Gingrich Tapes Pitch For Public TV

House Speaker Newt Gingrich videotaped a fundraising pitch for public television Saturday and challenged viewers to match the $2,000 annual donation he’s pledged for the next five years.

“As we move to balance the federal budget, public television needs your help,” Gingrich said in a spot being aired on Atlanta’s WPBA-TV Saturday night. He recorded the message after teaching his regular Saturday morning class at Reinhardt College.

Gingrich, R-Ga., has said public television should not depend on federal financing, which makes up about 14 percent of its budget. He and other GOP lawmakers have proposed eliminating all federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Lawmakers so far have resisted doing this through 1997, but they are interested in cutting off federal dollars in 1998.

In his TV spot, Gingrich challenged the station’s viewers to follow his example in donating to public television.

“If everyone writing letters to Congress about public TV matched me, they’d have the money they need,” he said later. “I think we can find a way to keep public broadcasting without draining the taxpayer.”

The biggest waste of money in public television, he said, involves overlapping signals. New York City, for example, is served by several stations.

Gingrich said public television and National Public Radio would survive cuts in federal funding. NPR is worthwhile even though, he said, it presents an upper-middle-class view of the world.

“It’s one-sided, but it’s not a bad thing to have,” said Gingrich.

On Friday night, President Clinton hosted a gala at the White House to mark the 25th anniversary of National Public Radio.

“I know it’s fashionable today to condemn everything public but it seems to me that public radio has been a good deal for America,” Clinton told the crowd. “You get it all for 29 cents a citizen a year.”