The "Public Broadcasting Is Good" Myth

By Dr. John E. Russell

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was right on target in eliminating funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting! Funding should be dropped for several reasons:

1. Taxpayers cannot afford it. Tax revenue must go toward items that are necessary. The congressional appropriation for Public Broadcasting for 1995 was $285.6 million. In the past 27 years, they have received about 3 billion dollars in government appropriations. In addition, the 1,080 public television and radio stations have received prime frequency allocations, and exclusive monopoly broadcast licenses worth 5 billion dollars. They have also received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for studios and broadcast equipment. (George Archibald, "Public broadcasting's federal subsidy far exceeds appropriation," The Washington Times, National Weekly Edition, 27 February-5 March 1995, p. A1).

2. Much of the programming is anti-Christian. Channel 19 in Kansas City has shown soft pornography, supported homosexuality, preached political correctness and omitted Christian programming entirely. Most of the programming is liberal. Some programming is fair except for the atheistic message.

3. Government support of such stations is unconstitutional. Secular Humanism is the underlying religion of the system. The U S Supreme Court declared Secular Humanism to be a religion. (See verification of this charge in Essay 22). Secular Humanism has become the official state religion and PBS is an official voice of the state religion.

4. Supporting any "evangelistic" outreach such as this is unfair to taxpayers who disagree with the religion being preached.

6. It is unfair for the government to subsidize some media and not others. Let them survive as a corporation in the public sector. If they can't survive in the free market let them go under like any other failed business.

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