I'm a big fan of Public TV in general; it's a great equalizer in a democracy in that it can provide a nice forum for public discourse on the cheap in comparison to the private networks, which tend to be financially exlusionary in the coverage they provide, unless there's major breaking news, (which is almost always bad news).
What I propose is a globally-subsidized UN media service that would perform in much of the same role as the current public stations on a global scale, educating the masses about far away lands, hosting open international debates and such. CNN meets CSPAN meets the Discovery Channel meets Jerry Springer. If oppressed peoples from whereever were given a stage to vent their complaints on the global talk show as a nod to [evildave]'s suggestion, perhaps they would be less inclined to promoting violence.-- RayfordSteele, Jun 27 2004 Nuntii Latini http://www.yleradio...0031213131686314670Radio Finland (obviously no one pays to listen to this) [dpsyplc, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] What exactly do you mean by public TV? Something like the BBC, or is there some american thing I'm missing?
Either way I think it's likely a good idea, although language might make things dificult.-- RobertKidney, Jun 27 2004 Yes, like the Beeb, or the CBC in Canada.-- waugsqueke, Jun 27 2004 I have PBS already, and it is a nice addition to a well rounded choice of broadcast bands.-- dpsyplc, Jun 27 2004 I don't know whether or not the BBC or even the CBC is publicly funded, but yes, something like PBS, funded by UN consignees. Global partnerships need global media not tuned to any one specific country.-- RayfordSteele, Jun 27 2004 Sounds good to me.-- Size_Mick, Jun 27 2004 // I don't know whether or not the BBC or even the CBC is publicly funded //
They are.-- waugsqueke, Jun 28 2004 BBC world service would probably do the trick and is supposedly anecdotally relied upon by many people in areas where the current news is iffy.-- engineer1, Jun 28 2004 You could model it on the bbc, and I think thats a good idea since it's generally pretty good, but no matter how good the bbc is it's still British. Many people are not going to trust a western news source.
Anyway, I like the idea of giving the UN something useful to do.-- RobertKidney, Jun 28 2004 a more interesting approach would be to have two reports for major events, for example in Iraq if we took BBC world service and an English language Arab station, could give an interesting perspective.-- engineer1, Jun 28 2004 It should have been done 59 years ago. +-- sartep, Jun 28 2004 I'm against universalistic ideas. They're so western and colonialist. This is old wine in new imperial bags.-- django, Jun 28 2004 //language might make things difficult.//
The UN in NYC has a staff of simultaneous translators. They could provide subtitles for all shows in all languages. Then the feeds to different countries would include the different subtitles.
Or, the channel could feature music, dance, art, and animation from around the world; things that don't require spoken language.-- robinism, Jun 29 2004 Have you ever calculated how many language pairs there would be? Croatian - English and English -Croatian, ok, but what if a Danish reporter interviews a Papiamento speaking Surinamer who protests against his Iringiti speaking neighbors because they're microcolonialists?... you get the picture.
The EU officially has some 350 language pairs, it's really a Babylonian situation.
There are some 2500 "major" languages on this planet. And since you're defending the rights of "oppressed people", you would certainly want to translate back and forth into these languages.
Good luck.
The truth is, you will become another institution full of good intentions, but in reality oppressing the ones you are pretending to "defend".-- django, Jun 29 2004 Being able to learn more about the rest of the world, even if it is somewhat biased, is surely better than remaining ignorant.
I can't see how this would oppress anyone.-- RobertKidney, Jun 29 2004 Well, my parents who've both known colonialism first hand, tell me it all starts with people who're saying: "look, all we want is to give you an opportunity to learn something about the world, even if it is somewhat biased. But you'll do it under our terms and in our language."
Anyway, I'm expressing this in too hard a way, but I'm quite sensitive when it comes to institutions full of good will telling others that "all we want is just..." I hope you understand what I'm talking about.-- django, Jun 29 2004 But thats why it should be a UN project rather than just sending everyone BBC news. Rather than having it all produced here there would be things from all over the world, presumably translated into lots of languages.
If managed properly I see no reason for there to be any strong bias.-- RobertKidney, Jun 29 2004 Much potential [+].-- daseva, Jun 29 2004 Every language that deals with the UN has to translate anyway in some form or other, I can't see how adding a television station changes that except to possibly add to the demand load for programming coverage, although I could see how extending the limited-set to the general public could be a bad thing.
I can see dj's point, however, in that an existing system inbalance might be perpetuated.-- RayfordSteele, Jun 29 2004 random, halfbakery