Public television's partication in these global discussions is pretty much limited to promotional advertisements for Archer Danials Midland. Miracle Gro, Amgen and other agro business companies. Public television is as presently constituted, incapable of almost any kind of reporting on the sort of systemic critique that this global movement represents. We have a nominally public communication apparatus that is structurely imbedded in the corporate system. Any sustained critique of that system cannot take place within that apparatus.
Public broadcasting sees itself as an adversary to independent production.
One of the most distressing signs of this was the way in which NPR has gone to bat against the microradio rule-making. Even the NAB has not been as swarmy as the denizens of the so called public broadcasting lobbying sector in getting Congressional passage of the anti micro radio legislation. In terms of video production, PBS stations have set themselves up as fortresses against not only independent producers, but community groups of any stripe, except perhaps the junior league or the chambers of commerce. What a contrast between the icy gloom of most publicly funded PBS station offices and the bustle and excitement of the many successful cable access centers. During the late 1970's the second Carnegie Commission sparked an occasion for renewed activity in the critique and reform of public television.