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Machan's Musings - America’s Perverse "Public" Media
by Tibor R. Machan

The Soviet Union had no free press—no privately owned, politically independent, competing publications dealing with ideas (and whatever else readers would find of interest). The old U.S.S.R. had Pravda and other state-run newspapers and broadcast outlets.

This kind of media exists in other parts of the world, but the United States of America is supposed to be a haven for a completely free press. Sadly, even our own broadcast media fell into the hands of government—the Feds now own the electromagnetic spectrum and dictate a great deal of the structure and even content of radio and television through, for example, the licensing process supervised by the Federal Communications Commission. Still, this intervention does not extend to the funding of radio and television by monies extorted via taxation. There is still a pretty good semblance of competition on the airwaves, especially with the arrival of cable TV and the internet.

One thing is, however, woefully amiss in American media affairs. This is the prominence of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. These networks are all-pervasive. NPR is in nearly every mid- to large-sized city, especially those with institutions of higher education, and dominates the airwaves in college and university towns with its substantial news coverage, interviews, commentaries, and other fares. PBS is also present in virtually every television market.

Yet there is really no proper place for either of these networks in a country with a free press. Both take substantial monies from government—for example, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—a means of financing that is totally antithetical to the principles of a free media. Such a media is supposed to function independently of government, with no ties to politicians and bureaucrats. And in a free society, no one may be coerced into funding any media outlet, as this would involve expropriating their property to provide support for views and programming with which they might very well disagree. It is like forcing the Catholics to support the Methodists! All this stands in stark contrast with a free press, whose paper or wares you may purchase if you so choose, but who cannot come to take your money for “services” that you find inadequate. NPR and PBS, on the other hand, take everyone’s money to help provide their offerings.

When it comes to these offerings they are, quite naturally, highly editorialized, very partisan (although often at a level beyond day-to-day politics), and completely uninterested in balance (which is usually a farce, when attempted in the media). One need only listen to one day’s fare and one will encounter easily identifiable viewpoints being broadcast. I urge you to give NPR’s “Fresh Air” interview program your attention, and you will learn just what “softball” interviewing is all about—inviting your favorite authors and giving them a forum, partly at taxpayers’ expense, to promote their works. There is hardly a difficult challenge presented to these friends of NPR. It’s all done in the style of “throwing the Christians to the Christians.”

Mind you, I often listen to NPR stations for their classical music and jazz and blues programming. But I do feel a bit guilty because I am benefitting from stolen goods, paid for in part by citizens who may well have no interest in such music and are, nevertheless, deprived of some of their own resources, which they could use to support something they prefer. I am not criticizing the aesthetics of NPR and PBS—rather, I am pointing out that both are elitist outfits to the hilt, and both are ripping off people who would much rather fund alternative forms of news and entertainment.

So, in light of the fact that there is no place for NPR or PBS in a free country, the current debate about whether to make these broadcasters more balanced is completely moot, irrelevant, beside the point. Demanding fairness of media is like demanding it of religion or art—ridiculous, especially where editorializing and opining are concerned. What needs to be done is to privatize both of these organizations, and let them fend for themselves just as bowling alleys or shoe stores must.
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