The World's Worst Argument Against Austerity
In the modern U.S. media market, the case for government-funded broadcasting is laughable.
“It sustains a valuable alternative”?!
Americans have endless listening and viewing options, funded by advertising, subscription, and donations of money and time. Why on Earth should U.S. taxpayers have to fund a few extra options that most of Americans almost never watch, much less enjoy?
“It provides content for the entire American people”?!
If you actually consume a little U.S. government-funded media, you’ll swiftly notice ideological capture that makes humanities departments look fair and balanced by comparison. One of my close family members falls asleep to PBS news every night. After five years of shutting off the t.v., I am still stunned by the station’s overwhelming leftist political bias. Few modern dictatorships would air content that so relentlessly takes a sectarian worldview for granted. While it’s not a mouthpiece for the U.S. government, it is a mouthpiece for the woke religion.
Hyperbole? I beg to differ. I remember entire weeks where PBS ran a daily puff piece on yet another glorious woke Stakhanovite icon. At least Fox News routinely acknowledges the existence of millions of vocal enemies. PBS is a bubble within a bubble.
Still, the two preceding arguments for public broadcasting are respectable compared to another I’ve heard over the years. Namely: “Only a microscopic share of the funding for public broadcasting even comes from the government!” If this is really true, the obvious retort is: “Then abolishing 100% of the funding will barely make any difference, so there’s no reason to keep arguing about this issue. Funding abolished, end of story.” In fact, friends of public broadcasting should be happy to lose their miniscule funding, because this festering political battle is a major distraction from providing the high-quality programming their viewers so cherish.
“Only a microscopic share of the funding for public broadcasting even comes from the government!” really is the world’s worst argument against austerity. Why then does anyone make it?
The hasty answer is just: Because this awful argument is still persuasive to weak-minded people.
But that hasty answer begs a major question: If government only provides a microscopic share of the funding for public broadcasting, what’s the point of tricking anyone to bolster popular support?
Which brings us to the ugly truth behind the awful argument: It is deliberately misleading as well as absurd on its face.
How so? Most obviously, government provided the start-up capital for public broadcasting. Economically, this is tantamount to an annuity of taxpayer funding. To truly end government support, then, you’d have to privatize all of their assets, then end their funding. If NPR and PBS want to stay in business, they should — just to keep what’s currently “theirs” — have to privately raise enough money to outbid the rest of the industry at auction.
Less obviously, but even more dishonestly, public broadcasting ultimately gets far more of its money from taxpayers than the oft-quoted “1%.” Why? Because “government” includes federal, state, and local government, and a lot of government support is indirect. Many stations around the country are indeed likely to vanish if they lose even their federal money.
The honest case for continued taxpayer support, then, would be: “Many of the country’s public broadcasters badly need this money to survive!” Compared to “We barely get any money anyway,” that’s a fine argument. Do I damn with faint praise? Yes, because ending taxpayer support for public broadcasting is an austerity no-brainer.
P.S. I’ve appeared on NPR quite a few times, and my personal experience was largely positive. But even I’m not egocentric enough to imagine that “My personal experience was largely positive” is a good argument for continued funding.
Man, it's worse in Canada! Y'all should count yourself lucky y'all don't have CBC. The CBC is about 69% government-funded. A few years ago, hwhen Elon Musk took over Twitter, they briefly-labeled the CBC as "government-funded media". CBC responded that they are only 69% government-funded. (They run ads on CBC TV.) Then, Twitter labeled them as "69% Government-funded media". But they got all in a hissy-fit about it and I think they boycotted Twitter/X for several months because they felt that that label "mislead" the public into thinking they were biased and/or would obfuscate or distort the truth for political reasons ... But that's exactly hwhat they were trying to do! Obfuscate the truth that they are 69% government-funded for political reasons!
That being said, they have some good shows like Air Farce (a sketch show like SNL but taped, primetime and more family-friendly) and 22 Minutes (A News parody show kinda like the Daily Show) and About That with Andrew Chang (a series of explainer videos hwhich are surprisingly fair and balanced, given that they are produced by the CBC. Although I wish they'd do one about defunding the CBC! Ha! You can find them on YouTube. I am confident Andrew Chang can find employment after the CBC is privatized.)
I also realize that even if the government stops funding them, tomorrow, they've benefitted from years of funding which should have allowed them to accumulate significant capital unlike their private-sector competitors. That being said, I am willing to compromise! I am happy to see all future funding cut-off without expecting them to sell their assets!
I honestly think they can survive without future government funding but without having to payy back this "endowment", cutting back on stations in small towns and French stations outside Quebec, continuing running ads on CBC TV as well as Canadian Hit Music shows during morning and evening rush hours (prime time for radio! With a "loose" definition of what counts as "Canadian") but otherwise, pretty much staying the course: Same boring ad-free boomer-oriented programming outside of primetime, etc. and thus still kinda keep up their mission of promoting Canadian culture or hwhatever.
I also am not necessarily against the idea of the government having and expressing "opinions". I think, if we're gonna have a government, there should, at least, be a government website and social media channels, hwhere the government can talk about what it's doing and the government's positions on matters. But not to the tune of $1.4 Billion CAD per year!
I'm left but staunchly opposed to public media. That said, you overlooked the best argument for why the government funding argument is misleading: they want that small bit of funding so that they can claim the imprimatur of "government speech." To do so lets PBS engage in prudish gatekeeping and improperly influence the public discourse. They use the cloak of the government to engage in question begging--Masterpiece Theater is more socially valuable than hardcore pornography because we're the government and we speak with the pocketbook and bully pulpit.