Why Save PBS from Mitt, Newt, Ron and the rest? Click here to see above poster full size.

As if all this weren’t enough to dissuade us of his “moderate” status, now Mitt’s threatened to cut PBS funding:

PBS, [PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger] says, has always had bipartisan support in large part because it is an “effective public/private partnership.”…PBS only gets, in aggregate, 15 percent of its budget from the federal government — but it’s a percentage that is vital to smaller, poorer, mostly rural stations. “That money can not be made up. We try to leverage it very carefully.”

[She says] changing PBS to an ad-supported network would inevitably change what it airs because the network would be forced to show programs that attract advertiser-friendly crowds.

PBS, for example, continues to air ballet and modern dance, even though their ratings droop, because the service believes its important to present those arts to the viewing public. No ad-supported cable network would make a similar choice.

“There are a number of channels in the cable world that started out with really great ideas that they would be the commercial version of public television, and they went down very different paths.” For an example, she says, take History. “Programming like Pawn Stars and American Pickers is not the same as American Experience and Ken Burns …”

Despite the threats, this has been a good year for PBS…

…read the rest here.

Relephant:

We love everything Sesame Street.

We love Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Everything we need to know we learned from PBS—Mr. Rogers testifies to Congress [Video]