The NPR and PBS funding argument is not about money. It's about trust.

Moveon.org is heating up online debate with a petition that is going viral, imploring people to counter Republican initiatives to end funding for PBS and NPR. As supporters post links to the petition to Facebook and Twitter, the ensuring liberal vs. conservative arguments crystallize into a view actually shared by both sides: deep distrust of large, faceless organizations. On the left, the argument is that NPR and PBS are needed as a counter-balance to Big News -- the for-profit entities that have traditionally owned the news cycle. On the right, despite the overtones of fiscal austerity, conservatives are really arguing they don't trust Big Government to spread fair messages. Fiscally, you can make a case for ending NPR and PBS. We now have millions of independent voices on the left and right to counter fears of control by "Big News." However, NPR and PBS are not big-ticket budget items, especially in the grand scope of the spending mess we are now in. The cuts would offer little in real savings. But again, we're not arguing about money. We're arguing about trust. The context of the NPR/PBS discussion helps frame the problem of trust -- and the value of social media -- for businesses and organizations. One-to-one relationships help break down fears of large organizations, and social media is great facilitator for building those connections. That's hard to measure to against ROI. Yet it's obvious we have a distrust issue in our society today, and social media can be an important tool in helping organizations to counter the problem.