Public TV puts rural America in the spotlight

Public TV. It’s where we got to see “Medora,” a film about the Hornets, the high school basketball team in a small Indiana town, and its struggle to resist the consequences of school consolidation. And “Deep Down,”  about a community conflict over mountaintop removal in eastern Kentucky. And “A Class Apart,” about the lawsuit that resulted from a murder in small-town Texas and challenged the legal discrimination of Latinos. And “Weaving Worlds,” about the makers of the legendary Navajo rugs. And “Next Year Country,” about Montana farmers who turn to real-life rainmakers in a time of drought. Public TV reaches more parts of America than commercial broadcast TV, because it hits small town and rural areas that commercial broadcasters don’t find worth their time. Its most popular program service, PBS, is consistently rated the most trusted media brand in America. But to some Trump-era officials, it’s un-American. The Trump budget released earlier this year called for total defunding of public broadcasting. A deeply conservative Congressman, Andy Harris (R-MD), was more mild-mannered. He only asked for defunding of the radio news service NPR and the public TV documentary production service Independent Television Service (ITVS). Why? Too “liberal.” He singled out three programs on public TV that feature women of color as evidence. He said public broadcasting shouldn’t fund “controversial, out-of-mainstream programming”—that is, anything by or about someone who doesn’t look like the (OK, you and I can say it out loud if he can’t, “white”) majority.