Public Broadcasting in the U.S.

Something I did not realize was the difference between the state of public broadcasting in the U.S. and public broadcasting in foreign countries. Even the stations and airwaves that are supposed to be reserved as a true public forum and a safe place to report on just about anything fail to be so in the United States.

In class we referenced a Canadia study on public broadcasting that noted we pay only about $4.92/citizen in the U.S. for funding toward public broadcasting, which is nearly 20 times lower than the average for most other countries. I couldn't find a link for this study, unfortunately.

The real problem with public broadcasting is that the funding is not isolted, but rather appropriated by the government. Therefore there are certain restrictions for the broadcast, because otherwise they know they won't receive the full amount of funding if they are, for example, criticizing the policies of the government. On top of that, the amount of money received is not enough and they have to go to big corporations, like GE, in order to make up the rest of the money.

There are solutions to this. Jeff Cohen spoke about how if there was a simple tax on television sales or if big corporations had to pay a tax on the television stations they own, then there would be significantly more money coming into public broadcasting. Maybe even more important than the amount of money would be that the money would have to isolated in order for public broadcasting to have real freedom with their reporting. A better public broadcasting system would do wonders for truly educating on country on the real issues. It is necessary to have something like this, especially during such a crisis like our country is facing now. It seems almost necessary to democracy to have fair and properly funded public broadcasting.