June 04, 2004
On the Media
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2011
⏱️ 51 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. |
| 0:14.2 | And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The public broadcasting service is supposed to operate entirely free of political pressure. To that end, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created as an independent body through which to funnel government support. |
| 0:27.6 | Also, to that end, only five members of CPB's nine-member board can be from one party. |
| 0:33.6 | And also, to that end, Congress funds CPB two years in advance to shield it from momentary bursts of partisan anger. |
| 0:41.8 | President Johnson envisioned a moat between politicians and public broadcasting when he proposed the system. |
| 0:48.1 | Ken Aletta, how did Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at the time, |
| 0:53.3 | respond to the president's metaphor. |
| 0:56.3 | Well, you know, Bill Moyers tells a great story. |
| 0:58.8 | He was a young aide to Lyndon Johnson at the time, and Johnson told him that. |
| 1:02.7 | And Wilburne Mills, they were sitting over Bourbon, I assume it was bourbon. |
| 1:06.6 | And he said, well, Lyndon, you know, I want to help you. |
| 1:09.5 | I want to do all I can for you. But Lyndon, if you were me, you wouldn't let them have that kind of independence. |
| 1:14.9 | Ken, a letter writes for the New Yorker. |
| 1:16.4 | His new piece, Big Bird Flies Right, explains how Johnson's moat is rapidly being drained. |
| 1:22.1 | Ken, welcome back to the show. |
| 1:23.3 | Good to be here. |
| 1:24.6 | So PBS has always felt political pressure. |
| 1:27.0 | Nixon tried to be here. So PBS has always felt political pressure. Nixon tried to crush it. Reagan wanted to rescind the CPB's appropriation. Politicians like Newt Gingrich openly went after it as a plaything of the elite. As have Democrats, by the way, over the years. |
| 1:39.0 | But you suggest that these full frontal political attacks on public broadcasting didn't work because it turned out |
| 1:45.6 | it wasn't the play thing of the elite, but most importantly, a healthy companion for kids |
| 1:50.7 | and why would anybody want to kill Big Bird? Not only kids, which is 10 to 12 hours a day of |
| 1:55.6 | children's programming on PBS, which makes it very popular, but also a source for news and public affairs for much |
... |
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