Don't Make Public Television Stations Commercial

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A significant but little-noted drama is speeding toward a resolution in Pittsburgh and Washington. It highlights the single most troubling motif in American mass communications - the relentless erosion of public space on radio and television.

Ronnie Dugger, former publisher of The Texas Observer, refers to the commons in which the governed and their governors interact as the "demosphere." In ancient Greece, the demosphere was the public market, the agora. In colonial America, information and ideas about public business were exchanged in the coffee houses. Librarian of Congress James Billington notes that in France in 1789, the cafes and open spaces of Paris's …