Whenever PBS airs a big program/mini-series there is an announcement at the end. “Corporate sponsorship of Name of Mini-Series was brought to you by Name of Corporation.” This had unfortunate and amusing results for General Motors’ sponsorship of Ken Burn’s The War.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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If you examine the firms which provide sponsorship to NPR and PBS you will tend to find a pattern. Most of these firms have an image problem. The perfect example is ADM (Archer Daniels Midland). They are the biggest agricultural middleman in the US (world?), they have been caught price fixing and fined many times and they have been among the biggest contributors to the Bush dynasty and the GOP.
These firms are trying to project a warm feeling to the target audience of the (ostensibly) better educated, richer and more influential viewers. They don’t need to sell a product, so the type of ads they are limited to is not a drawback.
Keep your eyes open and see how often there is a correlation between prior bad publicity and an interest in sponsorship. GM is looking for future government handouts (exact form not yet spelled out) and to counter the widely-held impression that the management is incompetent.
PS. WWII was, indeed, brought to you by GM and a host of other firms which made out quite well building munitions. In those days people railed against war profiteers, nowadays we have euphemized this into “contractors”.
i would dispute your claim about adm being the largest such company in the world… larger by a factor of at least 5, significantly more powerful, lesser-known, privately-held, and obsessive in its secrecy, is cargill inc, located on a massive, secluded campus in minnetonka, minnesota… cargill has also chosen to be vertically integrated up to but not including the actual production and marketing of consumer products… directly or indirectly, they own the resources (land), the raw material (crops), the transportation network (ships, barge lines, rail cars), and all the intermediate means of production (mills, etc.), but you will rarely, if ever, in contrast to adm, see the cargill name in public… cargill doesn’t have an image problem because it doesn’t have an image…
Well – yeah. That’s kind of obvious isn’t it? Almost all corporate “charitable” funding comes down to fixing an image problem. When you have an inhuman, immortal entity composed mainly of money and regulations you can’t expect it to be doing things out of the kindness of its nonexistent heart. It’s got to be getting something out of it, and given current US corporate regulations, that something that it’s getting had better be maximizing the value for its shareholders or it’ll be in big trouble.
I’d like to believe that there are companies out there who try to do the right thing because its the right thing and not because they have an ulterior motive. But I know too much about modern American capitalism, and so I’d be less disappointed by believing in the Tooth Fairy instead.
it would be even more amusing if it were volkswagon
That wouldn’t be amusing: it would be sad.
GM benefited from America’s entering into war against Germany. I don’t think Volkswagen did.
volkswagen was created as a nazi-run company and quickly exploded in size when it became part of the german war effort, plus the added bonus of the jewish slave labor supplied by hitler.
so yes, it benefitted from the war. the start of the war, not the finish. but it even ended up weathering that part fairly well.
I’d love to see someone ask Ken Burns what he thinks about this irony. I believe he is on tour for the companion book. But of course, Burns believes (or says he does) that his work is apolitical.
Which is crap. Leaving stuff out is a political choice too.
A really good analysis of What Ken Burns Missed:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/harvey_j_kaye/2007/09/what_ken_burns_missed.html
i saw another gaffe, tho not as ironic, today on cnn.
i don’t even remember what story the screeching heads were talking about (some pretty white girl was missing somewhere, i think). but the chyron at the bottom of the screen said in big letters (for a split second):
hi-larious!