Sorry for the lack of presence lately! In the past several weeks I have wrapped up my Internship and begun preparation for school, visited with some friends and family (more to come I hope!), and traveled to Cedar Point and to Minnesota.
I fired up the ole' blog today out of a desire to simply write, simply update this thing. I'm playing around with Picasa to see if it can help me out with keeping my pictures in better order. Looking at the Picasa web album automatically created for this blog's photo uploads, I came across the image above, which I uploaded as I found it to note that I want to include it in a future blog post.
So here it is. But this is not the Mr. Rogers post I have been planning to write (an inside look at the man and his life from my standpoint, perspective, and reflections). I write today with a sense of concern, and even urgency.
In June 2008, Public Broadcasting Service announced that it intends to soon change the way Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the beloved children’s television program, is distributed to member stations.
PBS will cease transmitting the program as part of their daily syndicated lineup beginning in September. Instead, PBS will provide member stations with a single Neighborhood episode on weekends. This unfortunate decision essentially silences the special nurturing voice of Mister Rogers in the daily lives of today’s children.
The above is a statement on the home page of http://savemisterrogers.com/, a web site dedicated to spreading the awareness of PBS's decision and to being a central hub for grassroots efforts to communicate with PBS--to Public Broadcasting Service as a whole and to local PBS stations.
There are so many thoughts I want to write out in sharing this with others, but allow me to invite you to head to the web site itself and see what it's all about. There's a nifty "About" section that explains the situation in greater detail and even a "Neighbors" section that includes direct responses to the program from Joanna (Mrs.) Rogers and some of Fred's closer friends while he was still alive.
Check it out, and get involved if you'd like. I have a couple more thoughts added in the comments below if you'd like to take a look.
Posts
Fred once said, "I believe that those of us who are the producers and purveyors of television -- or video games or newspapers or any mass media -- I believe that we are the servants of this nation."
ReplyDeleteThat statement seems so contrary to what today's media is trying to do. It's all about self-service, whether it be for profits or fame or notoriety or recognition for accomplishments...but never to serve others. With PBS the tangible incarnation of the idea that a station can exist by and for the people, many are coming to question PBS's motivations for their decision. Is it truly to better serve the people?
Just before writing the blog post, I read one of the quotes from the "Neighbors" section on the site. Allow me to reproduce it below, and end with it. Though I do recommend you read it carefully, if not multiple times:
"Fred Rogers left a legacy of one of the most carefully collected, collated and constructed works of art created specifically to cradle a child’s fragile, budding sensitivity and ethical consciousness. Mister Rogers is not flashy, frisky, funky or “fantastic.” Mister Rogers is slow moving, awkward, simple, low-rent, and even a little bit peculiar and disquieting at times. So is life. In fact, it’s about the last place on television where real life may actually still be found. I would urge you, please, to think of the tireless devotion of this gentle soul and to the time he granted every single child who watched, and watches, his show — regardless of the programs’s seeming “out of step” with our increasingly-histrionic, flashy and shrill times."
Chris Ware, Artist, Writer, Cartoonist