Fight moral decay: Save Big Bird and Barney

Kevin Drum asks how Democrats can convince parents that we take their fears of moral depravity seriously.

Simple. Democrats will help save PBS. Parents feel good about letting their kids watch Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and (unless they're unhinged), Buster the Bunny. These are educational shows promoting solid moral values with no commercial interruptions.

We could even propose funding increases to develop quality programing for adolescents and young adults--I mean, stuff young people would enjoy watching as much as they enjoyed Sesame Street. With the right advisors and a healthy budget, PBS could become a vehicle for youth culture--animation, music, short films, etc.

But we've got to save PBS first:

Public Broadcasting Targeted By House:
Panel Seeks to End CPB's Funding Within 2 Years

A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur" and "Postcards From Buster."

In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.

In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue. [...]. [WaPo]

The Democracy Cell Project is doing a blogswarm on around the proposed PBS cuts. There's still time to make a difference on this one. Friends of public broadcasting have prevailed in the past, and we can win again:

The subcommittee's action, which came on a voice vote, doesn't necessarily put Big Bird on the Endangered Species List. House members could restore funding as the appropriations bill moves along or, more likely, when the House and Senate meet to reconcile budget legislation later this year. The Senate has traditionally been a stronger ally of public broadcasting than the House, whose former speaker, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), waged a high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to "zero out" funding for the CPB a decade ago. [More WaPo]

Ongoing updates and instructions for taking action, visit Hands Off Public Broadcasting at MediaMatters.

Comments

[C.J.Colucci]

How about a PBS fundraising broadcast of progressive female blogger Jello wrestling?

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Good idea! PBS can air it during pledge week. A $25 pledge gets you a PBS Jello Blogger book bag. At the $50 level you get the DVD. At the $100 level you get the coffee table book.

[Linkmeister]

Here are several other pertinent articles about Tomlinson at CPB/VOA and his attempts to politicize those agencies as well.

[Lawrence]

I'm really stupid sometimes, so maybe someone smarter than me can explain to me why this issue is important? What happens to America if we lose Big Bird?

[Thad]

What happens to America if we lose Big Bird?

Then the terrorists have already won.