A mural by John Stella at UW-Madison’s Radio Hall depicts the founders of Wisconsin Public Radio.
In 1970, Madison’s public television station, WHA-TV, aired a segment focusing on how an outspoken young alder named Paul Soglin wanted to wean city vehicles off gasoline and onto diesel and propane. Toward the end of the interview, reporter Owen Coyle asked about a rumored plan to recall the city’s newly elected conservative mayor, Bill Dyke.
Soglin, who went on to unseat Dyke in 1973, was noncommittal about the never-launched recall but added, “It is obvious Madison made a bad mistake in electing Dyke last year.” Coyle wrapped things up: “Okay, very good. Come back and visit again.”
According to Wisconsin on the Air: 100 Years of Public Broadcasting in the State That Invented It (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), a new book by Jack Mitchell, “Dyke was furious.” He declined the TV station’s invitation to respond and likened the segment to “assassination.” He sent a tape to state legislators, who oversaw funding for the UW-Madison-affiliated station. Republican Assembly Speaker Harold Froehlich responded: “Quite frankly, from time to time, I think the university needs censorship.”
If this anecdote sounds familiar, that’s because it reflects a dynamic that has played out in one form or another since 1917, when the UW dispatched its first radio broadcast from a physics lab in Science Hall. In his book, Mitchell, the former director of Wisconsin Public Radio, recounts the rich history of how this poorly received (in more ways than one) experiment blossomed into statewide public radio and television networks.
Mitchell, a still-active UW-Madison journalism professor emeritus, headed WPR from 1976 to 1997. He brings an insider’s knowledge and true believer’s passion to the tale of how public broadcasting in Wisconsin has struggled to provide quality programming within a maelstrom of reactive public officials, alternatively devoted and volatile audiences and an alphabet soup (WHA, WPR, WPT, PBS, etc.) of interconnected but not always cooperative entities.
From the start, the forces behind public radio in Wisconsin sought to create a system based on a philosophy of public service, with the goal of facilitating democracy. Wisconsin’s first public television went on the air in 1954, as just the nation’s third noncommercial TV station. Both ventures have drawn almost constant criticism.
In the 1930s, the head of the UW agriculture department, which sponsored broadcasts of Badgers football, groused that the announcer was “too neutral” about agriculture. In the McCarthyite 1950s, a business group ran anti-public-TV ads asking, “Do you want government-controlled propaganda in your living room?” And state Republicans called for abolishing public radio as “socialistic.”
Mitchell may dwell a bit too much on the revolving cast of characters that has energized public radio and television through the years, but he offers a lively and loving history. His book reminds us that Wisconsin has been a programming pioneer, reaching national audiences with such offerings as To the Best of Our Knowledge and Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? And the Education Communications Board, which facilitates public broadcasting in Wisconsin, helped produce the riveting 1979 documentary The War At Home, about Madison’s anti-war movement.
Wisconsin Public Radio
Jack Mitchell was hired to manage WHA Radio in 1976, when he was 35.
Wisconsin’s embrace of public broadcasting derives directly from the Wisconsin Idea, which calls on the university community to share its insights and expertise. As UW President Charles Van Hise put it in a 1904 speech, “I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every home in the state.” That’s a fairly literal description of what Wisconsin public radio and television accomplish.
Mitchell, in his final chapter, recounts how Gov. Scott Walker sought to remove language regarding the Wisconsin Idea from the UW’s mission statement last year. Although the proposal was wiped out by a tidal wave of outraged reaction, the author cautions that the future of public broadcasting remains fraught with peril. The stations, he says, “could not survive in a free-market media world and will always require subsidies.” Yet the people who control public dollars are more resistant than ever to supporting this cause.
That’s a sad reality, given the value of public broadcasting to the citizens of Wisconsin and beyond. One of the virtues of Wisconsin on the Air is that it shows how the people in public broadcasting aspire to — and generally reach — high standards of fairness and accuracy. This is reflected in Mitchell’s admission that political bias exists in some quarters of the academy and public broadcasting, as it does in all segments of society.
“Whether or not critics choose to believe it,” he writes, “both academics and public broadcasters strive to approach questions with open minds and produce answers that grow from verified facts. Both sometimes fall short, but no other institutions try harder.”
Hear, hear, Jack Mitchell. Hear, hear.
