Prometheus 6

Getting a foot in the school door
As the Corp. for Public Broadcasting enlists new-media firms to help teach history, concerns arise about commercialization.
By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer
August 1, 2005

NEW YORK -- When the Corp. for Public Broadcasting announced in the spring the launch of an ambitious program aimed at expanding middle- and high-school students' knowledge of U.S. history and civics, it seemed to fit squarely with its traditional public service mission.

But an emphasis by corporation officials on how corporate investors could profit from the project has provoked controversy about the role commercial interests will play in the initiative and hints at new areas of conflict in public broadcasting's reliance on private-sector support.

The CPB — a private, nonprofit corporation that distributes federal funds to public broadcasters — plans to dole out $20 million in grants over the next three years as part of its American History and Civics Initiative. The money will go to projects that use websites, video games, podcasts and other new media to teach students about history and politics.

To get high-tech companies to participate in the initiative, CPB officials have urged producers to stress the profit to be made as schools across the country are exposed to their products. At briefings about the project, a CPB consultant suggested telling corporations that public television will be "a Trojan horse" to gain them entree into schools, according to attendees.

That idea has alarmed some producers, who fear the project represents a commercialization of public broadcasting.

"It's a radical departure from what the mission of CPB and public television is," said Deborah Kaufman, a Berkeley-based independent producer, who attended a briefing in New York for potential grant applicants in late May. "It's like a product plan for high-tech companies, which is inappropriate."

But supporters — including some of the larger PBS stations that produce the bulk of public television programming — view the project as a savvy way to broaden financial support for the system.

"With long-term funding for public broadcasting so uncertain, it's a really good move for us to be thinking about other business models to augment what we have," said Richard Winefield, vice president of interactive and educational services at San Francisco's KQED, which is applying for a grant. "I think we can do good and do well at the same time."

Ronald Thorpe, director of education at Thirteen/WNET in New York, agreed, calling the approach "good common sense."