Although commercial TV is vaster and waste-ier today than it was back then, the public media successfully leveraged their federal seed money to build perhaps stronger and healthier organizations than the founders and their funders had dared to imagine.
In an advertising campaign seeking to drum up support for continued federal funding of the public media, the industry argues forcefully that its audience consists of 170 million Americans, or an impressive 56% of the population.
At a time when health, welfare and education programs are being slashed and burned at the federal, state and local levels, it is illogical, if not to say offensive, to argue that the large and well-heeled public broadcasting infrastructure needs government help more than hungry children, ailing seniors and unemployed people freezing in their homes.
Mutter builds a strong case against public funding for public radio and TV.
However, he seems to undercut the argument at the end by linking his complaint to the woes of commercial newspapers and the uphill climb facing non-profit news start-ups. At that point, the argument pivots to “let’s give all non-profit news ventures” a piece of the federal pie.
So… isn’t that an argument for CPB reform rather than defunding?