Page 421 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

00 | Publ c Broadcast ng Serv ce

Further reading: Boyle, Deirdre. Subject to Change: Guerilla Television Revisited. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1985; Engelman, Ralph. Public Radio and Television in Amer-
ica: A Political History; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996; Halleck, DeeDee.
Hand-Held Vision: The Impossible Possibilities of Community Media; New York: Ford-
ham University, 2002; Paper Tiger Television. Roar: The Paper Tiger Television Guide
to Media Activism. New York: The Paper Tiger Television Collective, 1991; Shamberg,
Michael. Guerilla Television. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1971, http://saveac
cess.org/.

Carlos Pareja

PuBliC BroadCasting serViCe

The Right has long tried to dismantle the public broadcasting system, claim-
ing the so-called public TV channel is too liberal and too elitist. The Left says
that “creeping commercialism” and timidity are to blame for public television’s
undemocratic tendencies. Both camps tend to oversimplify the issue for their
own purposes.
The U.S. public broadcasting system comprises hundreds of local stations
and several large national bureaucracies. The most recognizable symbol of this
labyrinth is PBS, the logo of the Public Broadcasting Service, which appears on
all nationally distributed public television programs, designed so that the letters
P-B-S vaguely resemble the human brain. Since its creation in the late 1960s,

a PuBliC BroadCasting tiMeline

1950—Ford Foundation takes up the cause of “educational” television.
1951—Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reserves 209 noncommercial tele-
vision channels for educational use.
1953—First educational TV station (KUHT-Houston) goes on the air.
1958—National Educational Television and Radio Center sets up shop in New York.
1962—National Educational Television Facilities Act is passed.
1964—Carnegie Commission on Educational Television is established; “Public Television:
A Program for Action” is released in 1967.
1967—U.S. Public Broadcasting Act is passed.
1968—Children’s Television Workshop begins.
1969—PBS debuts.
1972—Richard Nixon vetoes funding for public broadcasting.
1974—PBS Station Program Cooperative is launched.
1979—“A Public Trust: The Report of the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Pub-
lic Broadcasting” is released.
1984—Ronald Reagan vetoes Public Broadcasting Authorization bill.
1992—Newt Gingrich seeks to abolish federal funding for public broadcasting.
1996—House of Representatives votes to slash public broadcasting’s funding.