Save my brain food, please!

I usually take all MoveOn.org mailings with a boulder of salt. Like a friend said, they tend to make 4-alarm fires out of burning food in the kitchen. But this one checks out, and hits really close to home.

Last week, a House subcommittee voted to sharply reduce federal funding for public broadcasting (including NPR, PBS, and public radio and TV affiliates,) and plan on completely ending it within a few years. Don't believe me? Go to Snopes and read the bottom paragraph. It looks like Sesame Street isn't in danger, since most of their funding comes from other sources. The same cannot be said for public radio and TV stations, who are woefully underfunded to begin with.

I agree with Jeff Jarvis' idea that the best way to save public broadcasting is to completely make it independent of government funding. However, I think that this might not actually happen in time to actually save the affiliates, who are almost always running on empty.

As I said in my signing of the MoveOn.org petition, I learned how to read at the age of 3 watching Sesame Street and Electric Company. Now my 3-year-old niece is learning the same way by watching PBS Kids (her mother stays away from Teletubbies, however.) As a news professional, NPR is one of my major sources for in-depth reporting that's not attached to a time-slot or agenda. Cutting funding for these things would be like cutting the PE departments out of elementary schools. PBS children's programming is like exercise for the mind, and NPR does the same for adults. I can't think of a worse way to send a message about the priorities (or agenda) of government than this.