Cross-posted on Robert David Sullivan blog.
James Poniewozik makes an excellent point about how the Republican Party's incessant attacks on public broadcasting is really targeted at Middle America:
There's the irony: so much of this culture clash is premised on the idea that heartland America is supporting liberal programming for contemptuous coastal elites. But if you took away every dime of public-broadcasting money, East coast elites like me would be just fine. We'd still have our well-funded local public outlets, which we support with the piles of money we get when our banks, media corporations, &c. suck the lifeblood of decent average Americans like you.
It's the heartland that would be screwed—places, if you look at an electoral map, that vote Republican. Conservatives are right: Sesame Street will be fine. And my kids will still be able to watch it.
On the other hand, if you live in, say, South Dakota, or some other rural region with a sparse population base within range of the broadcast signal, you likely won't have a public-TV station anymore to watch it on, public TV being far more expensive to run than public radio.
It's true. Boston's public radio outlets and TV stations (note the plurals) are going to be fine. They get a lot of support from affluent listeners, corporations, and academic/arts/science institutions that enjoy coverage of their activities by WGBH and WBUR. I can even imagine the state of Massachusetts kicking in some dough to keep public broadcasting going. It would be politically popular, and there would be some justification for taxpayers' dollars going to investigative journalism that roots out political corruption, corporate wrongdoing, and the like. In some ways, local journalism has many of the same objectives that a tough attorney general's office has. (I don't imagine that pesky reporters or a meddlesome attorney general would have the same popular support in, say, Texas.)
But public broadcasting in "red states" could be in real trouble without federal support. These are places without strong newspapers like the New York Times and Boston Globe. (I complain about those papers, too, but a lot of cities have little more than shopper's circulars padded with obituaries and a few right-wing syndicated columnists.) And these are places where a lot of political battles take place without the notice of the national media, at least until something extreme like the union-busting in Wisconsin happens. I'm sure that Republicans in those states don't care what people in Boston and New York listen to, as long as it doesn't reach their own constituents.
