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KBYU-TV keeps PBS affiliation
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I guess there are still a FEW good programs on PBS. This comes from someone who used to be a PBS devotee. That's before it made such a hard turn to the left. There's plenty of other really great documentary programming on a lot of other stations now. No need for us to continue to waste our tax dollars on something the free market produces in great quantity. PBS really should be zero funded and scrapped.
Yes.
This is simply not true. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, only $52,916,000 of PBS' $338,899,000 (or 15%) Operating Revenue came from CPB and/or Federal Grants. However, 58% came from member contributions. Donated Broadcast Rights (underwriting funds paid directly to producers by corporations, foundations and other sources to help offset program production costs) accounted for over half the Total Revenue which was $592,468,000. Unfortunately, 2008 also saw a $4,481,000 LOSS for the year.
If PBS is "Public" broadcasting, I suggest they keep the donors happy in the local markets. Unless they can pony up more federal money (tax-laced money anyway) or corporate donations, they're going to see more losses in the future.
One last point, unless PBS were to deny a legitimate call for a new religious program, there is no evidence of PBS favoring one religion over another. This was the point of the amendment in the constitution- not an all out ban of religion in the public sector.
I think both of your are pretty cool. But I agree with the stat man. God wins. Again.
I have to agree PBS is pathetic and they have lost the respect of many viewers now. I recently contributed to KBYU TV in the fundraising event but had this ruling been implemented, that would have been the last donation from me.
We must all rally together to protect such basic freedom. The constitution says we will not prohibit the exercise of religion, but we are allowing the airways to do so. We are in danger, whether or not you want to watch religious programs, peril lurks.
Because it is discrimination against other religions.
It's immoral and UN-American. All religions should get the same treatment. Every religion should get the same access to PBS. That's the American way.
If this was being done based on peoples skin color there would be a firestorm. But on the basis of religon it's OK? NO!
That's one of the symptoms. The disease is moral relativism and militant atheism.
The News Hour almost always has both conservative and liberal commentators (usually intelligent) on all issues. When has Fox News done that?
And yes, Bill Moyers is a voice of the Left, but have you listened to John McLaughlin? He's quite conservative. Why limit perspectives? I want to hear from both sides. And that includes religious programming. Why limit quality programming? Have Americans abandoned free speech?
I want to see public programming from a variety of perspectives. Conservatives should embrace PBS. It would help them to move beyond the rantings of talk radio. Can you envision a conservative documentary on Prop 8 and gay marriage that is of the quality of a "Frontline" documentary?
The largest national network has over 100 fewer stations. PBS has many markets where more than one PBS station serves that market.
In 1994 or 1995 congress attempted to defund PBS. It would have been a good move. The popular programs would have survived as would PBS as a network. Many of the stations would have become independant. Their air time is valuable and they would have been a commercial success.
Free of government control the nonsense about denying KBYU its PBS affiliation would never come up.
Many of the programs on PBS preach evolution as if it were fact not theory.
The same processes of research that make it possible for people to become righteously indignant about such new and radical concepts as adaptation, natural selection, or Big Bang, are the same processes by whuch we have computers and televisions and the ability to push our insanely close-minded rhetoric on anyone with nothing better to do than read it.
And by the way I am LDS for those of you who think I am just one of "those people."
I think both scientific and religious people need to realize that no matter how much learning, or revelation, they may have, we all understand less than a fraction of nothing about nothing when it comes to the Universe, period. Just because there is a little light and knowledge does not mean we have the whole picture.
Incidentally, nowhere in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or any of the Amendments, does it say anything about opinions that could be considered partisan. The big question here is does PBS officially support any election campaigns? Does it exclusively support individual candidates? Just because a network airs material you don't agree with does not mean that they are supporting or pushing any one sort of agenda. PBS tends to lean towards Academia. Academia tends to mean intellectual. Unfortunately there is a myth that Intellectual means Left.
People tend to get all righteous and high and mighty when they feel like their particular views are being unfairly treated. They tend not to see how unfairly they treat other positions.
If PBS is for academics and intellectuals, why can I poke wholes in every argument made by Bill Moyers, NOW and most of the other liberal documentaries they air? They are not intellectuals, they are hacks.
What exactly is the point that you're trying to make here? Your statement seems contradictory. Research is good because it gives us new inventions and theories, or research is bad because it makes us "righteously indignant."
Don't confuse your issues with the way a teacher presents material to you, with church doctrine. I graduated from Illinois State University but the best teacher I ever had was at BYU (anatomy) and the worst teacher I have ever had was at BYU (virology). All teachers, no matter where they teach are human and subject to imperfections. It is still your responsibility to sort through the material presented to you, to capture the relevant material and make your own decisions.
Quit being such a whiner and take responsibility for yourself and let others take respsonsibility for their own intellectual development.
Also, I am willing to bet that a lot of those intellectuals whose arguments you can so easily deconstruct would hav quite a bit to say about how easily they would be able to argue against some of the ideas that you feel very strongly about.
Intellectualism does not mean that you have an argument that is complete and unassailable and bulletproof. It should however mean that you approach an issue openly, with willingness to accept whatever answer your study and research find. I accept that many "intellectuals" are at least as closeminded as many anti-intellectuals.
I get back to the academic issue. A lot of the programming that people take issue with on PBS is dedicated to academic pursuits. It is very difficult to approach religious matters from a truly academic standpoint because religion requires certain assumptions that are neither tangible nor provable. Therefore faith "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I am not saying there should be no religious programming. I appreciate the religious programming. I do however, question the legality of government funding for religious programming.
Be honest...when was the last time you really watched Fox? Because, if you did you would see "liberals" on all of the time. In reality Fox is the only "fair and balanced" news outlet.
Regarding BYU Bilogy classes. My point was that there is no life science program at an accredited institution that will not at least in some way teach evoluton. If it is taught as only a "theory," or if it is taught as scientific fact, it is still taught. I was not making any implication that creationism is a half-truth, which I think may have been the respondent's concern. My point is that many scientific program that people watching KBYU could take issue with on a religious basis present information that is likewise presented in BYU classrooms.
As far as my statement on research and such. I hate the war between Science and Religion. My point is that evolutionary science is the result of a lot of intensive, painstaking research, that many academics believe points to certain conclusions. That same scientific process that people use to support evolution has been used to develop the wonderful technological resources we enjoy. We love science when it allows us to broadcast conference around the world, but we hate it when it challenges our beliefs.
Firstly, my comments about BYU Biology courses were based on the assumption that, even if it is taught as only a theory, evolution is taught in BYU classrooms. A lot of the scientific programming that people take issue with presents information that is being taught at BYU, which last I heard, was an accredited institution, therefore bound to certain academic standards.
Secondly, my comment about research and such was poorly stated. The same processes that many biologists have used to come to the conclusion that, in their opinion, based on their research, evolution is a reality, and the same processes by which geologists have determines such things as the age of the earth and some of the developmental processes, are the same processes that were used in the development of electronic technology that allows us to rage against scientific findings that challenge our beliefs.
I understand very little about God, or science, or the universe, or anything really. I am frustrated that we love science when it allows us to broadcast conference around the world, but we hate it when it challenges our beliefs, many of which we do not fully understand.
I have no problem with the scientific broadcasting on PBS. It is a point of view and when it is supported with reliable sources I found it interesting and informative. My complaint is with the propaganda spewed by the left wing comments by radicals. Those views are not supported by scientific or intellectual reasoning.
I have a rough memory and understanding of the theory of evolution (I don't use biology in my career and it isn't a hobby, so I haven't kept up on it). I don't care whether it's the whole truth or not. It simply doesn't matter to me.
Just to be clear though, a BYU student taking a biology class is extremely unlikely to be taught "evolution lite." They get the same info taught at any other university in America.
While there may be some 'uptight' souls' who think KBYU should air solely religious programming, that's why BYU-TV and BYU-TV International were created.
The grandfather clause now in place allows KBYU to remain true to its roots, while putting in place appropriate secular programming. After all, true spirituality is a balance between the religious and the secular, and nowhere in America is it more sorely needed than in Utah.
If we're to work past hostilities existing within Utah's non-LDS population, we need some forward movement, without compromising our principles in the process. It's called living IN the world without being OF the world.
So before any of you decide to start a 'holy war' here, keep in mind that no one person or entity has a monopoly on either truth or virtue.
There is good in all the world...sometimes you have to look outside of either Utah, or the Church to find it.
Tim Rollins
Oklahoma City
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