It's that time of the year. When end-of-year appeals from all the non-profits come crashing into our mailboxes and INBoxes. I opened one such letter from Channel Thirteen, our locate PBS affiliate and my reaction was surprising.
I was annoyed. And I didn't feel remotely like pulling out my checkbook. Why?
I mean those little promo spots telling us "why Archer Daniels Midland" supports public television are really ads. Does anybody dispute that?
And the idea of public television is that it was supposed to be a safe-zone, free of the influence of advertisers and their whims. And yet, these days the Newshour (and virtually every show in recent memory) is interrupted a couple of times at the top and tail to acknowledge the support of its underwriters.
This is a direct result of the Republican party's determination to destroy PBS, NPR, the NEA and a whole host of other funding sources on which cultural institutions depend. One might have thought that viewer loyalty would save these stations. And perhaps it has. I don't know. Maybe I'm an anomaly. I haven't done a survey.
But I'm finding it increasingly difficult to disentangle the disgust I feel for the ads I have to endure from the commitment I feel to the idea of public funding of culture. And I suspect I may not be alone in this. What do you think?
