I
n the skinny budget
proposed in March
by
President
Donald
Trump,
the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting
would
be
defunded. The agency, which
carries a budget of about $445
million, would lose all its money
and, as a result, public media
stations and producers are
slated to lose sizable amounts of
their budgets.
This isn’t the first time that
the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting was threatened
with budget cuts. During a
presidential debate in 2012,
Republican Mitt Romney said
he would cut the agency’s
funding.
“I’m going to the stop the
subsidy to PBS,” he said. “…
I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I
actually like you (Jim Lehrer),
too. But I’m not going to keep
on spending money on things
to borrow money from China to
pay for it.”
However, in this round of
budget cuts, Big Bird wouldn’t
be directly threatened by the
cuts. Back in 2015, Sesame
Workshop, which produces
“Sesame Street,” signed a deal
with HBO to help fund the
show in return for access to
new episodes nine months
before they air on PBS.
Still,
local
stations
and
production
companies
would be heavily affected
by
the
proposed
cuts
to
the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting. One of those
entities is The Fred Rogers
Company.
This
production
company started as the home for
the classic children’s program
“Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,”
but in 2010, it started producing
original programs of its own.
The new flagship for the
company is “Daniel Tiger’s
Neighborhood.”
The
show,
which
features
characters
from Mr. Rogers’s Land of
Make Believe, follows Daniel,
a 4-year-old tiger who deals
with similar issues to normal
4-year-olds. The show focuses
mostly on teaching kids social
and emotional skills.
In a phone interview, Ellen
Doherty,
the
executive
in
charge of production at the
Fred Rogers Company, talked
about how the show continues
Rogers’s legacy by speaking to
children at their own age.
“That was what Fred was
really
committed
to
was
thinking about what do kids
know and what do they need,”
she said. “In producing the
program, we and our partners
at Out of the Blue Productions
are looking at (questions like)
‘Is this the right thing to say?’
‘Is this how Daniel, who’s age
4, would talk?’ ‘Is this what he
would be thinking about?’ ”
For Doherty, the themes of
“Daniel Tiger” resonate with
children because the show’s
stories parallel what a young
child would deal with in their
lives, too.
“‘Daniel Tiger deals with
the issues that are tough for
toddlers. Daniel has to learn
how to use the potty; he has to
learn how to get along with his
friends; he has to learn how to
deal when he has a brand-new
baby sister and he’s not the one
in the spotlight all the time
anymore. Those are huge issues
when you are 2-, 3- and 4-year-
olds.”
The Fred Rogers Company
also produces “Peg + Cat.” This
program,
which
primarily
focuses on teaching math
skills, follows Peg and her best
friend, Cat, as they try and solve
problems using the math skills
they use in the episode.
“Each episode focuses on
one or two themes in math
and Peg and/or Cat encounter
a problem, Doherty said. “Peg
is totally freaking out to try
and figure out how to fix it
and then she fixes it and then
they
encounter
something
else, another iteration of that
math. So it shows persistence in
problem solving. Persistence is
huge with math.”
The other show The Fred
Rogers Company produces is
“Odd Squad.” The series follows
a group of agents who use
math skills to battle “Oddness”
in their world. It’s targeted
at a slightly older age group
than the other two programs.
According to Doherty, the spy
premise connects with the
show’s viewers.
The Fred Rogers Company
receives the funding to produce
these programs from a variety of
sources including corporations,
government
agencies
and
the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting. According to a
company spokesperson, they
would be affected by cuts to the
CPB and would have to rework
their plan to make up for the
deficit.
For the people in public
media, these shows reach out to
children, as well as parents. The
Fred Rogers Company released
an app this year called “Daniel
Tiger for Parents.” It’s meant to
give parents access to materials
to help guide them through
helping their child through a
difficult moment like a temper
tantrum.
Detroit Public Television,
Detroit’s
public
television
station, uses the characters
and
resources
created
in
conjunction with Fred Roger
Company’s shows in local
events on its own.
Tara Hardy, an education
specialist
at
the
station,
discussed its role in a phone
interview.
“When we bring a Daniel
Tiger character to an event, it’s
like bringing a rock star to a
concert for 5-year-olds.”
“Peg + Cat” also played a big
role in one of Detroit Public
Television’s key educational
initiatives. It receives funding
through a grant the Department
of Education called the Ready
to Learn grant.
“The Ready to Learn grant is
designed to go into classrooms
and into schools. We were able
to bring in iPads and tablets to
classrooms and were able to
train teachers on how to use
their smart boards. There’s a
few smart board activities that
“Peg + Cat” put out that the kids
just ate up. I mostly worked
with kindergarten classrooms.
... “Peg + Cat” was one of the
favorites.”
According to Hardy, this
grant would go away in the event
that the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting is defunded. The
full impact of the defunding
for the station isn’t yet known,
but a station spokesman wrote
in an email to the Daily, “It will
prevent us from expanding our
work in that space and offering
early-childhood
education
programming to those who
need it most.”
Detroit Public Television also
tries to reach out to parents
through a series of interstitials
between programs on its new
24-hour PBS Kids channel.
“A lot of the times we’re
leading them to PBS resources
or we’re saying ‘it’s a gorgeous
day outside today. Why don’t
you take the child to the park?’
to help empower parents,” she
said. “Those are the parents
who don’t have their kids in
preschool or are not active if
their kids are school age at the
school. We’re able to talk to
them and that’s a really unique
position in the field of early
childhood.”
Also, there are kids in the
Detroit metro area who don’t
have access to a preschool
education.
“What we’ve found in our
work in Detroit and around
the areas is there’s not enough
slots in preschools for every
child that’s four to be in,”
Hardy said. “We like to see
ourselves as a supplement to a
quality preschool program, but
we also like to see ourselves as
providing the content as best
we can without that social piece
to families that really don’t
have the access to a quality
preschool.”
For Hardy, the possible
defunding of the CPB is
frustrating.
“I’ve been working here for
roughly three years. I have
really in those three years
discovered how powerful and
impactful public media can be,
especially working with young
children and working with
parents. Kids are watching TV
no matter what we do. ... Public
media has the chance to put
quality in front of those kids.”
For
Doherty,
the
noncommercial nature of PBS
allows for the ability to create
different kinds of shows that
wouldn’t otherwise be on
television.
“Public broadcasting is really
unique. … Public media is a
great safe zone for kids,” she
said. “Fred (Rogers) literally
helped get it funded through is
testimony to Congress and what
he called the expression of care
for children and families. That’s
really what’s kept me working
in public media for most of my
career is knowing that’s it’s
really helping, making content
that really helps kids and that
reaches a lot of kids who don’t
necessarily have other ways to
get TV content.”
After many years of working
in public media, Doherty has
seen how the shows she has
made has changed the lives
of the children who watched
them.
“You’re
going
to
hear
from kids in 10 years talking
about how ‘Daniel Tiger’s
Neighborhood’ had a lasting
influence on them,” Doherty
added. “That’s what’s unique
about public media. We want
to make sure that we’re making
shows that people watch, but
we want to make shows that
are good for kids and give
them valued stuff but without
the pressures that commercial
channels face.”
3B
Wednesday, April 5, 2017 // The Statement
On Threatening the Land of Make Believe
BY ALEX INTNER, DAILY ARTS WRITER