DEATHKNELLS AGAIN

posted by James Reel

Every time a minority of Congressional reactionaries begins to demand defunding of public broadcasting (or the NEA, or whatever other culturally uplifting organization has offended them), gloomy articles like this appear throughout the media. Hand-wringing ensues. After more posturing than debate, funding is eventually maintained at or near the previous level.

But, speaking as someone involved in both public broadcasting and nonprofit arts groups, I think it might be a good idea for Congress to end its annual appropriations for these endeavors.

First of all, when the government provides money for news and arts programs on a continuing basis, and then takes away (or threatens to take away) that money specifically because some news or arts programming has offended somebody in power, that's a form of censorship. On the other hand, the government has every right to manipulate its own budget as it sees fit. So wouldn't we all feel a little more secure if the government weren't involved at all in broadcasting and the arts? If there were no government funding, there would be no government pressure to produce (or avoid) certain kinds of programming, short of throwing dissident artists and crusading journalists in jail--and we haven't quite reached that point yet, although Julian Assange may have a differing opinion.

In the arts world, funding from the NEA or state and local agencies like the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Tucson Pima Arts Council has declined to the point that, for many groups, the time wasted on writing grant applications that result in little or no money would be better spent fundraising elsewhere. As for dollars that reach local public stations from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is what Congress actually funds (money does not go directly from Congress to NPR or PBS), yes, that does certainly help with program acquisition and equipment upgrades, but I doubt that any stations would go off the air if the CPB vanished. Local funding sources have, wisely, been diversified over the years; at Arizona Public Media, money comes from the state (via the University of Arizona), business underwriters, personal bequests, and people like you who participate in the periodic pledge drives. Losing CPB funding would hurt, but it would not be fatal.

But what if Congress managed to choke out not just the CPB, but by extension the networks PBS and NPR? That wouldn't make one bit of difference to KUAT-FM, because all we take from NPR are a few newscasts that we could replace with content from the BBC World Service (which we used in the past) or elsewhere. It would be a significant hit to KUAZ, which devotes big chunks of the day to NPR programs like Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered. On the other hand, a lot of KUAZ's other programming comes from other sources. So while it might lose its two flagship shows, it could obtain replacement content from elsewhere (and you know that syndicators would rush to offer replacement programs if Morning Edition and ATC went away, probably even hiring a lot of those shows' staffers).

Losing PBS would have been the death knell for KUAT-TV a few years ago, and even today it would be a severe blow, but not a fatal one. Our TV folks are working on plans to develop a solid schedule of local programming coupled with material from other sources just in case PBS does go away, either because it is defunded or because it sheds its local stations and becomes a cable-only channel.

Without federal funding, my employer and, to a much lesser extent my two arts organizations might hurt for awhile, but they would soon recover--and, perhaps, be better for the lack of federal interference.