John Chandler: “it was with alarm and a great sense of shock that I learned of the proposal to cut public broadcasting. Public…”

“it was with alarm and a great sense of shock that I learned of the proposal to cut public broadcasting. Public broadcasting provides unbiased, in-depth coverage of public policy issues, exposure to the arts and culture, and quality family-friendly educational program. Cutting funding for public broadcasting would damage the fabric of public discourse and citizen oversight, the very basis of representative government. By encouraging and informing public debate, public broadcasting makes a lasting contribution to community across the country and has historically enjoyed broad bipartisan support. In Kentucky, Governors from both parties have worked with Kentucky Educational Television to create the largest PBS member network in America, serving 640,000 Kentuckians each week. The proposed cut that we debated today would have had a crippling impact on the ability of KET and other public broadcasters to inform the public and enrich the curriculum taught to school children in the district of every single Member of this body. The question on everyone's minds was why? As educators and parents across our Nation contend with inadequate resources for public schools, why drastically scale back support for programming that enhances basic education and provides many students, especially those in rural schools, with their only exposure to the arts, music and the humanities?…”