Woodward in POV: Proposed Cuts to Public Broadcasting
John D. Woodward, Jr., Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, published a recent Op-Ed discussing the possibility of reduced federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) under President Donald Trump’s proposed budget. Woodward argues that proposed cuts to the CPB would do little to address the budget deficit facing the United States while exacerbating the current shortage of reliable public information.
Woodward wrote an Op-Ed entitled “Now Is Not the Time to Cut Funding for Public Broadcasting,” on May 17, 2017 for BU Today’s POV Series, an opinion page that provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
President Trump’s proposed budget threatens to pull the plug on federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the major funder of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) programming and National Public Radio (NPR) and the supporter of 350 local member public television stations. This proposed cut will do very little to fix the US budget deficit, but it will contribute mightily to the shortage of reliable public information available to citizens at a time when they need it most.
Federal funds provide approximately 15 percent of public television stations’ overall funding, or $435 million a year, which amounts to about $1.35 per citizen per year. To put it in perspective, the US government spends about the same amount per year ($437 million in 2015) on US military bands.
The CPB is a unique public-private partnership that has contributed greatly to enriching the intellectual, cultural, and ethical lives of millions of Americans through its support of PBS programming, among other things. Now is not the time to cut its federal funding.
Some argue that capitalist forces are sufficient to provide a robust array of news. While free markets generally maximize utility for all, there are some products and services where the free market model does not make sense.
You can read the entire Op-Ed here.
John D. Woodward, Jr. is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. During his twenty-year CIA career, John served as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service and as a technical intelligence officer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, with assignments in Washington D.C., East Asia, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.