----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Jan. 30 jajasoon tlitteu wrote:
 
>I'm not saying that we should cut public funding, nor am I echoing
>sentiments from the 30's when the FCC said that commercial broadcasting was
>more of the people than public broadcasting because commercial stations
>will give people what they want to see to make a buck.  I am saying that we
>should stop perpetuating the mystique that PBS is liberal good programming
>and see them as just as much of a PR wing for corporate America as any
>other network.
 
Thanks.   I think yours was an challenging, non-dogmatic, and useful
perspective on the whole public broadcasting thing, especially when combined
with the other PBS-related material I received in the 1/30 SCREEN-L Digest.
   As a documentary filmmaker I struggle to avoid falling into the
"overwrought" classification but, then again, there is the sense that
made-for-PBS material is often holding back in some way.  There is a fine
line between restraint-as-pragmatism neccessary to reach a wide audience and
 restraint-as-self-censorship to avoid problems with sponsors and watchdog
groups.  I think many of us feel frustration with PBS and NPR because we feel
they bend too far toward the latter.
 
It has bothered me that, as I have manned the ramparts in defense of PBS,
there has been no room for me to seek redress of my own greivances with the
service.  I just watched a couple of episodes of "The Ride" series yesterday
which _was_ challenging and fresh.  This was public television funded by the
Independent Television Service which was created to add some new voices to
public broadcasting.  Many suspect ITVS will be the first casualty of the
bargaining sessions ahead.
 
You're probably right about the social critique contained in hugely popular
shows like "Rossane," etc.   But somehow every time I turn to a commercial
station during prime time I land on a raft of commericials and, as a tv brat,
I just don't have the attention span to endure them.  I know that's a poor
excuse for ignorance but I must also confess that there are many aspects of
modern commercial broadcasting which disturb me deeply and it will take more
thought to word them here so as to make them scholarly rather than just plain
paranoid.
 
Thanks again for your interesting posts over the last week or so.
 
Stephen McCarthy, Boston