When looking at the proposed budget cuts that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a few weeks ago, different people respond passionately to different cuts. The proposal to cut federal funding for public broadcasting is mine. You simply should not be allowed to touch the Sesame Street money.
It is easy to oversimplify the arguments about public broadcasting. I could easily belabor my love of Cookie Monster and The Count and rail against anyone who would deny America’s future youth these lifelong friends. Making this argument about Sesame Street alone is unfair to all the other quality programming that is paid for by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
My exposure to public broadcasting as a child was not limited to the friendly Henson muppets. National Public Radio was a huge part of my childhood. More often than not, the car radio was tuned to WUNC and we listened to Car Talk or A Prarie Home Companion. I would find myself watching NOVA or a bevy of cooking shows all on UNC-TV at home. Even in high school I found myself watching Antique Roadshow as often as it was on.
NPR is almost all I listen to in the car now. There is no better source for North Carolina programming than WUNC. The programming on public broadcasting tends to be more sincere and, frankly, more honest. The news brought over from the BBC is a godsend of non-biased information. About 93 percent of the U.S. population is within the listening area of one or more of the 900 plus stations that carry NPR programming, according to the NPR website. There is no way you can say that a budget cut warrants taking this resource away from the citizens.
On PBS there are any number of quality programs which simply would not have been made without public broadcasting. Ken Burns has been making documentaries for PBS for decades. According to Burns, those films would not have been made without public broadcasting. Burns’ 2007 documentary about World War II, The War, was a success when it aired on TV, as well as when it was released on DVD.
Republicans vying for these budget cuts keep talking about the commercial success of Sesame Street and how the franchise will not be in danger due to these budget cuts. Just because another network will be eager to pick up Sesame Street does not keep them out of danger. The greatest thing about Sesame Street is that they have never been beholden to sponsors. Sesame Street has spent 42 years making entertaining, educational television for children no matter those children’s socioeconomic position. When Jim Henson, Joan Ganz Cooney and rest of the people responsible for Sesame Street created what has become the most iconic American children’s show, their intention was to give poor children a leg up.
The only people public broadcasting programmers have to please are its viewers and listeners. Public broadcasting is the last bastion of programming that is not trying to tell you what to do, who to support or what to buy. It exists to help those who watch or listen be better educated and better informed. There is no excuse or reason to take that away. If you feel like I do, find out what you can do to help keep public broadcasting funded for the 170 million Americans who tune in every month at www.170millionamericans.org.
