The most obnoxious PBS pledge drive occurred not amid a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert or a replay of the Ken Burns “Civil War” documentary.
It took place 24/7/365 on Capitol Hill from sometime in the late 1960s until, hopefully, 2025, when it ended. And state television never had the decency to provide a Judy Collins CD to the taxpayers as a premium in exchange for their money.
The greatest lie ever told on PBS required but two words: viewer supported.
The pledge drive thanked $15 donors on the air. Programs listed foundations and corporations in the credits. The network always suppressed the identity of its leading donor despite the taxpayer not requesting anonymity. PBS, ashamed of the origins of its funding, always with equal zeal suppressed the identity of the coerced donors as they took their money. (RELATED: Uncle Sam Just Conducted Its Final April 15th Pledge Drive for PBS and NPR)
The U.S. Senate, with a tiebreaking vote from JD Vance, passed legislation this week that may ensure that public broadcasters no longer mislead their viewers about their funding sources. Although the budget deficit for the last 12 months tabulated just shy of $2 trillion, Republicans who claw back $9 trillion — the legislation also targets foreign aid and other funds going to programs of dubious constitutionality — somehow amount to the reckless ones in the script offered by the unsubsidized competitors of PBS.
Wonks call it a “rescissions” package. Really, it’s a truth-in-advertising bill. Now, when they say, “viewer-supported,” the post-middle-aged man and woman helming the pledge drive can pass a lie-detector test.
CBS News reported that the rescissions package would “gut outlets.” PBS President Paula Kerger predicted that many member stations would shutter because the bill destroys “the possibility of funding and sustainability, frankly.”
In other words, the same people who for so long downplayed the subsidy received by PBS — in many cases, the subsidy proved indirect, in that the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting provided grants to local stations assessed fees for national programming — now insist that without the federal government, public television as we know it collapses.
We know many people who do not watch nevertheless support public television involuntarily because the rescissions package reaches $1.1 billion — a number beyond even The Count’s comprehension — for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That’s $1.1 billion more than Netflix, HBO, and Roku receive from the federal trough. Yet, voluntarily, the public hands over billions more to such outlets. This is what happens when people are, to borrow a phrase from the title of a Milton Friedman documentary that ran on PBS 45 years ago, free to choose.
Even in the early days of television, when just four national networks existed, one could choose Mister Peepers if Jack Benny (or Rochester, or his violin) did not appeal. No taxpayer gets to choose whether they pledge an annual gift to PBS. The government makes everyone do it. That’s creepy and gross and something out of a dystopian science-fiction story.
Final passage requires that conservatives stand up for the taxpayer rather than the disproportionately white, upper-class demographic who want their viewing choices subsidized by those less fortunate than them. Congress, hopefully, changes the channel once and for all.
For those desiring public television, they can either up their annual tithing or move to Russia, Iran, North Korea, or any number of other countries where state television prevails.
READ MORE from Daniel J. Flynn:
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Gleaned the Wrong Message From Sesame Street
