Er, doesn’t “back spending” mean “continue to spend money on”? That’s certainly the way I parsed that.
I’m pretty sure that’s just a typo, and that it means “cut back spending.”
However, all it tells us is that people value spending on the environment, social security, and food stamps more than they value spending on PBS, NOT that people want to cut that spending. Again, historically PBS has been a hot-potato issue, and politicians who try to cut the spending find out quickly that it’s a bad idea.
If the same survey had asked about government spending on foreign military ventures, the war on drugs, farm subsidies, tax incentives for corporations, and sports stadiums, then we might have some interesting figures to look at. As it is, politicians who use this survey to conclude that slashing funds for PBS is a savvy move are going to see me sitting back, smirking, and enjoying the show.
Daniel
Well, we’ll start from the linked article.
80% seems like a high number, and only 8% find it to be biased. On the other side, if you would care to show evidence of bias on the part of PBS or NPR, I would love to see it. Equal time and all. Wouldn’t want anyone to think that this thread wasn’t “fair and balanced.” :rolleyes: Damn, now Fox gonna sue my ass.
Yeah, Bill, it was the pipa study. I am curious to find out how exactly it was biased since it is offered up as dealing with the fact of the Iraq War.
Lastly Bill, I’m not sure your study from the L.A. Times is saying what you think it is saying. The question was “Do you think the government should back spending:” which to mean would mean “Should the government spend money on:” with “back” meaning “support” The 63 yes votes would mean that more people support (or back) spending money on public broadcasting. Did you quote the article correctly, because I’m not seeing how that says anything about public broadcasting being first on the chopping block.
Gee golly no. You completely lost me there with all o’them $5 words you was throwin about. :rolleyes: If you weren’t trying to be snarky with that remark, I apologize. You just sounded like kind of an ass there.
And define balance. Does simply letting one idiot from either side of the aisle take turns reading from the list of approved talking points equal balance? We haven’t even proven that public broadcasting is not balanced, but I want to know what you think equals balance.
Interesting how you and a few others have managed to derail this thread from a diatribe against Republican attempts to bias a (supposedly) neutral network to a thread about whether or not PBS is ‘popular’. Who gives a fuck whether or not it’s popular or mind-numbingly boring?
There were enough phone calls, letters, and e-mails to convince the house that it was a good idea to support CPB and not cut it’s funding. Not sure how much that’s worth in a popularity sense, but there it is just the same.
And there’s no way that NPR or PBS is anywhere near as boring as baseball.
What?!! Where is this coming from? Please explain.
Left Hand of Dorkness wrote
I don’t understand. The name you gave the report was “a cite from 1995”. The first lines of the cite read “Public view on CPB funding: favorable but also ‘soft’. Originally published in Current, Feb. 6, 1995”.
Are we talking about something else?
Btw, I didn’t read your second site after you posted that it was commissioned by PBS itself, and seemed to retract it. Should I?
Yes, of course you should read it; to do otherwise is to ignore the cite that you asked for.
Yes, PBS commissioned it, but they commissioned it from a well-known independent polling agency, not from some fly-by-night operation. As i said, it establishes a prima facie case that public broadcasting is popular with taxpayers. If you want to dispute that fact, you need to come up with stronger evidence showing that the PBS-commissioned study reached incorrect conclusions.
Daniel
Left Hand of Dorkness wrote
That was also my take on it.
My view is that people will say they favor the spending on anything that benefits them until the perspective is added that we don’t have infinite resources.
You keep saying this, and I’m still waiting for the cite.
Look, if it’s so obvious (as you seem to believe, based on your tone), that a) PBS is so enormously popular that a tiny percentage of the people favor cuts to it, and b) politicians that try to cut funding to it end up in political trouble, then it should be very easy to find a good cite. You’ve looked, and the only things you could find were an 11 year old article in a magazine run by and for PBS with data that suggests people favor cutting it, and a recent one commissioned by PBS themselves.
If something isn’t easily provable, then by definition, it’s not obvious. Further, it’s likely not true.
Cite?
Newt Gingrich tried and failed to privatize PBS in the mid-nineties. The Republican congress just tried to slash funding severely a couple weeks ago, and failed. YOu don’t have to believe me, but I’m not going to dig up cites that you refuse to dig up yourself.
This is such a distortion that I’m starting to think it’s deliberate. First, that magazine is not run by PBS; while it’s run for “people involved in public TV and public radio — station employees, independent producers, local volunteers and board members, viewers and listeners, state and national policymakers and others,” that’s very different from being run “for” PBS.
Second, the data clearly does NOT say simply that “people favor cutting it.” THat’s a gross distortion of what the data show; you’re either lying, or you’re so blinded by what you WANT to be true that you’re incapable of seeing that the facts don’t support your position.
This is an ad hominem. Either PBS’s study is flawed, or it’s not. Pointing out that you don’t like the entity that commissioned it is wholly irrelevant to its worth as a cite.
Ball’s in your court. I’ve come up with several cites that support my side. ALl you’ve done is blither and call public broadcasting a leech. Do you have any evidence, or are you blowing smoke out your ass?
Daniel
While I agree with you that a study shuold be looked at on it’s merits (methodology), I think it is fair of people to question where the study comes from.
There are four possibiities.
- From the “group” being studied
- From an organization sympathetic to the group
- From a bipartisan/middle-of-the-road organization
- From an organization hostile to the group
Clearly, if the study results advocated for your position, you’d love to have them come from #4. The results would be more meaningful, because even a hostile group had favorable findings. On the other end of the spectrum, favorable findings coming from within the group, while they may be correct, would be highly suspect. Number 2 is better than one, but not much. Wouldn’t you agree with that?
Your analysis is spot-on. This is why I say that I’ve only made a prima facie case, not a slam-dunk case. It may well be that the Roper poll is flawed, and that other studies have brought these flaws to light. However, what we have on the table is evidence to support what I’m saying, and precious little to support the opposing point of view (the entire evidence for the opposite view seems to be that if we assume there’s a typo in one among many studies, people who are primed to think in terms of cutting the budget rank PBS as more cuttable than social security and environmental regulation).
Questioning a study can honorably take three paths:
- Pointing out specific flaws in the study;
- Pointing out weightier evidence in the other direction that contradicts the study; or
- Showing that the study’s instigators have a specific history of promulgating dishonest information.
Bill has taken none of these three honorable paths.
Daniel
The last line of the remark that I quoted. I’ll repost the relevant part.
That is where it is coming from. Sounded a little mean spirited to me. If it wasn’t, I apologize.
I would still like to see what you think “balance” means. How is public broadcasting unbalanced, and what needs to be done to restore balance?
Bill H., could you link to the source of this “typo.” We shouldn’t have to rely upon your take on what the article meant. Could you link to the article in question? I would also like more information on how the pipa study is biased.
It wasn’t meant in a mean-sprited way at all. Truly. I still have a hard time seeing how it could have been taken that way, but if so, my apologies.
Also, what did you mean by five dollar words? I reread my post and nothing jumped out at me?
Oh yeah, balance. This has been covered in recent threads so I don’t want to get iinto it again here. But I mean that it should–overall–not lean one way or the other (right v left). I don’t think NPR is Air America or Pacifica Radio, but I think most people would agree that it leans left. Hopefully, they will be correcting that soon, Will they get it perfect? No. Should they try? Yes.
Bit of sarcasm there. Sorry bout the response, but this is the pit ya know. Noone hangs out for the civilized discourse.
The balance issue hasn’t been discussed to my satisfaction at least. It seems to be one of those things that everyone believes but noone can prove.
Now, NPR has three ombudsmen that go through and check the news reports for bias. To date, they have found no evidence. Given that no other news organization has anyone checking for bias, would you say that enough has been done to ensure balance? If not, what else can be done?
I do, you asshole!
ahem. 
As long as they don’t all come from the same “side”, I’m fine. I would just ask that they look not only to the biases contained within stories, but if there is bias with the stories that are chosen over time.
Of course, the easy way to solve the problem is just to eliminate funding altogether. The market will give people who want news slanted one way or the other what they want. It will also deliver a balanced view to those who want that. Everybody’s happy. And those tax dollars could go elsewhere.
Are you implying that this bias in public broadcasting is in the overall selection of story choice? Do you consider the stories that NPR has chosen to run to be less newsworthy than others? Has their been a dramatic difference in the stories that public broadcasting has chosen vs. other news organizations?
As the issue of cutting funding to CPB has come up and been rejected by at least enough of the taxpayers to make their representatives nervous about their job security, let’s just toss the “easy way” aside as being impossible to implement. What other ways can you think of to fix the supposed imbalance?
Oh, I forgot to mention that two of the ombudsmen have been appointed during the recent administration. In the rolling stone article linked in the op, you can read the writer of the article frothing about them. I’m not aware of any political affiliation of any of the three. We’ll simply have to assume that they are behaving as professionals and not political hatchet persons.