Nailing the PBS coffin

Poor public broadcasting. Remember when it was called “non-commercial” television and radio because it really was.

Some countries still have such a thing. No commercials.

Imagine.

But here things have changed.

First we had on-air “underwriting,” which merely mentioned the name of the “underwriters,” mostly do-good foundations. The brief name mentions were limited to the beginnings and ends of the programs.

Then underwriting became sponsorships, which gradually became highly produced commercials or “promos.” Their length grew and grew, presumably with the size of the "contribution."

Somewhere along the way the term “non-commercial” broadcasting was replaced with “public broadcasting.” But because the sponsors had now largely become private corporations, “public broadcasting,” with few exceptions (like Bill Moyers' Journal and Frontlines), was bent to private interests over The Public Interest, a tenet enshrined in the original Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934 (but that's another story....)

Still, at least “public broadcasting” left programming uninterrupted by commercial or promotional interruptions.

Now we learn that those days are about to end too, with PBS planning to do “preliminary testing” of intrusive commercial fare in the middle of programing. Are PBS executives so out of touch that they have to “test” a bad idea? Sounds like a done deal.

What, pray tell, is the difference between PBS's commercial interruptions and those found on commercial broadcasting? And why should we, fellow viewers and listeners, make monetary pledges to support yet another advertising vehicle.

Do I send checks to CBS, ABC, NBC or, heaven forbid, FOX?

Oregon Public Broadcasting, which prides itself on viewer and listener support, is certain to suffer financial fallout from the PBS change.

To show you how far PBS has fallen, consider its response to a story posted HERE. The response is crafted in PR-ese by PBS communications Vice President Anne Bentley (formerly of AOL), who has clearly learned the dark art of corporate double-talk.

We are always looking at ways to improve the viewer experience. In line with that, we’ve done research and one of the things that we’re going to try is to come up with is a way to develop better flow between shows. It is all about the viewer and how the viewer gets an opportunity to see our shows.

Our intention is to test it out with a single night and see how that goes. Depending on what we learn, we’ll see where we go from there.

We’ve done some preliminary testing, but we intend to do more before we move forward absolutely.

Initial testing showed that viewers didn’t really notice the change, but we want to do additional testing. As we move forward, we’ll be monitoring it closely.

As PBS "moves forward," a few millions of us will no doubt be moving on to some other improved "viewer experience."

Frontline documentary blind to cultural repression

Watching “Obama’s War,” the PBS Frontline documentary on American military involvement in Afghanistan, a few million of us in the audience were forced to suspend our disbelief.

That’s what television asks us to do most of the time — to our peril. I’d hoped for better from PBS.

In one hour of programing last night, we saw but one Afghan woman. She was barely visible. She said nothing. She was little more than a bundle on the back of a fleeting motorbike. We saw her head-to-foot in a burka and wearing goggles as a man, presumably her husband, transported her down a dusty street.

So much for women in Afghanistan.

Much of the rest of the program was about Marines (all males) trying lamely to jolly stolid, slightly bemused, suspicious Afghan men into rapport and ultimate resistance to the off-stage, but clearly feared Taliban. How religion and notions of “infidels” might play into the relationship was never explored.

What the audience saw were men doing men’s futile, often violent, work in a culture that bars women from sight and opportunity. The program’s directors and its correspondent/narrator Martin Smith never so much as acknowledged the obvious.

The rights of woman, half the Afghan population, weren’t on the table or the screen.

Some criticize American military and diplomatic policy in Afghanistan as futile nation-building. The critics rightly doubt that Americans and Afghans share the same definition of “nation.” Or, I would add, the same definitions of “loyalty,” “honesty,” “integrity,” and “democracy.”

Clearly the Afghan culture in the country-side, where the war for "hearts and minds" is being waged, doesn’t share our definition of human rights.

Forget nation building.

Is a culture so starkly at odds with our own culture worth the dollars and lives we are spending to preserve it?

It’s a sad commentary that this program failed to explore, let alone acknowledge, the cultural disconnect.


P.S. Paul King, a regular Red Electric reader, has written this response:

We, too, watched the PBS piece on Afghanistan. I agree with
you about the futility of our trying to bring their culture into the 21st
century. That can only be done by Afghans.

When watching films on third world countries, I often muse over
our own history. How short the years since our forebears painted the
big red "A" on women who committed adultery and burned them as
witches while stoning others to death in the name of God.

How long have our women been considered anything other than
property under the law and how long have they had the right to vote?

I think we, betimes, are a tad quick to judge those who, under nearly
inconceivable conditions to westerners, are centuries behind us and
burdened with religions and cultures which demean women as we
once did.

And while we're about it, consider the King James version of the Holy
Bible which certainly does not accord to most of its women the
independence and self-determination given to its men.