Month: October 2008

On October 16th Sparrow Chat published an article entitled, “Are The Government Gagging PBS?”

According to the New York Times, PBS had made a decision not to broadcast a controversial documentary, “Torturing Democracy”, until after a new president was installed in the White House.^[1]

In response to an email on the subject from Sparrow Chat to WILL-TV, the local channel for PBS broadcasts in central Illinois, I received the following from David Thiel, WILL-TV’s Program Director:

Thanks for writing. First, I’m happy to inform you that WILL-TV will indeed be airing “Torturing Democracy” this month. It can be seen Tuesday, October 28 at 9:00 pm, and appears that way in our printed program guide. It does not, however, currently show up in our online listings, and that’s something I’m looking into. The schedule grid on our website is serviced by an outside contractor, and it appears that they have made a number of serious errors and omissions over the next couple of weeks. I hope to get those corrected soon.

I wish to clear up the misconception that PBS stations are “blacklisting” the program. First, it’s important to understand the relationship between PBS and its member stations. We are not a network in the traditional sense. Stations subscribe to PBS’ program services, and as you and they note, scheduling decisions are ultimately made at the local level. Furthermore, PBS is only one provider of programming to U.S. public TV stations; a significant portion of our schedule comes from American Public Television, the National Educational Telecommunications Association, and various other syndicators.

My understanding of the situation is that “Torturing Democracy” was offered to PBS, but that they felt that they could not clear an appropriate slot in their own schedule prior to January. In my experience, that’s certainly possible: the more complex relationship between PBS and its member stations, coupled with the system’s relatively limited promotional resources, make us less nimble than the commercial networks. In any case, it appears that they were prepared to air the documentary, just not in the timeframe preferred by the producer. (It wouldn’t have been the first time PBS has addressed the subject in a prime-time documentary: “Frontline” aired “The Torture Question” almost three years ago to this day, and repeated it in June 2006.)

Ultimately, the producer opted to make it available through an outfit named Executive Program Services, one of the other program distributors to which I referred above. Individual stations were then able to decide for themselves whether or not to schedule it locally. (Actually, the same would have been true even if it had gone out with the PBS imprimatur, as we are not obliged to carry anything PBS offers.) The announcement came barely in time for us to schedule the program and get it into our October program guide. I don’t have a list of other stations carrying the show, but I know that we are not the only ones doing so.

Please feel free to pass along this information, and again, thanks for your interest in WILL-TV.

David Thiel
Program Director
WILL-TV
^{300 N. Goodwin Ave.; Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-333-7300 FAX: 217-244-6386}

My thanks to David Thiel for troubling to respond in such detail, and bravo to WILL-TV for considering this documentary sufficiently important to slot into their October schedule.

A copy of my original email was sent to PBS’ main website. To date, the only response has been an automated reply detailing numerous links to further information, none of which was relevant to the subject matter.

I would suggest readers consult their local listings to check if this program is being aired in their district. If not, perhaps your local channel’s program director might like to explain why.

^{[1] “PBS Slow to Embrace a Program on Torture”, NYT, October 16th 2008}

Filed under: Public Broadcasting Service

If Barack Obama fails to win the US presidency, stuff he can probably make good money doing stand-up in a New York nightclub.

Filed under: All pals together

In America, and in the UK, the 1980’s heralded an era that produced two gods and a goddess of monetarism. Right-wing Republicans and Tories have worshiped them ever since. The political leaderships of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher spanned the decade, just at the time Milton Friedman was espousing his theories of monetarism. Indeed, he served on Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board throughout that president’s time in office.

Both Reagan and Thatcher were bewitched by Friedman. The idea of allowing markets to control themselves with little or no interference from government seemed almost frighteningly practical and modern, after years of Keynesian economics dating back to the 1930’s.

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist of whom Bertrand Russell once wrote:

“Keynes’s intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool. I was sometimes inclined to feel that so much cleverness must be incompatible with depth, but I do not think this feeling was justified.”

“One morning I met him hurrying across the Great Court of Trinity. I asked him what the hurry was and he said he wanted to borrow his brother-in-law’s motorcycle to go to London. ‘Why don’t you go by train’, I said. ‘Because there isn’t time’, he replied. I did not know what his business might be, but within a few days the bank rate, which panic mongers had put up to ten per cent, was reduced to five per cent. This was his doing.””^[1]

Russell declared him the “most intelligent man” he had ever known.

Friedman persuaded Reagan and Thatcher that Keynes’s ideas were outmoded. Both leaders fell under his spell, rapidly concluding that every problem could be solved by the markets, through economic innovation, provided they were left to their own devices, with no interference from government.

It was this ideal that caused George W Bush to falter so famously over admitting the existence of global warming. If he’d accepted the evidence, he’d have been forced to act. Bush expected the markets to swing into action and create their own emission caps based on fresh, profitable technologies designed to save the earth.

It never happened. Short term market greed trumped any idea of private investment in planet-saving enterprises, for close to a decade.

Ordinary folks may be surprised of late, when listening to economic discourse, to realize just how many booms and recessions the western world has suffered over the last twenty-five years. While western economies cannot be considered stable prior to Reagan, (his predecessor, Carter, had presided over a period of stagflation) it’s obvious with hindsight that Freidman’s policies utterly failed to provide a stable economy advantageous to any but the very wealthy.

Keynes advocated heavy investment by government during periods of recession. Friedman believed government should keep its fingers out the markets and allow them to stabilize themselves. The financial crisis presently threatening the economic world has sent governments scurrying back to Keynesian policies, with huge injections of cash into the system, in a desperate attempt to stabilize the markets and avoid the threat of a recession looming across the globe.

If any lessons are to learned from this latest, and possibly greatest, financial catastrophe, it is that Thatcher, Reagan, and Friedman were absolutely wrong. Markets require regulation; it has to come from government. Politicians, and their advisors, must be prepared to assume responsibility for the fiscal system and control it, rather than use it to simply line their own pockets.

This, in turn, means it is the duty of the people to ensure those they elect are capable of shouldering that responsibility without recourse to corrupt practices. The demand for more transparent government must be strong. Without pressure from the people, government will never change.

John Maynard Keynes died in 1946. If he’s out there somewhere, watching the events of 2008 unfold, he will undoubtedly be smiling to himself.

^{[1] “The Grantchester Group”, The Orchard Tea Garden}

Filed under: Economic errors