Page 424 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Publ c Broadcast ng Serv ce | 0

For ThE PEoPLE, noT By ThE PEoPLE?
ThE DEBaTE ovEr PBs
The disputes over PBS are predictable: while the minor details and individuals
involved may change, the “positions” in the cultural battle over PBS generally do
not. There are three major positions, emerging (more or less) from three sectors
of society: neoconservative elites, the liberal upper middle class, and the intel-
lectual/artistic Left. Each position claims to speak for the larger “public” being
served (or not served) by the so-called public channel. Most ordinary people,
however, have little voice in the ruckus over public television, or are even aware
of it. PBS may be engulfed in periodic controversy, but it is off the cultural radar
of most TV viewers.
The neoconservative critique of public television is based on two claims. First,
it is argued that PBS programs are “slanted” in favor of people with liberal view-
points and alternative lifestyles. This accusation is unproven and rather dubious,
according to research studies of public television’s content. Second, PBS is said to
cater to an “elite” slice of the population, in terms of income and education—an
observation that is more valid. Officially, PBS claims to reach a broad spectrum
of the population, so that everyone is included in the “public” it represents. Yet,
PBS also envisions “selective” people who possess college and graduate school
degrees, professional and managerial occupations, and disposable income as its
core audience, particularly during prime time. Paradoxically, the ability to at-
tract such upscale viewers is part of the “distinction” that has historically defined
public television’s difference from commercial television in the United States.
Neoconservatives point out the elitist dimensions of this mission—not to make
public television more culturally democratic, but to privatize it. PBS should re-
tain its distinction but be required to support itself commercially through the
sale of advertising and merchandise, claim such critics. Or else, they argue, con-
sumers who want “public” television should pay for it on a subscription basis.
Neoconservatives won the first battle over PBS by fusing perceptions of po-
litical bias in some programming to the larger problem of class selectivity and
cultural elitism. In this way, the Right—as opposed to the Left—strategically

Buster
In March 2005, PBS caved in to conservative pressure by pulling an episode of Postcards
from Buster, a children’s program. In the episode, a cartoon bunny visits Vermont, where he
learns to make maple sugar and is invited to dinner at the home of children with two mom-
mies; critics objected to the inclusion of homosexual lifestyles. According to Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the episode was yanked the same day that PBS received an
official letter from President George W. Bush’s new Republican Secretary of Education, who
condemned the episode and asked PBS to “strongly consider returning the federal money
that went toward its production.”

FAIR Action Alert, “PBS Censors Postcards from Buster,” January 31, 2005, http://www.fair.org/index.
php?page=2040.