I once lived in Fairbanks.   PTL (Praise the Lord ministries)  had a huge chunk of the TV time, and sometimes you could find nothing on television but Jim and Tammy Faye.   It was interesting for a few minutes, then exasperating.    Interesting to note some quirky amusing things: All of the people had big hair and 1930's-rural-Sunday-best clothes;   All affected a similar indeterminate poor-Southern-white accent; All presented a simpering affect - a sanctimoniousness, and assurance of their own righteousness in comparison to those not saved -(yes, it amused me.)  Exasperating in that  they tended to smirk  - not when they were actually talking about the others going to hell, but when you suspected they were thinking about it.

Lately, through misadventure my car radio is unable to pick up anything other than PBS sometimes   (Okay - I sheared off the aerial with the garage door.) At a certain point, PBS was doing one of their beg-a-thons, and it crystalized for me.   PBS is PTL as conceived in Boston.  It was the same begging, and though they didn't call the PBS contributor "Brother Whatsis" but there was some other title of collegiality (Friends of PBS?).  They simpered about how you couldn't get the true message anywhere else. I don't know if I am summarizing, or if they said it explicitly, but I swear they talked about "the good work" they were doing.  It struck me so vividly that I could not envision the speaker without clumped mascara.   And, of course, though both PBS and PTL are lugubriously concerned with "the poor" the money goes to a nicely salaried job for the head beggars.

 But what distinguishes PBS and PTL from any of myriad institutions?  A sense of identity - a shared identity built around values peculiar to the group.  Insularity - a rejection of the legitimacy of values outside the cult.  Unexamined tenets, accepted on faith.   That sense of "us" and "the other" is different for PBS and PTL than for most institutions.   And the unexamined tenets, the obdurate rejection of those who do not share the beliefs as evil - the sense of being the sole custodians and guardians of an unassailable truth are almost identical for PBS and PTL.    There is that sort of self-congratulatory byplay between the proponents, that smugness of being the repository of truth which struck me so strongly. PBS continually denigrates all other news outlets and being biased and limited and sees itself as above all partisanship and bias - when it is highly partisan.  Granted, being an established religion, PBS is biased in favor of maintaining its own stipend from tax money, which is understandable.   But that dependence on tax money does cast it as seeing all news-gathering institutions which do not have the imprimatur of the state as being illegitimate and it is very vocal in representing them as such, particularly during its beg-a-thons.

Well that is enough for now.   The theme of this blog will be - first, the bias of PBS, and second, the religious characteristics and qualities of PBS.   Just as a sneak preview.  I will NOT pick on things like the PBS continuing fascination with trans-sexuals (those experiencing gender dysphoria? - oh whatever the accepted euphemism is at present)  That, I think, is a fascination of some particular person who makes programming decisions at PBS and almost a challenge to my general impression of a hive-mind institution.