PUBLIC BROADCASTING'S STATE OF FEAR

by Michael Winship

Last week, I attended a reunion of "The 51st State," a robust, local public television news and public affairs program that graced the airwaves of New York City's Channel Thirteen back in the early 1970's. I didn't have the pleasure of working on the show -- it went off the air shortly after my arrival in Manhattan -- but a lot of my friends and colleagues did, and it was a treat to see all of them again.

The reason for the gathering was the launch of an effort by Thirteen to rescue and restore old videotape from its four-and-a-half decade past. Better late than never. Over the years, as a frequent public television writer/producer and a sometime television historian, I've bemoaned the loss of thousands of hours of videotape, significant history, much of it erased or simply tossed into dumpsters.

Clips were shown from old "51st State" broadcasts, eliciting hoots of recognition, laughter, pride and not a few tears. What we saw was a raucous, lively, offbeat, iconoclastic, funny, rough and tumble TV program, a newscast not unlike the city it covered but totally unlike any local television news show since.

That's a pity, and its says volumes not only about the current state of local TV news but the state of public broadcasting in America, which has perpetually struggled to recapture the spirit of its early days; the ragged-edge innovation, willingness to take risks, the opportunity for all kinds of people to participate in the creation of programming that reflected a panoply of their interests and concerns.

The problem, of course, is financing. The old joke in public broadcasting: the good news is, you've got partial funding; the bad news is, you've got partial funding.

There are wonderful, probing public television series such as "Frontline," "NOW," "P.O.V." and "Wide Angle." "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer," in its 32nd year, continues to provide valuable perspective on the issues of the day. The kids' shows and science and history documentaries can't be beat. And National Public Radio is a true news organization, not just covering stories but uncovering them, large and small, all over the world.

But when you look at the primetime schedules of many PBS stations across the country there's a lot of dead air. Like the World War II cargo ship in "Mister Roberts," the programs sail "from tedium to apathy and back again, with an occasional side trip to monotony." There are all too many nights and weeks of pledge drives filled with self-help lectures, doo-wop concerts and the Best of the Andy Williams Christmas specials.

With that quest for money comes fear. Not only fear that there won't be enough, but the fear of offending the funder, whether it be the public, corporations, foundations or government; of saying or doing something that will prompt the hand that feeds to shut off the nourishment or meddle with and censor programming. That, in turn, leads to what may be the worst kind of censorship: self-censorship, a preemptive, self-inflicted blow to stave off the clenched fist of the funder.

Over the last couple of years, we saw grievous attempts at government interference on the part of Ken Tomlinson, a conservative Bush appointee who, as a board member and chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which administers the Federal financing of public broadcasting, illegally paid for the monitoring of public broadcasting's alleged ideological content and attempted to influence programming.

Now Tomlinson is gone, and not only from CPB. Just a couple of weeks ago he informed the president he was withdrawing his name for another term as chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees government-financed, international broadcast operations such as Voice of America and Radio Marti.

As Variety reported January 10, "Last year, an inspector general's report by the State Dept. -- BBG's parent agency -- criticized Tomlinson for inappropriately putting a friend on the BBG payroll and for using BBG time and resources to conduct his private horse racing business and to bet on horses." With the new Democratic Congress, Senate confirmation of Tomlinson would have been tough sledding at best.

He soon may be forgotten by most (although, fair warning, he's writing a book), but Tomlinson's legacy is far from gone. Last summer, to replace Tomlinson as a Corporation for Public Broadcasting board member, President Bush named conservative television executive Warren Bell, a sitcom producer who has frequently contributed material to the right-wing National Review's website. There he once wrote that he would "reach across the aisle and hug Nancy Pelosi... except this is a new shirt, and that sort of thing leaves a stain." (After his nomination to CPB, he apologized.)

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee rejected Bell's nomination, but after Congress adjourned in December, amidst the distraction of the holidays, President Bush placed Bell on the board anyway, using his power to make recess appointments when Congress isn't in session.

Perhaps the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is right: maybe the $400 million public broadcasting receives from the government via CPB is too great a price to pay for the muzzling of vision, creativity and controversy.

The current situation cries out for the creation of a long-dreamed-of trust fund for public broadcasting, free of partisan interference from either side. We should go to Congress and the American people for one big push: the pledge drive to, quite literally, end all pledge drives.

Quixotic, perhaps, but watching those vibrant clips from the old "51st State" last week reminded me that we have strayed woefully far from.