I just learned that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is being shutdown this year. This is my gut level reaction to it, peer to peer, human to human, unfiltered but hopefully at least spelled correctly.
The world is a poorer place without the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I grew up in a small rural town. We had school libraries, and school librarians who cared, but my lifeline to the outside world was television. And a lot of my education came from Public Television. Sesame Street. The Electric Company. The Write Channel. 3-2-1 Contact. Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Reading Rainbow. Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Doctor Who. Masterpiece Theater. American Playhouse. PBS Newshour. I’m not even counting the cooking shows, or the painting shows, or so many things.
It came from a report in 1965 by the Carnegie Commission. They coined the phrase ‘public television.’ And 2 years later, they released their report in January 1967, to create an independent body, to support culture, scientific education, and overall public education. By November 1967, this good idea was supported by Congress, and the independent body ‘The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’ was formed.
2 years later, in November 1969, ‘Sesame Street’ was born. One year later, the 8 year old show ‘Mister Rogers Neighborhood’ was inherited by PBS from National Educational Television.
So much good came from this report, from this act, from these people. So many people from my generation listened and learned. And now, 58 years later, it’s like the wealthiest and most powerful of my generation and the one above us, it’s like they never got the message. To be a good neighbor. To see the kids on your block that might look different from you and learn together.
If you’re in media, and you work for the CPB, I’m sorry. There’s no other words I can think of. I’m sorry, and you deserved better. And I hope you land on your feet. We don’t need more people out of work. We don’t need more people in media out of work. And we certainly don’t need people who help educate our children in reading, writing, and caring to be out of work.
Yet here we are.
I’m writing this because I want a record of what I said on the day I learned this had happened. I want my professional peers to know what I thought about it today. I want to write it down unfiltered, in one draft, after thinking about it for a few minutes.
And I want to know what, if anything, a little guy like me can do in the future. Something like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, even the CPB itself, needs to exist. To function. To be healthy, and stable, and working for the public trust. PBS itself will continue. But this makes their job, and the job of all of those little stations, even harder. To the point where some may disappear.
And I don’t really want to know anyone who’s cynical or gleeful about the idea of an America where the place that helped birth Sesame Street is gone.
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Also posted to Linkedin.
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