Whatever Vivian Schiller says or does should not be reason enough to defund America’s public broadcasting system.
Schiller fired the perfectly qualified Juan Williams from his long-held job at NPR allegedly for expressing fear about people of Muslim faith. He said that, in the aftermath of the horror of 9/11, he felt uneasy on a plane with passengers in Muslim garb.
Schiller maintained that Williams’ comments about his innermost feelings somehow constituted racial profiling.
The whole affair was political correctness run amok, said some defenders, that he was fired chiefly because he had the temerity to appear as a commentator on Fox News. As for Schiller, the Williams’ camp blows her off as a language commissar terrorizing all those who believe in the First Amendment.
Whatever the merits of that opinion, I see no reason for serious disagreement about the merits of taxpayer-supported radio and television — even in a country where a solid majority prefers media ownership dispersed in many private hands and not under monolithic government control.
President Lyndon Johnson was right when he created public broadcasting as part of his Great Society. He recognized that people do not live by bread alone — that access to great music, great art and great literature ennoble even the most hum-drum life.
TV’s PBS and radio’s NPR offer enlightening programs not available on network television, cable or private radio. I can do without the left-oriented NPR news. But NPR is more than just its strange attraction to corrupt and perverted socialism. Tune in its “Science Friday,” “Fresh Air” and wonderful off-beat features on everything from culture to sports to agriculture. And freedom from ads on public broadcasting is like a sunny day in the country and worth every taxpayer nickel.
In short, the good of public broadcasting far outweighs the bad. Surely, it’s worth a minuscule fraction of the federal budget even in the direst of economic times.
Bogdan Kipling is a Canadian columnist in Washington. McClatchy-Tribune distributed these essays.
