JIM BLAKE,
Madam, - Helen Shaw (November 22nd) in her article "Time for debate on information and our society" describes a fairly bleak situation for those of us who believe that public broadcasting is an essential part of a healthy, open, thinking, questioning and critical society.
She shows how public broadcasting is failing in the United States because of "a lack of clarity, vulnerability to political backlashes, and insufficient funding". She mentions how Mrs Thatcher tried to cut funding to the BBC and she gives detail of how Ray Burke and private business interest used legislation in the Dáil (the 1990 amendment to the Broadcasting Act) to cut off revenue to RTÉ.
We may see Ray Burke as an aberration and not representative of legitimate business and no doubt we will see Big Business distancing itself from him in the coming months as more revelations tumble out from the Flood Tribunal.
However, Ray Burke should be seen as a fairly standard cutting edge of powerful commercial interests who just happened to have been caught in the floodlights (no pun intended) . These interests see broadcasting in general as a vehicle to push sales and profits to ever greater lengths thereby enhancing the influence of the most dynamic section of society, them. Broadcasting, in their view, exists to deliver consumers, preferably passive, to the delights of spending and shopping. Therefore, criticism, stimulation, controversy or serious thinking is anathema and only the mildest of entertainment should be allowed.
It is Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, poet and philosopher, who has written that the crisis in public broadcasting worldwide, is equivalent to the huge problem of the North-South divide. He describes it as "a general threat to humankind" and compares it also with the depletion of the earth's resources and the rise of religious/ethnic fanaticism.
For us to continue to grow and develop in Ireland and to make our contribution to the rest of the world we need a healthy, thinking, reflective and well-educated society. Allowing powerful commercial interests to dominate the airwaves with all the new powerful methods and technology at their disposal will mean an almost certain "dumbing down".
There is an atmosphere out there which sees the commercial takeover as inevitable considering the weight of their money, influence and power.
I think it can be challenged and fought.
Firstly, I believe that public broadcasting should not be dependant on the licence fee. This is simply an imposition of a regressive tax, whereby the poorest section of society contribute the bulk of the revenue and thereby contribute relatively far more than the rich.
Good quality broadcasting is now essential in our lives and we should not have to pay which is effectively a poll tax to have it delivered, no more than we should have to pay a separate tax for the provision of public parks, museums, schools or art galleries. Secondly, public broadcasting should not become the preserve of an elite of self-regarding nomenklatura as has happened, not just in Ireland.
Thirdly, there should be accountability not just to the Government but to ordinary people through such things as workers councils and other civic bodies.
Fourthly, artistic freedom should be guaranteed and more encouragement given to younger people experiment with contributions.
Public broadcasting could be a powerful means to regenerate the energy that once gave us the gift of independence from the big powers in the world. It could challenge the outgrowths of conservative tendencies, some of which have been exposed (church, police, government, business) which have grown like lichen on the precious rock of that independence.
I believe that a better-funded, resourced and accountable public broadcasting authority is as necessary to us now as food is for our bodies.
We have the capacity to build a mode which could be used elsewhere in a floundering confused and increasingly challenged world.
For all sorts of reasons we have a credibility worldwide which goes far beyond our tiny population size and which we could utilise to demonstrate what is good and what is possible. - Yours, etc.,
JIM BLAKE, Grosvenor Mews, Douglas West, Cork.