gnuyen.org

I don’t want this page to become a big list of videos I find on the internet, but this one really means a lot to me. In an earlier post I mentioned that Fred Rogers was one of my personal heroes. Well this is the major reason why.

You can feel him breakdown the gruff and impatient John O. Pastore until he sees the importance of PBS.

Also, in the Sony BetaMax Case he was a chief proponent of fair use. Without him, we might not have PBS or the fair use right to time shifting.

Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the “Neighborhood” at hours when some children cannot use it … I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the “Neighborhood” off-the-air, and I’m speaking for the “Neighborhood” because that’s what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family’s television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been “You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.” Maybe I’m going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.

—Frederick Rogers

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 at 5:11 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.