Panhandling the Airwaves -- Again

By Jack Engelhard

This morning I turned on the radio just to find out how the "fund drive" is going at that classical music station provided by Temple University. I was shocked and awed by what I heard -- music! Imagine that, music coming from a music station instead of all that pleading for money.

A while back, I watched the two-hour documentary on FDR on my local PBS outlet (WHYY, I think it is) and was impressed, so impressed that it hurts me to knock public programming. PBS offers many other specials that I value- such as Live From Lincoln Center -so it still hurts to say what I have to say, such as:

How many times a year do I have to pay Bill Moyers' salary?

Even as we speak, our public broadcasting networks are at it again in what's known as their "pledge drives." Here we call it begging.

This gripe isn't just about those people who operate our national airwaves. The locals do it, too, as I've just mentioned, like the (radio) classical music station in my neck of the country, which stopped the music, except for a minute of Bach here and there, to remind us to SEND MONEY, otherwise no more Beethoven. They do go on like this hour after hour without shame and cajole us with "memberships" and "gifts."

I also need money -- but can I go around the neighborhood, imploring, begging, beseeching?

Can I go on radio or television asking, demanding, that you please pay for my writing, otherwise no more novels?

I wouldn't do it even if I could. That would be humiliating.

(We won't discuss the radical left agenda that's imposed on listeners and viewers as "a public service." That's another column.)

As I understand it, public broadcasting - the national ones for radio and TV - get millions every year from the government; in other words, our tax dollars at work. Yes, millions -- and in addition there's money coming in from corporate sponsors, philanthropic sponsors and "from viewers like you."

That doesn't seem to be enough. It's never enough. Salaries must be paid! (Some of these salaries are pretty fat.) Thus everything stops so that all these announcers, men and women of distinction, can plead for assistance - and "pick up the phone and dial in your pledge right now!" Am I the only one who finds this unseemly? Is this ethical? Why is it legal?

If these same TV and radio personalities used the same pitch on the street, they'd be arrested for panhandling.

Many shops and businesses post signs that say: "No soliciting on these premises."

That should be the rule for our airwaves as well, which we own. The word is "public."

Personally I'm not against begging as long as it comes from the poor, not the rich.

Back to the local scene, we have something that passes for public radio and those aren't "commercials" that interrupt the music even in the best of times - meaning when there's no beg-a-thon in progress - no, we have no bananas and we have no commercials; what we have are Public Service Announcements.

These PSAs (I assume) are never paid through money, or anything as untidy as that, but rather through "donations." See the difference?

(I also like the word "endowment" in place of "show me the money.")

We already have a hundred different networks by a click of the remote and these operations pay themselves the old fashioned way - by running recognizable commercials, like my favorites on weight loss, male enhancement remedies and "it's all about the beer." True, these spots damage the brain by popping up as frequently as they do so that we've become a nation of robots that cannot maintain a stream of thought for more than seven minutes. That's the attention span of one set of commercials to the next.

However - that's business. Commercial networks make no claim that they're providing "a public service."

They do not run as charities.

I'm big on charities. I give. How does national public radio or television figure as charity - especially with all the cash derived from the government and other sources?

If they can't make it with all that, maybe it's time for these programmers to get a real job, like the rest of us.

Jack Engelhard latest novel, THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE, now available in paperback, places journalism at the center of our war on terror. Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel INDECENT PROPOSAL that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Indecent Proposal He accepts "endowments" only through actual sales of his books. No begging. He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com