News not for sale

To the editor:

Our proposal to the City asked for Marion to become a city partner of KPTS. Our goal is to help expand the brand through our station IDs and provide the City of Marion with discounts on productions in return for its support.

While we also plan to include in our local programs, features of people, places and things in Marion, as we do for other communities (partners or not), those features are not being paid for by any city. They simply make excellent local programs that tell the stories of communities and bring communities of our state together.

Partnership support from these communities forms a conglomeration with KPTS to help assure the continuation of the quality local, national, cultural and artistic programs KPTS provides and to which these communities do not readily have access.

This is similar to support from federal, state and other local governments, one of the goals of the Carnegie Commission.

When the NewsHour does a story on the federal government (good or bad) does this mean that it was paid for by the federal government? When KPTS does a story or profile about political events in the State of Kansas, does it mean that Kansas paid to have it done? I think not!

If these governments were to serve as the gatekeepers or if they were controlling the contents of the profiles or stories, you may have a point. But they do not. As it stands, our efforts to enhance and help bring recognition to the very community in which you do business (that you describe as “fake news”) is simply unfair to the people and City of Marion. It is really unjustifiable.

There is not anything fake about KPTS. Public television’s programs are America’s most credible and PBS (KPTS) is America’s most trusted source of programming. This is why so many support PBS.

Victor Hogstrom
KPTS president