MRC: Big Bird Doesn't Deserve Big Bucks From Uncle Sam
by Chad Groening
June 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - A spokesman for a media watchdog organization says it is hard to justify why the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), two very liberal media outlets, continue to need federal tax dollars to stay on the air while other broadcasters have to compete in the marketplace.The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee recently voted to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 25 percent. However, the recommendation must pass the full House and then the Senate, which has apparently been more than willing to fund what many consider to be a liberal-biased network.
Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center (MRC) says if those on the Left want to keep outlets like PBS and NPR on the air, wealthy liberal businessmen like George Soros ought to pull out their checkbooks. Noyes says Soros "threw I don't know how many millions of dollars into the [national presidential election] campaign last year."
The MRC spokesman says he puts no credence in "the idea that there's not enough money out there" among "the people who actually like and watch [public radio and television] with its liberal agenda" that those fans of NPR and PBS "couldn't get out there to support it." And it is outrageous, he adds, that Democrats like New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey always pull out "Big Bird" when cutbacks are threatened.
According to Noyes, that iconic Muppet -- the big, yellow bird of Sesame Street fame -- has become a tool of the Left for pulling the sentimental purse strings of their constituency. "Big Bird is a money raiser for PBS," the media expert says. "They sell those little puppet birds and make a fortune."
But popular and useful shows like Sesame Street are not the public radio programs that require help, Noyes points out. "It's the programs that are unpopular," he says, "like Now, which was Bill Moyers show -- now it's David Brancaccio's show -- [it is those programs] that simply offer far Left Wing propaganda that need the public subsidy to stay on the air."
What is hard to justify, Noyes insists, is "why PBS, out of all the television stations out there, and NPR, out of all the radio stations out there, are the only ones to get a public subsidy, and everybody else has to compete in the marketplace."
The argument for PBS back in the 1960s, the media analyst notes, was that it was needed for diversity. Now, however, he asserts, "With cable television and hundreds of channels, there's so much diversity out there, so many different kinds of programming out there, that if liberals like [the slant of NPR and PBS], they can fund it."
On the other hand, if liberals want to keep public radio and television "in the public trough," Noyes contends, then those behind NPR and PBS need to "figure out some way to get themselves more balanced."
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
