Friday, June 24, 2005

State Run Media

Jacob Sullum over at Reason has a great article discussing the recent proposed cuts at PBS and NPR. While I admit that I frequently take advantage of PBS programming (from Austin City Limits to Ken Burns documentaries) and even tune into the NPR in the mornings simply to avoid the incessant laughing-fits that tend to dominate the commercial stations, I would not shed a single tear if they were to disappear tomorrow. Art is a commodity. And like all commodities in this quasi-"free market" of ours, its exposure and ultimate survival is dependent upon its appeal in the marketplace. In the unlikely event that Congress pulled the plug on our beloved Bert and Ernie, they would undoubtedly re-surface somewhere else in the blink of an eye because Sesame Street has viewers, attracts sponsors and thus generates cash.

Putting personal preferences aside, where did this fondness for state-run programming come from anyway? We can avoid commercials with basic cable and acquire greater variety to boot. Art, entertainment and news programs are not superior to their commercial counterparts simply because they have the state stamp of approval and are transmitted to us on the public dole. Quite the contrary in my opinion. There is a reason that you can walk into a movie theatre anywhere on planet Earth and see a Will Farrell movie, but who has ever heard a Soviet-era rock album. Put simply, state funds equal state strings. Sullum sums it up well:

"...the argument that the funding cuts had to be defeated to prevent political interference with programming has things backward. It's government funding that makes such interference inevitable. The best way to keep public broadcasting editorially independent is to make it financially independent."

3 Comments:

Blogger Justin said...

Hey, Matt. Heather Cassidy turned me on to your blog, which I'm enjoying and finding myself nodding to.

I think you're right about "in this quasi-'free market' of ours, [public tv's and radio's] exposure and ultimate survival is dependent upon its appeal in the marketplace."

(I comment here only because I'm one of those internetters who remarks only on head-shakes, never on the nods.)

Why not give a little nudge to that "exposure"? We can't unring the "quasi" bell. Fed/State/Local governments have been plugging mainstream entertainment for decades, frequently at the expense of what we now see only on the haughty public channels. (See, e.g., Marshall Plan, Hollywood mandates in; media conglomerates, states' tax gifts to; arts, school boards' stripping funding from...)

The public fisc can't be a permanent life-support system for arts the citizens would rather euthanize. But another way of conceiving of public broadcasting's support is this: a statement about the collective values of that segment of society that the "market" -- by virtue of inefficiences, or stifling, or whatever -- fails to represent. There's a chance, I guess, of encroachment on the rest of society's tastes. I'll take that chance -- John Mayer's probably too powerful for Performance Today to overcome.

Here's where we depart on the Soviet reference. It's true that Russians weren't a headbanging bunch under Brezhnev, but they've never been. They genuinely like folk and classical and jazz, etc., even now, despite TaTu's flickering success. Plus, Leninist governments didn't simply fund the arts at the expense of other cultural forms. They went out and suppressed, gun-nuzzlin'-up-against-temple style, the other forms.

As mushy and intellectually broken as the NPR set can be, I don't see them shutting down the next Wilco concert for fear of the kids' liking it too much.

7:50 PM  
Blogger thebokononist said...

Justin writes, "We can't unring the 'quasi'bell. FedFed/State/Local governments have been plugging mainstream entertainment for decades, frequently at the expense of what we now see only on the haughty public channels."

Why not? Aside from the simple FACT that there is NO enumerated power to subsidize the arts (an admitted weak argument in light of the current Leviathan state's trasgressions), I see no moral justification for the forcible transfer of money from taxpayers to artists, scholars, and broadcasters. Can these NEA-supported artists not put bread on the table without shaking us all down in the process? Or, is the argument simply that the great unwashed are too small-minded to recognize quality "art?" Pardon my straw-man, but I don't like either answer.

Similar the lottery/Hope Scholarship here in Georgia, subsidation of the arts is a wealth transfer from the poor to the middle and upper class.

I agree with Justin that Congress is not going to blantantly censor any single form art (ala the Soviet-repression of the past). But it can be much more subtle than that. The pro-PBS crowd has been defending the station's necessity for years by arguing that PBS is free to produce "independent programming," unrestrained by the "tainted" wishes and agenda of corporate sponsors. Although valid in one sense, I wonder why the supporters are not concerned by the agenda of state sponsors that they so readily seek. Submission to a supposed benevolent government is still submission.

Thanks for the comments, Justin.

11:43 AM  
Blogger il Gatto Grande said...

Matt,

You ask if the justification for PBS is that "the great unwashed is too small-minded to recognize great art." The answer is yes. And it's a concept that is surprisingly popular on both sides of the aisle. The left have PBS and Soviet-style government sponsorship of preferred artists and the right have their commitment to eliminating all arts education that doesn't fit the "Great Books" mold. This line of thought rests on the belief that unless we force-feed the masses "Masterpiece Theater", they will squander their time with popular art. It fails to recognize that the most productive and valuable forms of art throughout history have been shockingly middle-brow and populist, whether you're talking about Homer and Shakespeare or "The Godfather." It also ignores the fact that "Masterpiece Theater" is a piece of shit (pardon my French) that wouldn't last 10 seconds but for public subsidies.

-Been

12:01 PM  

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