Republican presidential nominee frontrunner Mitt Romney is pledging to cut Federal funding for America’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Quizzed by voters in Clinton, Iowa regarding the future of PBS, Romney said: “You might say, ‘I like the National Endowment for the Arts’. I do. I like PBS. We subsidise PBS. Look, I’m going to stop that. I’m going to say, ‘PBS is going to have to have advertisements.’”
on Dec 29th, 2011 at 16:00
Brain dead, stupid, uninformed comment; but not surprising given his orientation. Can’t expect a slave to the corporate sector to comprehend that there are essential and socially useful differences between a broadcaster that serves commercial advertisers first and one serves the interests of the public first. Having both makes media in general stronger and more comprehensive. Besides, following his prescription saves almost no money and will adversely affect media diversity most devastatingly in rural areas… like Iowa, for instance. But we will have to be confronted by this verbal swill for another 11 months here in the U.S.
on Dec 29th, 2011 at 16:57
Certainly the truth. It will be a tiresome year in this election season.
on Dec 30th, 2011 at 13:39
Mitt Romney’s a fool, yet all the Republican contenders are fools. Their value lies only as entertainment…. sort of.
on Dec 30th, 2011 at 22:26
I would argue that many of the underwriting messages on NPR are just another word for commercials. And organisations already know this. http://www.uuchicago.org/index.php/about-cauuc/program-resources/54-advertise-on-npr
on Dec 31st, 2011 at 04:07
No argument here, Jonathan. What used to be underwriting recognitions have morphed into mini-ads, a classic case of “the camel’s nose under the tent.” Of course, if public media is to reflect the culture from which it springs, it would be impossible to exclude all aspects of America’s commercially saturated culture from showing up there in some form. Nonetheless, the apparent willingness of public media everywhere–even the sacred BBC–to adopt the methods, metering and values of the commercial culture is something of an infection that threatens to erase what once was a bright line.