Throwing the book at (or for) public broadcasting

Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting, by Jerold M. Starr (338 pages; Beacon Press; $27.50) Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, and ever since then the public media have created nearly as much drama off the air as on. In 1970 a PBS special charged the banking industry with preying on the nation's poor - and then rolled the names of 135 federal officials who sat on bank boards. The following year, after Richard Nixon learned that the Ford Foundation had hired newsman Robert MacNeil to work for PBS, the president instructed an aide "that all funds for public broadcasting be cut immediately." It has been thus ever since: ongoing attacks against public media, both from the left and the right. All too often, public broadcasters have been better defined by their enemies than their friends. Not even shows like "Sesame Street" or "Barney" have been immune from the darts of well-placed critics. Not surprisingly, public broadcasters have learned to work from a more or less permanent crouch. Thus, when House Speaker Newt Gingrich threatened to slash PBS funding in 1994, the network came up with a new marketing campaign framed around the pitiful slogan, "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" The campaign worked - yet viewers were reinforced in their image of public media as a charity case you gave to during telethons. Jerold M. Starr is one of public media's critics. But in a roundabout way, he's also one of its most ardent supporters. Unlike Gingrich and other bullies, Starr doesn't want to put PBS out of business. He does, however, think public media need to be reminded why they exist. This is the thrust of Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting. "Our democracy requires some space in our vast system of communications that is not controlled by the imperatives of power or profit," Starr writes. "This was the mission envisioned for public broadcasting." The problem, he argues, is that the federal government never provided much more than subsistence income to the noncommercial stations it helped launch. Soon the stations were seen begging at the steps of corporations like Mobil and AT&T. The early chapters of Air Wars are devoted to a lively history that explains how this came about. Today, some even argue that public TV and radio have become more corporate than the commercial networks. Thinly disguised ads are allowed as "underwriter announcements." Business programs that might as well be on CNBC are staples of the PBS schedule. A show about antiquing is brought to us by an insurer of antiques. And so on. After laying out the problem, Air Wars shifts tone. It becomes a personal account of a battle Starr and others undertook in Pittsburgh to "reclaim" their local public TV station, WQED. In 1996 WQED was facing the worst financial crisis in its history. Then management came up with a heck of a plan: It would sell off its secondary TV station, WQEX, to a right-wing religious broadcaster, and pay off its debts. For Starr and others in his grass-roots group, the WQED board had gone too far. They fought the station tooth and nail, and eventually won. It's a testament to Starr's storytelling prowess that he makes this heavily detailed account readable by outsiders. Quick with a comeback and unafraid to mince words, Starr is also the ideal warrior to take on a communications behemoth in his own town. Starr relates the WQED battle to the wider problem of public broadcasting: too timid, too insular and - ironically, given that PBS often comes under fire from Republicans - too conservative in its programming choices. "Masterpiece Theatre" and "Sesame Street" have been on the air 30 years. PBS' nature, science, mystery and biography programs were long ago imitated by cable. Public TV officials hear all the time from viewers who mistakenly call them after seeing a program on Discovery or A&E. It's sort of a badge of honor, since public broadcasting was doing quality nonfiction television before anybody thought to make a buck off of it. But mostly, it's a sad sign of public TV's inertia. Throughout the '90s, despite obvious attrition in viewership, PBS and its member stations kept their schedules intact, year in and year out. Worse, as Starr notes, "many stations have done little to involve the local community," serving as little more than conduits for PBS programs. But all of that is in play now - finally. There is a new president at PBS. A successful former cable executive, she has already shaken up the network's prime-time schedule and says more changes will come. Digital technology will soon give local stations the potential to put three or four different video streams on the air at the same time. Localism, which once seemed a dirty word in public-TV circles, is gaining currency again, both with those who produce the shows and the donors who pay for them. All these could be portents of a coming boom period for public media. Or they could signal the latest chapter in a long history of unfulfilled promise. The key, says Starr, will be whether we the viewers and listeners get involved and help shape the public media of the future. To reach Aaron Barnhart, The Star's TV critic, visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART:Photo (color) >>>