I am a child of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It molded my characters and my values. It lit my curiosity on fire. That’s probably why Republicans have been so anxious to get rid of it and all that it funded.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has existed for most of my life – I’m not a full two years older than the CPB. The corporation’s mission was to ensure universal access to non-commercial, high-quality educational, cultural, and other content and telecommunications services. It provided funding to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations, including PBS and NPR stations. In particular, CPB funding was a key part of small and rural public media station budgets. Stations that received CPB funds were required to meet certain standards, including open meetings, open financial records, a community advisory board, equal employment opportunity, and public lists of donors and political activities. The CPB’s annual budget was composed almost entirely of an annual appropriation from Congress plus interest on those funds.
CPB was one of the funders of the Children’s Television Workshop, the company that created and produced Sesame Street, which premiered November 10, 1969 on WNIN and other public television stations, when I was three, and The Electric Company, which premiered October 25, 1971, when I was five. I watched those shows any time I knew they were on. These shows, plus Schoolhouse Rock, which premiered in January 1973, when I was seven, all gave me and my fellow students an edge in school: we already knew so much of what teachers in elementary school were trying to teach us. I remember teachers saying, with a surprise on their face, “A lot of you already know this!” Some even snuck some episodes of The Electric Company into our class time.
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was produced by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania public broadcaster WQED, a station that was partially funded by CPB. I consider that show, plus all the reruns that were on daytime TV in the early 70s, such as reruns of the original Star Trek, The Andy Griffith Show, the Dick Van Dyke Show and the Twilight Zone all teaching me about kindness in a way no Sunday School class nor Sunday church sermon ever did.
But Republicans don’t want well-educated children, well-prepared for their first day of school. They don’t want shows that teach kindness. They don’t want mission-based, not-for-profit programming at all. They want for-profit programming, with a mission to make as much money as possible. Children’s shows are, for them, a way to sell toys and snacks, and to get kids to not believe in nor be interested in science.
The budget of the CPB is a fraction of what is spent on things like Presidential golf trips and Presidential-endorsed crypto and invasions of other countries. And what it funds creates well-rounded, critical thinkers who are used to seeing people of different ages and ethnicities interacting with each other. It encourages concepts like cooperation and understanding and learning. And Republicans need to stop such things. They need to produce an endless supply of easily-manipulated adults who are afraid of change and each other, who think the enemy is always those who are different – never the people making billions.
It took many, many years to create the CPB and all that it funded. This doesn’t come back with a stroke of a pen. This doesn’t come back with a different President.
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