What is your function?

First, I think it’s strange that you’re a *private* corporation created and funded by government and managing government resources. Shouldn’t you be public under those circumstances? The public deserves to have more insight and influence into what we’re funding and de facto authorizing. Why is this organization not public?

Second, I think people need more help understanding what it is you actually do. You’re apparently using taxpayer funding to help stations by providing ‘grants, seed money, and operating support’, and you make the comment that you “make “major investments in national content”, but anytime someone has a question or criticism, your standard response is ‘we don’t have any influence or input to programs or content’. I’m trying to understand how this is possible and what your function actually is. Are you purely processing disbursements from government direction without any strategy or analysis on your part? If so, who is providing the direction? And do we really need a private corporation to do that? Where’s the taxpayer benefit? If you do have some true managerial/ developmental/ operational oversight, how is it you give the same form letter response to everyone saying you don’t? If you keep getting comments talking about bad reporting and bias for instance (in violation of NPR/ PBS posted mission statements and code of ethics), how is it that your only response is to say that’s not your area? If you’re making managerial/ developmental/ operational investments and have that kind of business relationship, shouldn’t you at least be collecting these comments for feedback, internal policy/ process decisions, or at least some kind of report? Shouldn’t you be able to point commenters to some kind of official surveys or feedback process you have for your taxpayer funded entity? From this vantage point (with such limited/ non-existent information) it seems kind of like a shell game. It looks as though you are either an unnecessary organization, you’re not being fully upfront about your role, or you’re being used as a means to intentionally block public input into public broadcasting.

Received: 
California
Workbench Page Type: 
Feedback
Email: 
officialcaptchadetector@gmail.com
Month and Year: 
December, 2022
Comment: 
Thank you for contacting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). CPB promotes the growth and development of public media in communities throughout the country by providing funding to NPR, PBS, local public broadcasting stations (both TV and radio), as well as the Independent Television Service (ITVS), and five minority program consortia, which represent African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander television producers. By law, CPB itself is prohibited from producing or broadcasting programming but helps support the production of broadcast programs and other services for multiple digital platforms by thousands of producers and production companies throughout the country. CPB, PBS, and NPR are independent of each other and of the local public television and radio stations across the country. CPB neither owns, operates, nor controls broadcast stations. CPB seeks to make public broadcasting more accessible to the public it serves. To do so CPB maintains a toll-free, 24-hour telephone line (1-800-272-2190), an online contact form, and accepts letters sent directly to CPB. All comments are available on this website to be viewed by the general public. Each year, by statute, CPB transmits this public link to the White House for its report to Congress. Additionally, comments pertaining to programming are shared with the CPB Board of Directors and relevant public media staff. You can view public feedback and responses here: https://www.cpb.org/your-feedback To learn more about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, please visit: http://cpb.org/aboutcpb/.