Everybody Who Isn’t ”Viewers Like You”

Last week, I talked about how truthseekers get paid. But truth-tellers and truth-seekers are different things. Consider educational kids’ shows on public television. Nobody who works on Sesame Street is out there uncovering new letters and numbers. Bill Nye’s show wasn’t bringing analysis fresh from the lab. The purpose of these shows is to educate. The purpose of education is to change minds. So who pays for educational kids’ shows on public television? If you’re from the US and watched PBS growing up, you remember one answer: “viewers like you!” US public television is supported by donations, ordinary people across the country who want it to keep on educating kids. But you also might remember the lists of names that came before “viewers like you”. Some of those were things like “the Department of Education” or “a grant from the National Science Foundation”: government programs, in other words. Others were philanthropists and private foundations. Some were tied to companies, like the…