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."

Some uninvited advice for The Oregonian

The Oregonian is shrinking again.

The way it is going about its slow disappearing act — and that’s what it is — says something about why it will continue to fade to nothing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a newspaper guy and I want to see a major news presence of Oregonian-proportions survive.

Notice that I didn’t say a major “newspaper.” That may not be possible.

But I do want a financially viable Portland news organization to emerge from the turmoil that has hit the industry. It may take some combining of resources and an entirely new methods of funding.

It will certainly take new ways of thinking.

It’s about time. For instance, it’s time for the news to be free of advertising pressures and compromises.

It may also mean the end of petty, cheap-shot competition. Journalism and journalists should have one share, and even cooperative, purpose: informing the public.

Call me crazy, but I believe The Oregonian could be the locus around which this new journalism emerges. Other journalistic “partners” could be Willamette Week, Community Newspapers and OPB.

But The Oregonian, as the big dog, is critical. And if the big dog is dying, things could fall apart quickly.

So what can The Oregonian do short-term to survive?

Here are seven recommendations.

The most recent evidence of the paper’s decline is subsuming the “Business” section into the front news section. The change says, in effect, that the “Business” section isn’t worthy of the reader’s separate consideration. Unlike, for instance, the “Sports” section, which remains very much its own entity. The message is that sports is more important than business.

Hello!

Part of the problem is in the old section’s name, “Business.” The “Business” section has evolved, or should, from being strictly about business to being about the economy. It ought to be “The Economy” section.

Recommendation #1 is to call it “The Economy” and include news about labor and personal finance as well as about business. People are talking a whole lot more about the economy these days than, say, about The Blazers. Which brings us to….

Recommendation #2. If “Sports” is worthy of its own section and massive column inches (a doubtful assumption), “The Economy” certainly is equally deserving. Its substance is nothing less than our livelihood, our well being, our savings, our sense of security.

Come to think of it, “The Economy” increasingly determines “How We Live,” (HWL) which happens to be the name of another section.

Recommendation #3. Call “How We Live” something else like “Time Out” or “The Rest of the Story” (thank you, Paul Harvey) or “UpBeat” but don’t change its content. One exception: move any HWL economy story to the new “The Economy” section.

As it turns out, I spend more time with “HWL” than any other section. That’s because of its daily publication of games. The time-sink for me is Sudoku. The reason: It’s inter-active — like the Internet, which competes for the rest of my time.

Recommendation #4. Keep the “HWL” format but consider using interactive features in other parts of the paper.

Recommendation #5. Put “Sports” at the back of “How We Live.” Clearly sports are an attraction for many folks, mostly hairy chested ones who form symbiotic relationships with sports figures.

The above recommendations likely will do little more than buy the newspaper time to create a new journalism institution. Which leads us to....

Recommendation #6. Start talking with other news organizations and institutions about the future of Portland journalism. Get over bruised or inflated egos and start to put together a plan for serving the public. Consider a quasi-public service, non-profit organization called “The Portland News Consortium.”

Recommendation #7. Challenge your readers and your own old assumptions and habits by dropping useless baggage. It can be as far-reaching as cooperating and converging with other news organizations and media, or as simple, but ethical, as announcing that the paper will cease referring to the University of Oregon/Oregon State rivalry as a war — specifically a "Civil War."

Pledge drive for Nukes

The recently concluded Oregon Public Broadcasting pledge drive reminded me of the bumper sticker:

“Why not adequately fund our schools and have the Air Force hold bake sales to buy bombers?”

I’m thinking we ought to make our nuclear arsenal dependent on radio pledge drives like OPB’s.

It might go something like this.

“Well, April, how are we doing?”

“Not so good, Colin. We have only one wing nut paid for, thanks to a generous $5,000 contribution from retired Air Force colonel in Redmond.”

“Wow. Well thanks, Colonel, but we need a whole lot more patriotic Americans like you to step up to defend freedom. You all need to go to your phones if we are going to build up our current arsenal of a paltry 5,736 nuclear warheads.”

“That’s right, April. Why destroy the planet once when you can do it 10 times over? I mean let’s show the Russians, the Chinese and the Pakistanis what REAL power is.”

“To say nothing of Israel, India, Britain and France.”

“So here’s that number again, 876-853-7669 or ‘US nukes now.’”

“By the way, if you contribute to our nuclear weapons program, it will mean we can spend your tax dollars on boring stuff like universal health care, first-rate schools and alternative energy.”

“Boy, it sure is quiet around here, April. Let’s make those phones start ringing. Do it now! Just remember, your pledges help our military-industrial complex.”

“Speaking of which, Colin, how about that Boeing offer for the first pledge of $50,000?”

“That’s right, April. For your pledge of $50,000, you get a free round-the-world junket, just like the ones Boeing takes our members of Congress on. They’ve even set up pseudo-defense conferences in places like the Cayman Islands, Fiji and Bali.”

“How can you pass that one up? That number again is ….”

"Thinking is entertainment"...sometimes

The other day I met a kindred spirit who works at Oregon Public Broadcasting, and she handed me her business card.

The front carried the requisite information (name, title, phone, e-mail), but the back was devoted to a neatly printed one-line come-on:

Thinking is entertainment

It got me thinking, and my thinking wasn't all that entertaining. Still, bear with me if you can stand an entertainment-free moment.

OPB’s message carries a lot of subtext, as we say in the Media Literacy community.

The notion that “thinking is entertainment” may be necessary to get an entertainment-obsessed, thinking-averse audience to think, or at least to consider thinking.

Heck, it may even get them to watch public broadcasting, though the Lehrer News Hour isn't exactly my idea of fun.

Let’s face it, a lot of thinking isn’t entertaining at all. It’s just head-scratchingly hard work. Rewarding, perhaps, even challenging, but no romp in the park.

Thinking is not something many folks would choose to do during prime-time, say as a replacement for “Survivor,” “Grey’s Anatomy” or “CSI.”

Something else needs to be said about this little OPB aphorism. While some, but not all, thinking is entertainment, most popular entertainment—unlike art—doesn’t entail thinking. (I know, there's something snooty about that "popular" and "art" bit , but I don't have the space to deal with it here. Another time....)

The fact is most mass media entertainment today requires no thinking at all. “Feeling” (sex, fear, revulsion, greed, envy) perhaps, but not thinking.

I'll go further: mass media entertainment (think about commercials, for instance) requires that you not think. There’s a term for this: Suspension of Disbelief.

Flick on the TV, go to the movie, play a video game. All require you to suspend disbelief. For advertisers (and, in one form or another, advertisers pay for nearly all media these days), such mental vacuity is pay dirt: an audience of media-numbed consumers no longer able to think critically.

Now imagine political advertising. It goes a long way to explaining the state we are in.

So my response to the OPB business card's “Thinking is entertainment” is two whispered words…

Let’s talk.

OPB: "Nike Community Center" possible

It seems that we might get stuck with the "Nike Southwest Community Center" after all.

Parks officials assured a group of us a week ago that the proposed Portland Parks and Recreation corporate sponsorship/naming rights rule wouldn't allow for plastering a corporate name or logo on community centers.

Oh yeah?

Here is über-activist Amanda Fritz, who generally favors corporate naming rights sponsorships, quoted in an OPB story that aired yesterday.

Amanda Fritz is a longtime community activist who lost a recent bid for city council. She has weighed in on the policy and says there is room for a corporate logo in a parks building.

Amanda Fritz: "But there isn't a potential to have a 'Nike Park' anyplace in Portland. There might be the potential under the sponsorship policy to have a 'Nike Recreation Center,' or something like that."

Today is the last day to comment on whether you want our parks commercialized and our community centers named for corporations. You can comment here.