

  Posted by wanzellarts on Aug 6, 2009 at 6:07 PM

  Good post…keeps readers stick to it.

  Posted by becomenotary001 on Aug 6, 2009 at 6:41 PM

  We need to address a few errors and burst a few bubbles in the otherwise good In These Times article by Free Press’s Megan Tady titled “Mr. President, Help Save the News”:

  * There simply is no local news programming on most U.S. public tv stations for americans to “look to”. And NPR’s patchy network news requires regular monitoring here—http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/ and here—http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=19&media_outlet_id=21

  * I especially liked the “hard-hitting journalism” our public broadcasters provided us during the leadup to the U.S. attack on Iraq, didn’t you? I’m speaking facetiously of course. Read my essay from “Z” magazine on the topic:

  http://themediastructurefailed.zoomshare.com/files/z_sept_07.pdf

  * The article fails to even mention the $90 billion public interest ripoff the digital broadcast transition represents. In exchange for giving up one analog channel, we’ve given each big media owner TEN digital channels at no charge and with no strings attached! The beltway policy wonks have been totally clueless and out to lunch on this key point with regard to the ownership and programming needs of people of color and other underserved groups.

  *  Like virtually every other such article, this one dances around any restructuring specifics. I gather from the footwork in Tady’s piece that technology and more and permanent funding may well do the trick. When is somebody in the policy arena going to spell it out? Here. I can do it for them:

  There needs to be a public media board of trustees—the clear majority of whom are publicly elected—in every community across the U.S.

  If we can require direct local public accountability for water sanitation services, we can certainly do the same concerning public media. Anything short of that is a sellout and will perpetuate the core problem: those quotation marks we’ve had to add to “public” broadcasting.

  There, I said it. U.S. public broadcasting is, mostly, a myth.

  And here’s a new article at “Counterpunch” in which I say it again—

  http://www.counterpunch.org/macek08052009.html

  Is some gatekeeper or funder going to hold their finger up to their mouth and “shoosh” me now? Have I stepped on some third rail akin to Santa and the Easter Bunny? Public broadcasting is better, marginally, but better than what? Bill O’Reilly? The 6PM network news? This is a distinction without much difference.

  Certainly, we need to “prop up” and raise high the concept of public media, and credit public radio and tv’s occasional successes, but we need to be realistic about how irrelevant most public broadcasting, and in particular PBS, has become. We must hope that this is not going to be the type of propping up that fake scenery, tin horn dictators, and drunks sometimes receive, for too often public broadcasters have failed us when we needed them most.

  Because we have yet to understand who must play the biggest role of all in our public media system: the public. That’s the same mistake the Pacifica network board made ten years ago when it, unsuccessfully, resisted fundamental restructuring.

  So batten down the hatches. We’re probably in for some rough seas ahead as we try to re-envision U.S. public service media for the ensuing epoch. On one side will be the well funded forces who support, more or less, the status quo but with mainly financial and technological improvements. On the other side will stand the public and its fuzzy demands for “democratization”. Who will win? Or will we all lose again?

  And has anyone seen any “ad-free” children’s programming on PBS lately?

  Didn’t think so.

  Posted by Scott Sanders on Aug 8, 2009 at 3:37 PM

  i like your following post wanzellarts :)
  Cheers, Megan! If my memory serves me right, President Obama has stated that he doesn’t get his news from TV. As a very wise dude, 1z0-007 exam he must have (as I do), no use for the ‘non-news’ and ‘info-tainment’ trivia and diatribe that now passes for “News”. To my mind, Fox and CNN both fail miserably, in being anything more than mouthpieces and bandstands for a tyrannical 642-241 exam
  corporatocracy.

  I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the countries you’ve mentioned here, and their public programming is all an intelligent person could require for vital information and ever-expanding knowledge. Living currently in America, I don’t watch television at all. All dessert, no entre. Brainwashing ads and program drivel. 642-456 exam It’s like Brittish coffee - undrinkable. Let’s hope the president sees it this way, too.
  its nice 1 keep it up my friend:)

  Posted by jason.rocksmith on Aug 26, 2009 at 5:59 AM

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