Brent Bozell's Position on PBS: Hypocritical or Deceitful

By Eric Jaffa, Sunday, June 26, 2005

Brent Bozell
Brent Bozell is the president of the Parents Television Council.

Amanda Toering is the director of SpeakSpeak a pro Free Speech group.

In a recent article at SpeakSpeak News, Amanda Toering described Brent Bozell's advocacy of family programming, which falls short of endorsing the govt. funding of PBS:

Red-headed bloviator Brent Bozell, whom we hate to love to hate, just can’t seem to make up his mind about whether “family friendly” programming is a good thing.

You probably know Bozell from his position as figurehead of the HMS Parents TV Council. Bozell and his army of easily offended proselytes are largely responsible for the siege on the FCC that resulted in record indecency fines in 2004.

Bozell’s PTC regularly excoriates broadcast television (and even cable, over which the FCC has no jurisdiction) for piping filth into our homes, and presumably into our children’s minds.

One might think, then, that Bozell would be the leading champion for a child-friendly TV network. Imagine a station that dedicated itself to educational programming instead of bash-’em-up daytime talk shows. Imagine a network that encouraged kids to love to read, instead of encouraging them to beg mom or dad for the latest PlayStation hit. Imagine —

Hey, wait a second. We’ve already got that. It’s called PBS! Rejoice, Bozells of the world!!

Or maybe not.

This morning’s Today Show had Bozell showing his true colors. It’s not kids he cares about; it’s politics.

The article quotes Bozell as saying on June 23, 2005:

Bozell: Shows like “Sesame Street,” Barney,” that type of programming, they are making hundreds of millions dollars in profits on the sales of their merchandise. They don’t need a dime of taxpayer money.

... ...PBS is supposed to be cultural programming, not political programming. And there’s far too much left-lean political programming.

The article continues:

He’s hoping we won’t notice that he’s the biggest self-proclaimed family programming advocate around — and that he just advocated for the defunding of Barney and Sesame Street. Slick one, Brent!

Barney and Elmo, according to Brent Bozell, are worth more to your kids as marketing tools than they are as educational tools. He seems to miss the point that the very idea behind public funding of these programs is that they can emphasize learning over buying — without having to worry about how well the latest toy is selling.

Why is Brent Bozell not behind such solid kids’ programming — the kind my generation grew up with?

‘Cause politics is more fun. And because he’s a blatant hypocrite.

Another point is that it's expensive to have offices in cities throughout America, as PBS does. It is also expensive to do investigative journalism, which is an important way that PBS serves the public.

PBS can't fund all the important things it does from toy sales.

In the interest of fairness, let me interpret Bozell's position generously for a moment:

Maybe he's saying that if PBS ended it's broadcasting of news and politics, then the "Sesame Street: related toy sales would be enough for PBS to continue to offer all the current children's programs.

That statement may be true, by itself.

There is still a problem with that argument. Bozell is misrepresenting the mission of PBS.

While Bozell claims that the mission of PBS is to offer "cultural programming" not "political," this is what the PBS website says:

It's important to know first that our mission is to inform, to inspire, and to educate. We believe that the content we develop, fund, and schedule can contribute to a more healthy society and that our programs should encourage the active involvement of citizens to trust, connect and act collectively to address social challenges. PBS aims to increase awareness, provide multiple viewpoints, treat complex social issues completely, provide forums for deliberation, and strengthen ties between our viewers and Web users and their communities. Others may produce content within the same genres, but programming produced for PBS must always be distinct as well as distinctive.

Furthermore, The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, as Amended, states:

Public television and radio stations and public telecommunications services constitute valuable local community resources for utilizing electronic media to address national concerns and solve local problems through community programs and outreach programs.

More evidence that coverage of politics is part of the mission of PBS: President Lyndon Johnson said on the day he signed the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967 that

At its best, public television would help make our Nation a replica of the old Greek marketplace, where public affairs took place in view of all the citizens.

Eric Jaffa is one of the writers at SpeakSpeak News

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