PUBLIC ENEMY #1

Public Media for The Republic

Happy Monday Peaceniks. Let’s change the channel.

“Correlations and cluster analyses show that high levels of secure funding for Public Media systems and strong structural protections for the political and economic independence of those systems are consistently and positively correlated with healthy democracies.”

- Funding Democracy; Neff & Pickard

Let’s be honest. America is sick. No matter on which side of the political divide you sit, there’s a general, near universal consensus among us all that, right now, America is unwell.

The most urgent sign of America’s illness is the widening and worsening chasm between us. The violent rage between Americans’ isms and ologies has manifested into a collective, hopeless inability to have a civil fucking conversation about literally anything anymore.

I believe our cultural and emotional fissures are the symptoms, not the source of what ails the U.S. Having studied the data deeply, I believe I actually know the cause of our national affliction. And I think I have a cure.

Let’s start with the vital signs.

The United States, once the global beacon of the free, modern lifestyle, now ranks #24 on the World Happiness Report – the lowest in history and a huge drop in the last decade. That’s behind Iceland and Luxembourg, as well as our current trade war opponents in Canada and Mexico. Notably, American happiness ranks below two global powers in far worse economic health, the UK and Germany.

So, what’s causing all this discontent? In my study of the data, a sizable share of our shared depression comes from our historic discord.

Even for America’s usually inharmonious union, our country is more divided now, than likely any time since the Civil War. During the very contentious Clinton years, 55% of us considered the country “greatly divided.” During the heart of the Obama years, just 29% of us saw America as “united.” Today, 80% of Americans believe we are “greatly divided.” Less than one in five of us see the United States as “united.”

However, I do not believe we are naturally contentious. The divide among us is not the cause of our toxic culture, rather it is an aggravated symptom of it.

America’s disunion is a direct byproduct of our core cultural defect: Commercial News.

America is one of the only modern democracies on earth without a true, well-funded Public Service Media. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created in 1967 to promote “public broadcasting” in the United States. PBS was created in 1969. In 1973, PBS aired the Watergate hearings live, nationwide, with Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer covering. This created enormous interest in Public Broadcasting - something other nations had but America did not - as a system to inform us about what our own government does. America’s trust in Media soared.

National commercial broadcasters, at that time, held themselves to the same standards as PBS. For the most part, News and revenue divisions were kept at arms-length by the large Media corporations that owned them. Early on in Big Corporate Media, I personally believe News was seen by its owners as “a responsibility.” This is evidenced by the relatively unvarnished coverage major networks and Media outlets gave the Viet Nam War and Watergate – which cemented public opinion against both and precipitated the end of the war and Nixon.

However, every year since these examples of the Fourth Estate successfully watch-dogging governmental power, Mainstream corporate Media (in collusion with corporately-owned politicians) worked hard to reverse the stream - forcing News to generate profits, eliminating the Fairness Doctrine, and with it any form of accountability. Simultaneously, reactionary forces within the body politic unleashed an unrelenting assault on the very concept of Public Service Media – defunding PBS, CPB, and NPR every chance they get, even gleefully attacking Big Bird and Elmo (it’s like I’m making it up, and yet I am most certainly not).

As a direct result of this neglect and abuse - after adding a firehose of unregulated social media misinformation bubbles - Americans’ trust in their News and their public institutions fell like Buzzfeed’s stock price - now at the lowest point since Gallup started keeping track. Americans now trust News Media less than Big Tech, the Supreme Court, even the current President.

What’s clear is that, unlike every peer nation America has, the “powers that be” in US Media really do not want a free, independent publicly-funded Media, nor a corporately run Media that acts like one.

America funds Public Media 35X less per capita than the Happiest Place on Earth, Finland (sorry Disney) - three times less than the average of the planet’s genuine democracies. This disparity is not because people in other countries donate more of their money to their version of PBS in exchange for a tote bag. It’s because funding for Public Service Media is the law in these countries, and the public funds it through higher taxes. Imagine that.

What do those countries know that we do not?

“Where Public Service Media is well-funded and enjoys a high market share, there is more political stability and corruption is under control. In countries where PSM is weak, the state of democracy is weak, and people are less satisfied with the democratic process.”

- Democracy and Public Service Media, European Broadcasting Union

A lot, apparently.

“Data shows that countries near the top of Economist Democracy Index have well-funded public media that meet minimal criteria to assure autonomy and stable financial support. Even as revenues for commercial media organizations dropped precipitously over the past two decades, countries with robust public media systems maintained strong positions in Economist’s Democracy rankings.

However, the United States dropped from ‘full democracy’ to ‘flawed democracy’ in 2016 and has continued to decline since.”

- Funding Democracy; Neff & Pickard

In history’s rear-view, the corporate takeover of US Media in the 80s and 90s will seem adorable by comparison to what came next. The B-School Media C-Suites of the last few decades are now being replaced by the self-interested Billionaire Oligarchy of the 21^st Century. The richest man on Earth used his own pet Media platform and billions of his personal wealth to buy the most powerful unelected position in global history - and is now using that purchase power to shut down Public Service Media around the world.

Secretary Dogebag is hardly alone. The Washington Post, which once brought down a corrupt President, cementing the very ideal of American journalistic integrity, is now News as Whole Foods: By and for only rich people in power. The Los Angeles Times has become the personal social media feed of the newest brat pack billionaire. OG corporate Media C-Suites are busily firing anyone who pissed off anyone in the administration, shredding their performative DEI initiatives, weakly settling bat-shit lawsuits, shifting coverage into contortionist both-sides-ism, and cowering in fear of the new FCCzar. Not to be outdone, the Alpha-billionaire, ex-game show host, Execu-tot in Chief has banned one of the last semblances of tried and true American journalism, The Associated Press, from even stepping foot into what Andrew Jackson once declared “the people’s house.”

America’s most powerful News outlets are all now just punching bags, sandbox toys, bragging rights, and political blackmail toolkits for the world’s richest and most spoiled men – none of whom give any fucks about the journalistic burden that Clare Booth Luce called “the highest ideal of responsibility.”

In American society where Public Media has never been prioritized or valued, this may seem like a less consequential factor than it is. However, as the EBU said in its report on the impact of free Public Service Media on the Health of Democracies…

“There is a particularly strong correlation between the level of funding of PSM in a country and the level of political participation. In countries where PSM is well-funded, citizens are much more likely to be active in politics, a foundation of good governance.

In today’s polarized world, it is easy for people to be trapped in their own little ‘filter bubbles’ of intellectual isolation. PSM not only provide citizens with high-quality news and information, it exposes them to a diversity of viewpoints. It challenges their perceptions and makes them think differently about the world. It holds governments and authorities to account and gives a voice to the voiceless.”

The results of a democracy without a strong Public Service Media: A polarized world. Filter bubbles of intellectual isolation. Lack of political participation. Sound familiar? Sound like US? This is not a political statement. This is a (lowercase) democratic statement. The crackdown on free speech by an ever-tightening inner circle of powerful deciders is cutting to the core of what makes America free.

The data – not opinion – shows that America is now solidly a “flawed democracy.” Advocacy groups around the world, including Amnesty International, have added the United States of America to their Human Rights Watchlist – a list we’re supposed to judge, not join.

The symptoms of the cancer in American Democracy are clear. The causes can be seen on the surface, but in fact, they run centuries deep. Since our founding, America’s LOVE of capitalism often (if not always) trumps what’s truly best for all Americans. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the history of the American News Industrial Complex. But, I believe the data above shows, the ROOT CAUSE of our democratic malignancy is not the volume of cable news, not the greed of the American Media, nor even the string of mega-rich nepo-babies misusing and abusing our first amendment for their own enrichment.

American Democracy is broken because of its LACK OF PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA. To cure it, we must give Americans a truly free Fourth Estate.

Creating a free, independent Public Service Media may seem impossible in our capitalist-addicted American culture, especially with all those Doge-balls hanging out everywhere. But I really think it’s possible – perhaps more so now than ever.

First, I think the threat is finally, frankly, super-fucking clear to everyone. Second, there are now quite a few incentivized candidates to help push such an initiative forward. Last, in true old-fashioned TV parlance, there’s “a win-win solution” that I think can make everyone happy (or as happy as we’re all capable of).

I’ll start my pitch by saying “not all billionaires.” I dare to say that most billionaires are not wannabe super villains. This is my first recruiting letter to them.

If you are a billionaire, please keep reading. If you are not a billionaire, you may also keep reading – but please try to share this with a billionaire you know. I would especially appreciate it if you can forward this to my current, and richest heroes, Laurene Powell Jobs and MacKenzie Scott.