In my column of June 7, 2025, entitled “You Can’t Tell A Book By Its Cover,” I wrote of the difficulty of determining credibility in a bombardment of misinformation.

I also wrote about studies revealing our propensity to accept dogma at face value — easy answers to complex problems — even though we sacrifice our independence and subject ourselves to conformity in doing so.

I wrote about our need to protect our independence by obtaining information whose validity we can trust, a determination we cannot always make for ourselves.

We need to rely on sources whose integrity has been established over time.

Much of the information we receive is edited and conveyed by organizations owned by billionaires, others by corporations whose primary purpose is generating income, and still others by corporations seeking political favor. Of course, there are those information mills that seek only to benefit some group of politicians or political operatives.

It can be like listening to gas bubbles escaping from a swamp.

But some sources have earned our trust, and one of them is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It’s listener- and viewer-supported, the listeners and viewers being us. Only 19 percent of its budget comes from taxes. Little enough for the measure of confidence it delivers.

But its tax support is being threatened. The preservation of our independence, sustained by accuracy, is being jeopardized by politicians who feel threatened by any diminishment in reliance on dogma.

Public Broadcasting isn’t perfect. It is, after all, a human endeavor, but the pictures on its cover are not of wealthy personalities, egotistic politicians, or captains of some industry.

The pictures on the cover of The Corporation for Public Broadcasting are pictures of us. It’s one of those rare books you can tell by its cover.

Don’t let them deny you the read.

DOUG PUGH

Alpena