I depend on MPB daily because I depend
of the information it provides that no one else produces, information
that is commercially irreplaceable. Without it, I'd be dropping out
from participating in the sharing of what's relevant to daily life.
Imagine this “dropping-out” effect: an unfortunate high-school
student has spent too much money and needs cash now. Times are
though; He drops-out to get a job
and shows the money to his friends who then envy him. Eventually he
comes to understand from the ones that persevered that his future had
actually been weakened by dropping-out.
Imagine this parallel: Mississippi
can't provide for the budget. The state cuts what it thinks was
wasteful. The budget looks better. Later on other goals continue
to slip. Medicare, Medicaid and Education need continually increased
attention. Industries fail to thrive unless they hire talent from
abroad rather than locally. The state argues it's budget would be
better off if only its citizenry would become more responsible. The
undereducated are blamed first, then their parents, and then theirs.
More money will be spent just on political ads explaining why it made
“the right budget cuts” than we saved on those budget cuts.
Mississippians won't understand.
At MPB folks like me Drop-In everyday,
and depend upon it. With commercial media when one station drops-out
other stations drop-in to fill the gap with even more popular media.
Who will fill the gap for “Marketplace”, “Southern
Remedies”, “Relatively Speaking”, “Money
Talks”, “Mississippi Edition”, “Gestalt
Gardener”, “Creature Comforts” or mpbonline.org?
And then consider all the local news and weather alerts. This is
Mississippi that MPB has invested in. Listen to the programming and
imagine why others like me could find no other equivalent media
anywhere. Now imagine the dropping-out effect.
A Mississippi that understands how to
stay healthy consumes fewer state health and private insurance
dollars, driving down premiums and tax burdens for everyone.
Hypertension, heart disease, diseases caused by cigarettes and
obesity, and injuries caused by an undereducated public are all
partially avoidable costs.
MPB strengthens our state. Weakness
strains the state's budget in the future. It's a viscous snowball
effect leading to an avalanche of decline that MPB stands as a
bulwark against.
We see and hear an amazing number of
commercial messages that advise us to eat junk-food or develop
weakening habits that teach us to be poorer decision makers. The
ratio of strengthening messaging to weakening messages is frightening
in commercial media. But I imagine that my conservative friends
explain that all the strengthening type messages are available on
commercial media. The thought would be: “We just need to listen
closely. Eventually a gem emerges that at-least the above-average
can recognize. They should simply hold it to heart as the years go
by. “
Mississippi's plight rises and falls
corresponding to the success of typical folks, not the exceptions,
the few that are good enough or fortunate enough to rise above it
all. Most understand that strengthening messages need to be heard
more than once or twice, but on a regularly recurring basis. For
instance, many go to Church every week, not because they feel they
are average or below average, but because its commonly recognized
that human nature has a need for steadfast reinforcement. One
momentous experience is not enough for all time. Everyone including
advertisers seem to understand that repetition is a necessity.
Many have the mistaken understanding,
as if it were a scientific principle, that commercial media allows
the “best” media to rise to the top just as cream rises to the
surface of natural milk. Supposedly, commercial broadcasters compete
and the winners produce the most popular media. Advertisers will
then gladly pay large sums to sponsor this media. It is thought to
correspond to the prime candidates from the competing fields. For
example, commercial radio stations typically play the music of a
select few musicians that pass the muster of our marketplace's
competitive analysis.
Recent and past stars like Snoop
Dogg, Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, 2Pac, Poison and
Busta Rymes have long
held the commercial standard for newer talents to aim their ambitions
of success at, on commercial media. Bach,
Beethoven, Mozart, and
Tchaikovsky failed
to meet those standards for success. But they can still be enjoyed
while listening to MPB's locally hosted “Midday
Classical Music”.
Anyone inclined to try to find them on commercial radio would be
hard pressed. Without MPB gifted persons that are naturally suited
to shine amongst the classics might instead only find a world filled
with Rap, and then dedicate a less successful life in pursuit of the
familiar forms of music that they can't quite master. With MPB, if
an individual drops-out in pursuit of enjoyment from commercial media
then there is a brand new world waiting to strengthen them. Stronger
Mississippians make a stronger state. I believe many wards of the
state could have become strong Mississippians had they been
encouraged to listen to MPB during their youth.
If
the public drops-out and fails to fund publicly broadcasted media, or
if it becomes a hollow shell of its former self, then commercial
media increasingly becomes the sole definer of not only what music is
familiar, but every media that is familiar. This is key, because
what is familiar to us becomes our environment. We define ourselves
within the midst of this familiarity and in turn we (as a whole)
define our communities and state.
Newborns
today are growing into an increasingly unique situation. They are
hearing their first words from commercial media. They are learning to
speak and learning to “want” based on commercial media. For the
first time ever this messaging isn't being revised by parents telling
them something equivalent to, “but that's just a commercial, you
need to think about what you
really need to do, not what
they need you to do.”
As young children absorb these messages their reality of purpose is
defined by them.
In
general, Great-grandparents perhaps had heard similar commercial
messages growing up, but they had been cuddled in the wisdom of
others who grew from a less commercial environment. As more
generations slip away it becomes more likely such pearls of wisdom
won't be passed down to the current generation. I believe for the
first time ever, we can now expect typical generations to be born and
raised without questioning commercial media's message, because their
parents had only seen what commercial media sheds it's light upon,
and only with slight revision. Never-the-less, MPB's media is
watched by many who have risen above it all. And their children grow
in the desire of learning. Many more could benefit if this message
were to get promoted by the media.
MPB
broadcasts messages that focus on “thinking” rather than
“wanting”. But without both types we don't get a balanced media
diet. If commercial media were to think of MPB as the vegetables on
their consumer's plate (that commercial media can't afford to grow)
then they can understand how a healthy consumer could then purchase
more of their products over the long haul, because healthy consumers
are more productive. If wiser consumers understand better products
to purchase then there is a larger market for the products our
communities actually need and a smaller market for the products that
weaken us, for example tobacco. Free enterprise and the marketplace
are strengthened as a result, that is if we don't drop-out.
Back during World
War I the Red Cross was freely supplying cigarettes to soldiers in
their care packages [1]. At the time cigars were more
popular with men and cigarettes with women. But the heroes came back
addicted to cigarettes and a younger generation of boys took up this
habit. Subsequently each generation has increasingly smoked, until
recently. [1]-
The History of the American Expedition by Joel R. Moore, Harry H.
Mead and Lewis E. Jahns – circa 1920
But the Red Cross
could have listened to publicly available knowledge, if only an MPB
like station were broadcast back then. What a shame. It's
conventional wisdom that no one knew that tobacco was harmful back
then. The irony here is that some folks did know, it just wasn't
effectively broadcast, and therefore the conception is that “no one
knew”. That's only because commercial media controlled what was
familiar knowledge. The media back then, the newspapers, could have
made that knowledge familiar to many more folks. But it couldn't
afford to, it was attempting to earn profits from advertising. It
familiarized the public with associations of fashion, popularity,
health, virility, and tobacco instead. Staying in business was more
important than making the public familiar with a message that could
be bad for their clients business. And their clients and their
employees had a business to run, which didn't include profits earned
through educating the public.
Yes it is true,
some understood that tobacco was harmful. In 1898 “Applied
Physiology” was first
published, it was last revised in 1910. In it Nicotine was
described as a poison and cigarettes a medium that weakened anyone
that inhaled it's smoke. The book was written by Dr. Frank Overton
A.M., M.D. - House Surgeon to the City Hospital, New York. There
are some insightful quotes such as: “About 1/30 of each tobacco
leaf is a strong poison. This poison is called nicotine.. Men use
tobacco for the sake of a poison. ..men give queer reasons
for using tobacco.. Boys smoke to make themselves look like men
...and do not care if it harms them.. Tobacco harms others.. No one
should use it in the presence of others. ..stains teeth.. When a
person is sick from tobacco he is very weak.. The tobacco poisons
his muscles ..hinders digestion ..liable to have weak hearts
..cannot work hard with their brains or hands.. Boys and men use a
great many cigarettes where they would not touch a cigar This makes
the use of cigarettes the most dangerous form of smoking.. [and my
favorite..] It cheats men. [circa 1910] “
A marketplace that
cheats is not very effective in yielding the strengthening results
that the public expects. The reason we have free enterprise isn't to
allow cheaters a free ride, but rather to allow the best to rise to
the top. If public media dropped-in to allow consumers to make
intelligent decisions back in 1910 then Mississippi today might have
been stronger and budgets and insurance premiums would not be quite
so stressed.
If public media
had been around back then, then perhaps MPB would be getting a
fifteen percent raise based on proven results right now.
Marketplaces that hide the truth from consumers cheat the consumers,
as Dr. Overton had pointed out.
Thankfully, in
1970 President Richard Nixon dropped-in; he signed into a law rules
forbidding the televised advertising of cigarettes and I imagine
public media was among the first to advise against smoking. One of
the great success stories today for public health around the world is
America's amazing reduction is cigarette smoking since then.
But today we're in
a budget crisis. Understandably, dropping-out is once again becoming
an approach to solving budget problems. I believe it is similar to
the high-school student mentioned at beginning of this paper: Times
are though; He drops-out to get a job and shows the money to his
friends who then envy him. If only he had persevered because later
he can't keep up.
In
Mississippi if employers can't find the talent they need locally then
they look to other states, and then to other nations. Employers are
hiring brilliant people from around the world to fill their job
requirements because there is a low supply here. Many don't
understand why there is a large population but so few qualified. The
blame is frequently placed on the individual and then their parents
and then theirs. But nowhere down the line were these folks
encouraged to listen to the routine and recurring messages that
strengthen their desire to learn, for instance from MPB. Instead
familiar media usually entertains with an undertone teaching a desire
to want.
Where
a populace is better qualified there can be found an array of media
promulgated to the public, including media that urges a desire of
learning. They don't expect commercial media to provide it all and
they don't condemn anyone when it fails to do so. Instead their
public simply drops-in and provides the balance.
I
imagine their public isn't left with a “desire of wanting”
monopolizing the entire media field. Those students intrinsically
apt to learn can latch on to the media that suits their nature. In
places where public media is considered an undesirable threat to the
economy, the populace gradually becomes less competitive with the
outside world as it subsists on simply wanting more. Commercial
media does not provide what it doesn't profit from. It makes us
familiar with something only if there exists a business incentive to
do so.
Businesses
that hire engineers, scientists and other thinkers are not
contributing to our media content because they don't profit from
advertising to consumers. They are still in business to make a
profit, make no mistake, they just don't sell their products to
consumers. Therefore these firms don't advertise to the public and
in turn don't control the broadcasting of familiar media forms to the
public. When MPB drops-in it provides an environment of thought that
these businesses like to reside in, because a strong hiring base is
being seeded from the businesses' vantage point. This is an example
of where a “desire of want” is not as important to business as a
“desire of learning”, and ironically its unfulfilled by
commercial media.
Companies
that sell products and services ultimately design commercial media to
create “a desire of want”. Without publicly broadcasted media
everyone will only be familiar with this “desire of want”. The
“desire of want” is so familiar now that media is frequently
judged on the basis that if this primary undertone is lacking from
the broadcasted messages, then it is considered poor media. That's
my perception.
Think
of the irony. Commercial media benefits its own commercial activity
and that of their sponsors. But the success of business firms that
don't advertise, do not coincide with the messages that are
frequently broadcast commercially. It's just the advertised segment
of America's businesses that actually benefit. It's only that
segment that sells products and services to the public. And so,
saying that, “commercial media is good for [all] business” is
certainly false if you analyze it. But folks brought up in a “desire
of want” might fail to see this light.
And,
I believe, that's why the types of industries that have thrived over
the years with local employees have been service or product oriented
rather than engineering, science or thinking oriented businesses.
Even the more successful colleges and universities have become
product oriented, selling their educational service and modeling
their business as a product of want. Plus consider that many losing
their jobs have to go back numerous times as they find they have
become day-laborers instead of professionals.
Someone
might argue that commercial media left alone and without a publicly
broadcasted response cannibalizes the resources that other businesses
need for their success. Those resources, of course, are our people.
It weakens them and the businesses they are associated with.
Creating better consumers is good for businesses that sell products;
they are the ones that advertise and make media familiar, but it
weakens the businesses that aren't selling products. They need
employees that didn't learn from familiar media the common undertone
of, “smart people aren't cool; popularity is everything; wanting is
a fulfilling virtue; learning is an unfulfilling virtue. A fulfilled
life is one with all those many wants I saw advertised finally
satisfied”.
Think
of a girl or boy naturally endowed with a gift to pursue knowledge.
Hypothetically a strong MPB has just dropped-out due to a budget
crisis. Perhaps he just turned on the History Channel to satisfy
that desire to learn, but instead of actual history, he gets fed the
familiar programs on the History Channel, “Ice-Road Truckers” or
maybe “Swamp People”. It's extremely entertaining, sells many
commercials and is very popular. As a result he grows up
understanding what is familiar to him, but it's not his passion of
learning something more important to society.
He
has just dropped-out of a high-minded career path and instead took
another that turned out to be less successful for him. Perhaps he
became an Ice Road Trucker or something else he wasn't meant to
become. Then he gets fired because of “poor” performance, but
only after the business loses money because he wasn't right for the
job. This person could have become one of the next great scientists.
Instead a business here has to hire someone from far away to fill
their need. Commercial media certainly didn't.
What
a personal tragedy. It's only a small weakening in the economy if
you add up this one particular instance. Judging by the ratio of
students here that go into higher thinking fields its not so
uncommon. In fact the statistics show this becoming epidemic in
nature.
And
so the irony within our free economic system is that if you want
strong healthy vibrant businesses, including those businesses that
don't advertise products to consumers, then you need a strong and
healthy publicly financed media. MPB for instance.
Sincerely, MW
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