5 ms·

Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fi

by gowld 5y ago

Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fix this, since the government doesn't have a unified view of what "good" content is, and is heavily interested in promoting various striped of partisan propaganda. Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing".

djrogers 5y ago
> Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing". I’ve never heard any “right-wing” people, even crazy in-law types, call Mr Rogers “left-wing”.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iljhDaowoLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iljhDaowoLc , in which Fox News calls him an "evil, evil man", for making children grow up with self esteem.
  - pfraze 5y ago
    This folds into the general class of calls-to-inaction which they use to pass off systemic problems. "Why are millenials poor and expecting more? Perhaps they were raised wrong by TV. Let's not examine it further." I personally didn't see shots at Mr Rogers get much further than this weak Fox segment among conservatives, for what it's worth.
    - mandmandam 5y ago
      Fox News ran a hit piece on one of the kindest and most beloved educators in America. It's obvious (to some) that they did this to divert from systemic problems. That's what they do, and they're still allowed to call themselves News. At what point do Americans stand up for a bare minimum level of journalism? And remember, that while Fox might not have gotten far with this particular piece in your experience, they sent this six minute piece out to millions of people. They wrote it, filmed it, and aired it. They never apologised.
      - Noos 5y ago
        When he actually was broadcasting, he was never considered "one of the most beloved educators." That was recent hagiography, and I watched him as a child growing up in the 70s. He was one of several. Bob Keehan/Captain Kangaroo was another personality for very young kids. I can say as a child at that time we outgrew him fairly quickly and didn't really hang around him much. If anything, most of the content of that time was similar; Gumby, David and Goliath, Bozo the Clown, and more were discarded as soon as better came along. It was that odd time of transition. He was the definition of pablum; formula you gave to babies. He was outdated compared to Sesame Street and Electric Company, and was almost kitsch just like Bob Ross was. I believe he was lionized more because millenials and zoomers are so overstimulated they crave the opposite now; blandness to the point of sedation.
      - Bud 5y ago
        With the death of the Fairness Doctrine, and its non-applicability to anything other than broadcast media, what mechanisms would you say Americans still have to "stand up" for journalism and to wage war on the evils of Fox News and its brethren?
beambot 5y ago
Distribution could help on the demand side... Would love to see more PBS content appear in Netflix and Amazon Prime.
TuringNYC 5y ago
>> Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find the educational content on YouTube to surpass anything+everything even at undergrad college (minus social and minus interactive language classes.) I also used YouTube extensively to supplement grad school course materials, with great success. I realize not everyone learns this way, but many do, and it is freely available now. While there may be a demand side problem, that can be fixed with better curation facilities. Legislation might not be able to fix this, but it can sure as heck hurt it given some of the current rhetoric. Unfortunately, if "big tech" is treated as a single entity to be enforced, we'll end up doing something monumentally destructive like losing YouTube as it is now (which I consider an international cultural and educational treasure w/o exaggerating.)
- sigzero 5y ago
  > With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find And it's biased because of the "I find". Everyone filters information even subconsciously.
  - TuringNYC 5y ago
    You're absolutely right. My approach has been to take my syllabus, ignore the textbook -- which is often completely theoretical and unnecessarily flooded with greek letters -- and found better course material on YouTube. The syllabus is important indeed. Another approach is to subscribe to lecture seriess on YouTube from other universities with better curation -- and let that university do the filtering.
WalterBright 5y ago
> Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. Not really. Nova, for example, has gone downhill quite a bit in the last few years, in that the content has been dumbed down more and more. It tends to candy-coat things and the host will say things along the lines of "golly gee whilikers!" It's a step above Sesame Street, but not by much. There are some exceptions. The one about the evolution of language was pretty good, although the information content was thin gruel. It's like butter that's been spread way too thin.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I'll expand on that a bit. Candy coating acting and like a six year old is not the way to make science accessible. Richard Feynman did it right. He never talked down to his audience, yet was able to make advanced concepts easily understandable. Watch any of his videos giving a lecture.
- LostInTheWoods 5y ago
  Nova does oversimplify things. Tho, I have yet to hear "golly gee whilikers" on it. Nova has become the science equivalent of 60 minutes, both of which are geared toward the public at large. Personally I find these programs entertaining, and if I want to go deeper I can always fire up a browser.

by gowld 5y ago

djrogers 5y ago

> Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing". I’ve never heard any “right-wing” people, even crazy in-law types, call Mr Rogers “left-wing”.

mandmandam 5y ago
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iljhDaowoLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iljhDaowoLc , in which Fox News calls him an "evil, evil man", for making children grow up with self esteem.
- pfraze 5y ago
  This folds into the general class of calls-to-inaction which they use to pass off systemic problems. "Why are millenials poor and expecting more? Perhaps they were raised wrong by TV. Let's not examine it further." I personally didn't see shots at Mr Rogers get much further than this weak Fox segment among conservatives, for what it's worth.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    Fox News ran a hit piece on one of the kindest and most beloved educators in America. It's obvious (to some) that they did this to divert from systemic problems. That's what they do, and they're still allowed to call themselves News. At what point do Americans stand up for a bare minimum level of journalism? And remember, that while Fox might not have gotten far with this particular piece in your experience, they sent this six minute piece out to millions of people. They wrote it, filmed it, and aired it. They never apologised.
    - Noos 5y ago
      When he actually was broadcasting, he was never considered "one of the most beloved educators." That was recent hagiography, and I watched him as a child growing up in the 70s. He was one of several. Bob Keehan/Captain Kangaroo was another personality for very young kids. I can say as a child at that time we outgrew him fairly quickly and didn't really hang around him much. If anything, most of the content of that time was similar; Gumby, David and Goliath, Bozo the Clown, and more were discarded as soon as better came along. It was that odd time of transition. He was the definition of pablum; formula you gave to babies. He was outdated compared to Sesame Street and Electric Company, and was almost kitsch just like Bob Ross was. I believe he was lionized more because millenials and zoomers are so overstimulated they crave the opposite now; blandness to the point of sedation.
    - Bud 5y ago
      With the death of the Fairness Doctrine, and its non-applicability to anything other than broadcast media, what mechanisms would you say Americans still have to "stand up" for journalism and to wage war on the evils of Fox News and its brethren?

beambot 5y ago

Distribution could help on the demand side... Would love to see more PBS content appear in Netflix and Amazon Prime.

TuringNYC 5y ago

>> Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find the educational content on YouTube to surpass anything+everything even at undergrad college (minus social and minus interactive language classes.) I also used YouTube extensively to supplement grad school course materials, with great success. I realize not everyone learns this way, but many do, and it is freely available now. While there may be a demand side problem, that can be fixed with better curation facilities. Legislation might not be able to fix this, but it can sure as heck hurt it given some of the current rhetoric. Unfortunately, if "big tech" is treated as a single entity to be enforced, we'll end up doing something monumentally destructive like losing YouTube as it is now (which I consider an international cultural and educational treasure w/o exaggerating.)

sigzero 5y ago
> With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find And it's biased because of the "I find". Everyone filters information even subconsciously.
- TuringNYC 5y ago
  You're absolutely right. My approach has been to take my syllabus, ignore the textbook -- which is often completely theoretical and unnecessarily flooded with greek letters -- and found better course material on YouTube. The syllabus is important indeed. Another approach is to subscribe to lecture seriess on YouTube from other universities with better curation -- and let that university do the filtering.

WalterBright 5y ago

> Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. Not really. Nova, for example, has gone downhill quite a bit in the last few years, in that the content has been dumbed down more and more. It tends to candy-coat things and the host will say things along the lines of "golly gee whilikers!" It's a step above Sesame Street, but not by much. There are some exceptions. The one about the evolution of language was pretty good, although the information content was thin gruel. It's like butter that's been spread way too thin.

WalterBright 5y ago
I'll expand on that a bit. Candy coating acting and like a six year old is not the way to make science accessible. Richard Feynman did it right. He never talked down to his audience, yet was able to make advanced concepts easily understandable. Watch any of his videos giving a lecture.
LostInTheWoods 5y ago
Nova does oversimplify things. Tho, I have yet to hear "golly gee whilikers" on it. Nova has become the science equivalent of 60 minutes, both of which are geared toward the public at large. Personally I find these programs entertaining, and if I want to go deeper I can always fire up a browser.