On Thursday’s broadcast of CBS’s “Late Show,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher responded to a question on why people would want to cut funding to public media by stating that “one thing that is certainly true is that, if we in communities feel like we don’t have something in common with someone who lives down the road, it creates a space in which other people can come in and take advantage of us.”
Host Stephen Coblert asked, “Now, you say that public media fosters civic engagement, especially locally. Why would any politicians or members of any administration want to stop that?”
Maher answered, “Well, I think there are broader questions at play there, Stephen. I think that one thing that is certainly true is that, if we in communities feel like we don’t have something in common with someone who lives down the road, it creates a space in which other people can come in and take advantage of us. It is so important, especially, in a country that is as diverse, heterogeneous as ours, that things like public media exist to help us connect across divides. So, there are ways that we connect already. We connect because our kids are on the same sports teams, we connect because we go to the same church. But there are people in our community who we might not meet otherwise. We work in different trades, we, perhaps, come from different cultures. And public media allows us to see one another as fundamentally sharing some of the same values. So, what I love, particularly about audio, is that, when we do our jobs right, you really have to listen to a person. You’re not making judgments on the way that they look. You aren’t distanced from them because you’re sort of reading about their life experience. You are hearing from them in their own voice about what it means to hold the opinions that they have, to have lived the lives that they have lived. And when we do that right, you can fundamentally disagree with something someone says, but you can’t deny their empathy or humanity, and that is such a powerful tool. So, if you’re seeking to create some sort of advantage in societies that are fractured and splintered, taking away this tool that allows us to see one another as fellow citizens, fellow Americans, it’s a really powerful advantage.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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