THE NEXT TIME Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch shake you down for a contribution to the noble cause of public television, ask them about PBS's in-house massage service that your money will subsidize.
That's right: All 500 employees at the Public Broadcasting Service's head-quarters in tony Old Town Alexandria, Va. -- ten minutes from the halls of Congress they haunt for their annual funding -- are invited to enjoy a massage during office hours for $ 8 -- about the price of a deli sandwich. The remainder of the professional masseuse's tab is covered by PBS's "wellness budget," stoked with $ 10 and $ 20 contributions from retirees addicted to Masterpiece Theatre and the parents of toddlers who watch Teletubbies.
Dara Goldberg, associate director of communications at PBS, swears the expense is only a "minuscule" part of "preventative health" costs. She assures me, "We're pretty frugal over here." But as PBS receives $ 250 million a year in federal subsidies and the rest of its budget from the solicited contributions of viewers and foundations, the massage perk strikes many donors I talked to as extravagant. And even some PBS employees.
"Massages?! Are you sure?" asks one of Goldberg's officemates when I call to check out my source's tip.
"Yeah, sign up to get one," I tell him. "I hear they're yours for the asking."
Goldberg herself is not amused that I am investigating the kinkier side of public broadcasting. "Will you let me know if you're going to be doing something on this? . . . I hope you're not," she petitions. (There are so many other, more important things to write about, she goes on, employing the characteristic "there's no story here" maneuver of nervous Washington press operatives in the Clinton era.)
She continues: "Can I ask, how did you hear about it? Because a lot of our employees don't even know it's available." There's a massage sign-up sheet outside the sixth-floor human resources office, and sometimes an e-mail notification goes around. But PBS employees are often "too busy working" to notice, she explains.
Indeed, she goes on, it's precisely because PBS employees work so hard that the regular massage is a part of their preventative health service. Here's Goldberg, justifying the service: "It's to relieve the stress from sitting at your desk eight to ten hours a day, using the computer and talking on the phone." The proof is in the pudding, or massage oil, if you will. Goldberg is pleased to report that the massage program has kept PBS's other health care costs (mudbaths? aromatherapy?) down since it was started two years ago.
Speaking of massage oil, Goldberg emphasizes that PBS offers a fully clothed, seated massage. None of its stressed-out emp0loyees is disrobing and lying prostrate on a linen-draped table; nor is there a massage "parlor" on the premises. The masseuse "comes every other week and brings his own chair," offers Goldberg, trying to dispel the Austin Powers imagery that might arise in association with the word "massage."
PBS has long been targeted by budget-cutters in Washington as a bastion of elitist television liberals on welfare. The revelation last week that Boston affiliate station WGBH-TV and Washington's WETA had traded donor lists with the Democratic party has hardly helped smooth the way with congressional Republicans for this year's $ 300 million budget request. After Congress finishes with PBS during the anticipated September spending battle, Barney the Dinosaur and his cohorts in Old Town may need one of those Swedish deep-tissue massages.
Bernadette Malone is a political reporter for syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak.