A Little Too Scalpel Happy

PUBLIC BROADCASTING is fast approaching puberty. Born again in 1967 from the recommendations--which eventually became law--of the original Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, the fledgling system staggered as it grew. Almost two years ago, the doctors decided the system needed a checkup. The results of that long-overdue examination--labelled A Public Trust--are not encouraging. Carnegie II, as it has been called, would never win any awards for bedside manner. Its conclusions are brutally frank:

We find public broadcasting's financial, organizational and creative structure fundamentally flawed. Institutional pressures became unbalanced in a dramatically short time. They remain today--despite the best efforts of thousands within the industry and the millions who support it--out of kilter and badly in need of repair.

But all is not lost, the Commission insists: "We believe that it is now time to make a commitment to a public, noncommercial voice in the communications field--now, before the vital moment is lost."

There's something for almost everybody in this overly long (300 pages), linguistically contorted and incredibly redundant report. Commission members waded through a lot of evidence before finalizing their recommendations, and they want us to know it. Stock arguments and phrases are beaten to death; even the most ridiculous alternative plans are debated in agonizing detail. Eventually, however, an argument takes shape.

The real problems began in June 1972, when then-President Richard M. Nixon vetoed a bill that would have provided long-term funding for public broadcasting. Nixon charged that broadcasters had deserted the essential concept of local programming recommended by Carnegie I. Yet recently released documents show that underneath its public statements, the administration was really criticizing public broadcasters for their anti-Nixon viewpoints. A memo to H.R. Haldeman from Clay T. Whitehead, then head of the Office of Telecommunications Policy, reveals a plan to quietly purge public television's anti-administration spokesmen. John Erlichman advised that the "best alternative would be to take over the management of public television and thereby determine what management decisions were to be made.

Nixon's veto, which the commission calls "consistent" with his policies against concentration of power in the media, destroyed already weak ties between existing public broadcasting bureaucracies. Relations between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), both vying for financial and creative supremacy, deteriorated. When organizational conflicts subsided, Nixon signed a bill authorizing increased local funding. Decisions in 1975 stabilized the system further. Institutional reorganization coupled with a new multi-year funding plan "helped stimulate public broadcasting's recovery and renewed development." Under this system, as a barrage of figures indicate, public television experienced a renaissance of sorts.

But, the commission argues, the central institutional dilemma cannot be solved within the existing framework. The current public broadcasting system puts both programming and financial decisions under the mantle of one organization, the CPB. In short, "public broadcasting has yet to resolve the dilemma posed by its own structure." The solution: Scrap the existing bureaucracy, and replace it with a new one.

THE KEY ELEMENTS of the plan are two new organizations--dubbed the Public Telecommunications Trust and the Program Services Endowment--and a massive increase in federal funds for public broadcasting. Citing lack of finances dedicated exclusively to programming, the commission suggests that the Endowment, a semi-autonomous division of the Trust, exist solely to concentrate on developing and financing new programs for noncommercial television and radio. The commission also suggests marked changes in nominating procedures for Trust officers to replace "the uneven and politically vulnerable process" which currently governs appointments.

Some charge that the commission tailored its recommendations to accomodate the ideas of certain influential politicians. It is no coincidence, for example, that President Carter, who labels the report "the focal point" for future dicussions, has consistently advocated further "insulation" of the public broadcasting network. Nor is it accidental that Rep. Lionel Van Deerlin (D-Cal.), who chairs the House Communications Subcommittee, had his funding proposals incorporated into the Carnegie plan. But the report is flawed by an almost-embarassing literary and political naivete. At one point the commission says it "recognizes the danger of lapsing into fuzzy-minded ecstacy over the umlimited social potential of the new electronic technology." But in a particularly nauseating passage electronic media are described as "magnificent electronic extensions of ourselves which can teach, and heal and inspire, if we use them not for the ruthless pursuit of the least common denominator but for their highest human potential. They give us the tools to lead the world out of ignorance and misery." You've got to be kidding.

Under all the rhetorical window dressing, however, there is a simple though painful message which says the cure for our sick public broadcasting system is more money--lots of money. In fact, the commission recommends an annual budget (by 1985) of $1.2 billion. Of this total pool, the federal government would provide $590 million, a recommended increase of over 300 per cent from 1978 funding levels. To supplement this, the commission proposes a system in which Congress would provide two dollars for every three dollars a local station gathered.

Needless to say, proposed increases in federal funding have not gone unchallenged. Familiar arguments about the cultural elitism of public television have been dredged up. "When working-class Americans are being pitched off Amtrak passenger trains to save a few bucks," notes former White House speechwriter Pat Buchanan, "it approaches the obscene to demand that taxpayers triple their subsidy to this playpen of the penthouse proletariat." Never one for subtlety, James J. Kilpatrick says he "sees no reason on God's green earth for taking the taxpayer's money in order to nuture those happy hotdogs of the intellectual left who would love to get on the air and read their gaga poems at public expense." The commission characterizes public broadcasting as an "absolutely indespensable tool for our people and our democracy," adding the United States should be willing to spend five dollars a year per person to finance a system equivalent to the British Broadcasting Company or Japan's NHK.

More specifically, the commission argues that the only viable way to maintain such high levels of federal funding is through the imposition of spectrum fees--charged to those who use the "public" airwaves. The argument goes as follows: Public broadcasting, if properly funded, provides a vital, public service, producing enriching and artistically sound programs. Commercial television, on the other hand, produces some sort of inferior, mind-rotting drivel--all in the name of the advertising market. Because commercial broadcasters limit access to a valuable resource, they should help fund the public system. Spectrum fees will provide a politically insulated, long-term form of financing.

The commission compares this idea to the imposition of fees on corporations which use federal land for grazing, timbering or running ski resorts. An analogy is made to the right to drill for oil off-shore: "What's good for America's oil companies is good for America's commercial broadcasting," says commission chairman and Columbia University president William J. McGill. Like its predecessor--which advocated an excise tax on all television sets--Carnegie II makes its proposals in a political vacuum. In arguing that spectrum fees will provide a "safe" flow of funds, the commission overlooks glaring precedent: At one time, revenues from gasoline taxes were to be dedicated exclusively to highway construction. Such illusions were shattered when environmental groups successfully lobbied to have Highway Trust Funds diverted for mass transportation.

OTHER POLITICAL REALITIES indicate the spectrum fee may be counterproductive. Commercial broadcasters already have voiced strong objections to the idea. When push comes to shove, the broadcasting industry--specifically the National Association of Broadcasters--is not going to sit back and "pay for its competition." At worst, a trade-off will be demanded; and at best, relations between broadcasting's public and commercial sectors will be strained.

The commission argues that the poverty of the public broadcasting system also is responsible for the dearth of high-quality programs on non-commercial stations. "Public broadcasting was unable to develop a program about blacks with the appeal and quality of 'Roots'," the commission--which just happened to include Alex Haley--says, "because it lacked funds for a project of such magnitude." The commission advocates insulated annual allocations to the Program Services Endowment, which will finance creative talent in an unpressured atmosphere.

In the course of its hearings, Carnegie II heard from writers, directors and independent producers, "who almost unanimously complained of an overly complicated structure, lack of authority to make decisions, and bureaucratic rivalry that stifled creativity." Yet by partially centralizing programming decisions--in effect limiting the pool of programs that local stations have access to--the commission seems to step backward. In the past, local stations--which produced 60 per cent of programs broadcast in 1976--were responsible for the system's best programming. "Public broadcasting," argues The Wall Street Journal, "has evolved along lines that suggest the greatest impetus for creativity comes from the local stations, where program directors are faced with the daily challenge of finding something to put on the air." National fare tended to degenerate. "At a close look," television critic and authority Les Brown has written, nationally-created programs were "marked by the intellectual prudence, the social cautions, and the feigned creative vitality that were hallmarks of commercial television in America." Successful program workshops--such as the Children's Television Workshop, responsible for both "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company"--have supplied high-quality programs which fill a vital educational role. Disbursing funds through a central bureau might reduce support for such groups. It would no doubt, foster competition among local and national sources. What the commission labels a "useful, healthy tension" threatens to degenerate into the same type of conflicts that once plauged both CPB and PBS.

Inconsistencies and generalizations further reduce A Public Trust's credibility. The commission insists that it is important to speak in terms of public broadcasting--that is, both television and radio. But radio is quickly dismissed, despite the commission's own findings that the noncommercial sector is "disproportionately needy." Only one of the commission's original 20 members comes directly from the radio industry. While advocating a growth of radio stations in the country, the commission fails to provide the needed funds. Edward Elson and Frank Mankiewicz, chairman and president of National Public Radio, respectively, have denounced Carnegie II for its strong financial biases.

A close reading of the report also reveals contradictions. "Without leadership that is respected at the grass roots and is respectful of local processes, the system as a whole is incapable of defining its mission to serve the public," the commission notes. Is this the same group that says that in order to attract the best minds, it cannot require public financial disclosure for those nominated to serve on the Trust's board?

A PUBLIC TRUST is no doubt valuable for reintroducing the key issues facing public broadcasting today. But its solutions--obscured in page after page of tortured prose--tend to skirt the reality that advocating funding panaceas on a large scale will not change the political climate. To justify its proposals, the commission offers familiar attacks against commercial television, arguments which, though valid, do little towards establishing a workable proposal. No one should argue that public television in the United States should be put out of its misery. A practical solution might suggest concentrating on local efforts, reducing reliance on federal funds and paring down the existing bureaucracy. But pragmatism takes a back seat to idealistic visions. Says the commission:

We remember the Egyptians for their pyramids and the Greeks for their graceful stone temples. How shall Americans be remembered? As exporters of sensationalism and saliciousness? Or as builders of magical electronic tabernacles that can in an instant erase the limitations of time and geography, and make us into one people?

Carnegie II offers a dismal diagnosis. But as any responsible doctor would tell you when he recommends radical surgery, it's best to get a second opinion.