LBJ and the CPB
On November 7, 1967 (45 years ago today) President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The act gave the CPB the responsibility of encouraging and facilitating program diversity and the development of non-commercial broadcasting. The CPB was given funds to help local stations create innovative programs which were intended to be in the public interest in the United States. Thanks to this legislation, many adults have grown up aided by some of the more well-known PBS shows, such as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Senate hearings were held in 1967 at which many prominent Americans including Fred Rogers (aka Mr. Rogers) and Senator John O. Pastore advocated for passage of the Act. The United States House of Representatives passed the bill 266-91 on September 21, 1967. When President Johnson signed the act into law on November 7, 1967, he described its purpose as follows:
"It announces to the world that our Nation wants more than just material wealth. Our nation wants more than a chicken in every pot. We in America have an appetite for excellence, too. While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act...It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities. It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and their potential use throughout the world. Finally — and most important — it builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
Funding for public broadcasting has been a political issue, including in the past election campaign when Governor Mitt Romney suggested tbat funding for public broadcasting could be a source of spending cuts. PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, who moderated the first presidential debate of 2012, has said that there is a need to increase federal funding in order to meet the need of serious journalism as broadcasters and commercial newspapers see declines. Lehrer said "public media needs to produce more local news and serious journalism because other channels are being used to tease and to entertain and only to inform across the surface. I have a good source on why this is a problem. The source is Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson told the folks back when this country was founded that the only way this democratic society we just created is going to work is if there is an informed electorate."
Senate hearings were held in 1967 at which many prominent Americans including Fred Rogers (aka Mr. Rogers) and Senator John O. Pastore advocated for passage of the Act. The United States House of Representatives passed the bill 266-91 on September 21, 1967. When President Johnson signed the act into law on November 7, 1967, he described its purpose as follows:
"It announces to the world that our Nation wants more than just material wealth. Our nation wants more than a chicken in every pot. We in America have an appetite for excellence, too. While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act...It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities. It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and their potential use throughout the world. Finally — and most important — it builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
Funding for public broadcasting has been a political issue, including in the past election campaign when Governor Mitt Romney suggested tbat funding for public broadcasting could be a source of spending cuts. PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, who moderated the first presidential debate of 2012, has said that there is a need to increase federal funding in order to meet the need of serious journalism as broadcasters and commercial newspapers see declines. Lehrer said "public media needs to produce more local news and serious journalism because other channels are being used to tease and to entertain and only to inform across the surface. I have a good source on why this is a problem. The source is Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson told the folks back when this country was founded that the only way this democratic society we just created is going to work is if there is an informed electorate."