Both organisations' underwriting credits raise plenty of questions.
For much of the 1970s and 1980s, major PBS programming was funded by oil companies (Mobil in particular, if you watched Masterpiece Theater). Today, Nova receives heavy funding from Koch sources. Even nonprofit sources are tainted -- the John Templeton Foundation (look it up) has a very specific agenda, and there is/was a two-part series, "The Real Adam Smith", which was essentially a straight-up, full-on propaganda piece put out by the Mont Pelerin Society / Atlas Network, funded by Templeton, and with Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW's name specifically attached to the production. The content is highly slanted, and I found (and find) the whole matter exceedingly questionable.
I'm not saying there isn't a lot of good work coming through PBS, NPR, PRX, and similar sources. Or that the quality isn't, generally, vastly superior to commercial media. But that bar is set miles below floor level, and the problems with co-option of public media have been increasing with time.
Part of that I attribute to "Woozle's Epistemic Paradox": because of a high percentage of the population being present, there is now substantial power to be had by influencing the discussions that take place.
A problem which attaches to other (really, any) media, including online: BBSes, Usenet, Geocities, Facebook, Reddit, HN.
For much of the 1970s and 1980s, major PBS programming was funded by oil companies (Mobil in particular, if you watched Masterpiece Theater). Today, Nova receives heavy funding from Koch sources. Even nonprofit sources are tainted -- the John Templeton Foundation (look it up) has a very specific agenda, and there is/was a two-part series, "The Real Adam Smith", which was essentially a straight-up, full-on propaganda piece put out by the Mont Pelerin Society / Atlas Network, funded by Templeton, and with Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW's name specifically attached to the production. The content is highly slanted, and I found (and find) the whole matter exceedingly questionable.
I'm not saying there isn't a lot of good work coming through PBS, NPR, PRX, and similar sources. Or that the quality isn't, generally, vastly superior to commercial media. But that bar is set miles below floor level, and the problems with co-option of public media have been increasing with time.
Part of that I attribute to "Woozle's Epistemic Paradox": because of a high percentage of the population being present, there is now substantial power to be had by influencing the discussions that take place.
A problem which attaches to other (really, any) media, including online: BBSes, Usenet, Geocities, Facebook, Reddit, HN.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...