Dear Editor:
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
(1) Attacks on public broadcasting have often taken the form of complaints about a perception of both liberal and anticorporate biases. In these complaints WBEZ is cast as a station embodying, for want of a better term, a “humanist” perspective towards culture. Unfortunately, the usually complicated and long-winded response to this type of criticism is less forceful and less effective than it might be. Thanks to the recent misadventures at WBEZ, the next time this criticism is raised station management can respond with a plethora of short, insightful, and powerful counterarguments. For example:
“Do you think we’re unsympathetic to corporate America? Who but the most enthusiastic students of American corporate culture could autocratically make major changes in a station’s programming and then, once the changes were already implemented, plan radio programs which, under the guise of eliciting feedback, really serve as cynical public relations ploys designed to give the illusion that management really cares?”
S. Austin
