Mr. Baker is the president and chief executive officer of the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, the licensee of Thirteen/WNET and WLIW, New York.

Let the Real Public Television Step Forward

Public television is headline news these days. Every week it seems that PBS is the focus of a new controversy. And the intensity of the debate must be taking some people by surprise.

It shouldn’t. The issues surrounding public television go straight to the heart of American democracy and its expression through our most powerful medium. Americans know that a national public broadcasting system is an essential feature of our great media landscape. And that fact certainly explains the impassioned polemic we’ve been witnessing of late. To some extent, this national discourse should be welcome. Questions about the system’s content, funding and future need to be considered and should interest all Americans. Unfortunately, the old saw about there being no such thing as bad publicity doesn’t apply here. Much of the current debate about public television is oversimplified, ill-informed, or simply incorrect. In what could be considered a variation on “reality TV,” it’s time to give some of the misleading headlines a rewrite.

Headline: Public television equals the PBS network.

Reality: Public television is not a network. America’s public television stations are autonomous, community-based stations that work together through the Public Broadcasting Service. PBS is a membership organization that oversees distribution and promotion of programming for these stations.

Headline: PBS sets the agenda for public television.

Reality: The stations make their own decisions. Case in point: when PBS withdrew the episode of the children’s series “Postcards from Buster,” in which Buster Bunny visits the home of a lesbian couple, many stations – including Thirteen/WNET New York – decided to air the program anyway. That decision underscores the independence and responsiveness of public television stations to their individual communities – one of the great strengths of this unique system, especially at a time of vigorous media consolidation.

Headline: Public television is dependent on vast sums of government funding.

Reality: Public television receives only about one dollar a year per American in federal funding. The rest comes from corporations, foundations, and members. But federal dollars are key, because – even though they make up only 15% of public television’s total budget – they are a steady source of funding for developing new programs in a system that doesn’t have the deep pockets of commercial or cable networks.

Headline: Federal subsidies give public television an unfair advantage.

Reality: Many projects that benefit the public receive public financial stimulus to attract private capital. The same applies to public television, which are not-for-profit entities working in the public interest. At the major producing stations like Thirteen/WNET New York, every dollar in federal money is leveraged many times over in a fruitful public-private funding model. So the small amount of federal money that goes to public television each year is an investment that consistently yields extraordinary returns, both in purely financial terms and in the form of the most acclaimed programming on television.

Headline: Corporations no longer support public television.

Reality: After a slump in corporate support that coincided with the nationwide recession, corporations are once again seeking to partner in the creation of the kind of landmark programming that defines public television.

Headline: Public television has been made obsolete by cable channels.

Reality: Despite detractors’ claims, public television offers a caliber and depth of programming simply not found anywhere else. In describing such recent public television series as Broadway: The American Musical and Slavery: The Making of America, critics used words like “revelatory,” “mesmerizing” and “significant.” Indeed, public television brings a serious purpose to television that sets it apart from the universe of channels. Moreover, through broadcasts and educational outreach projects that reach people of all walks of life, free of charge, public television uses the medium as a source of lifelong learning and public service. That’s something that no other television provider can claim.

For the second consecutive year, a Roper Public Affairs & Media poll shows Americans consider PBS the nation's most trusted institution and the second most valuable service taxpayers receive, after military defense. Of course, what those Americans truly value is a robust system of independent public television stations, working together on a national level through PBS, but responsive to the unique needs of their individual communities.

America’s public television system deserves to be fairly represented to the public it serves. The reality is that public television is vital and vibrant, an institution with the flexibility, resources and vision to move forward in a challenging media environment. Some issues need to be worked out, of course. But at its core, public television is healthy, thriving and appreciated by millions of people in every corner of America. That’s a headline we need to read more often.