Public Service Broadcasting Ain't So Public

It's really interesting to me how PBS is being so closely analyzed –– almost to the point of insult –– in Jerold Starr's article, "It's Time for PBS to Get Its Trust Fund." I've always been under the impression that PBS is the one channel that produces the most objective news it can possibly undertake regarding its proximity to government chains mainstream outlets deal with. 

Specifically NewsHour with PBS and their election coverage over the past few years have been the least bit sensationalized in comparison to FOX, CNN, MSNBC and so forth. I was just in total dismay when I read Starr's statistic that PBS draws in a mere 2 percent of the television audience, and then realized that I don't watch PBS either. 

Starr says that this percentage is because of "so little production and promotion" for PBS. After all, the United States pays a little over one dollar to public service broadcasting stations, significantly less than that of other countries. No one watches PBS because of its lack of promotion through other, more prominent, outlets. Which means that we all criticize FOX, and The Times, etc. for being so mainstream and so manipulated, but we let them manipulate us just the same. 

And then there's the thought that people who don't sit around and pick out who's objective and who's not, but are just normal people who turn on the news here and there, don't really care about the equalized content PBS produces. They have content that is more personally suiting, like FOX if they're  republican and everywhere else if they're not. Because who wants to hear what you don't want to hear? Why dabble on the other side of things when you have a network of people who can preach the one you think is right? And this obviously doesn't apply to journalists.

Unfortunately, when it comes to independent media and objective standpoints that PBS mastered (before they started recycling that of others) the only ones drawn in are the journalists, which is a field in limbo of dead or alive. Not only that, but journalists are the last ones media outlets want to reach out to, because then it's not reaching out; it's competition.

Yes, PBS needs to get a trust fund, but it shouldn't need to prove itself to whomever has the power. It should make its content around the following of its 2 percent audience. For now.