PBS to become part of right wing lie machine ?

[Guest guest]

FAIR-L

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and activism

 

http://www.fair.org/activism/pbs-goes-right.html

 

ACTION ALERT:

PBS Panders to Right With New Programming

 

September 17, 2004

 

A new public television program called The Journal Editorial Report,

featuring writers and editors from the arch-conservative Wall Street

Journal editorial page, will debut tonight on public television

stations around the country. The show joins Tucker Carlson:

Unfiltered, hosted by conservative CNN pundit Tucker Carlson, and a

planned program featuring conservative commentator Michael Medved as

part of what many see as politically motivated decisions to bring more

right-wing voices to public television.

 

According to reports in the public broadcasting newspaper Current

(1/19/04, 6/7/04) and in the New Yorker (6/7/04), conservative

complaints about the alleged liberal bias of the program Now with Bill

Moyers contributed to the momentum to " balance " the PBS lineup. The

new programs seem to be the result of that pressure. In fact, Now

will soon see its role on public television diminish, as the program

is cut from one hour to 30 minutes when Moyers voluntarily leaves the

program later this year.

He will be replaced by co-anchor David Brancaccio, formerly of the

public radio business show Marketplace, who expresses no obvious

ideology. If Carlson, Medved and the staff of the Wall Street Journal

editorial page are all necessary to balance the liberal Moyers, by

2005 there will be no one on PBS to balance them.

 

At the center of this controversy is the Corporation for Public

Broadcasting (CPB), which provides significant federal funding for

public broadcasting projects. Two Bush appointees to the board last

year, Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines, are big donors to the

Republican Party, and do not hide their political agenda. As Common

Cause noted in December 2003, Gaines raised money for former House

Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga), and chaired his political action

committee, GOPAC: " At the same time that Gaines was raising money for

Gingrich's GOPAC, Gingrich was pushing Congress to cut all federal

funds to public TV. "

 

At a confirmation hearing for Halperin, Sen. Trent Lott (R.-Miss.)

criticized a commentary by Moyers as " the most blatantly partisan,

irresponsible thing I've ever heard in my life, " adding that " the CPB

has not seemed to be willing to deal with Bill Moyers and that type of

programming. " Halperin responded: " The fact of the matter is, I

agree, " though she said at the time there was little the CPB could do

about it.

 

But, evidently, there is something the CPB could do. According to Ken

Auletta's investigation in the New Yorker, the calls for drafting

right-wing voices were being heard at PBS. Auletta reported that PBS

president Pat Mitchell met with Lynne Cheney and conservative

television producer Michael Pack to discuss a possible PBS series

about Cheney's children's books. Though the project seemed to stall,

Pack was soon appointed senior vice-president for television

programming at the CPB.

 

Auletta also reported that after Gingrich told Mitchell that there

weren't enough conservatives on PBS, Mitchell " proposed to Gingrich

that he co-host a PBS town-hall program, " an idea that was frustrated

by Gingrich's contract with Fox News Channel.

 

The notion that public broadcasting should find ways to balance itself

is odd, and accepts at face value the right-wing critique that PBS is

biased to the left. If anything, PBS (and public broadcasting in

general) is theoretically designed to balance the voices that dominate

the commercial media. As the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act proposed,

public broadcasting should have " instructional, educational and

cultural purposes " and should address " the needs of unserved and

underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities. "

 

Instead, public television has in practice largely been a home for

elite viewpoints, dominated by long-running political shows hosted by

conservatives (Firing Line, McLaughlin Group, One on One) and by

business shows aimed at the investing class (Nightly Business Report,

Adam Smith's Money World, Wall $treet Week). When this line-up

wasn't enough to insulate public TV from right-wing complaints in the

mid-1990s, programmers responded by creating more series for

conservatives like Peggy Noonan (Peggy Noonan on Values) and Ben

Wattenberg (Think Tank).

 

Now PBS seems once again to be trying to placate right-wing critics,

in this case by bringing to public broadcasting voices already

well-represented in the mainstream media. Tucker Carlson's take on

world affairs, for example, is available at least five days a week on

CNN; it's not clear that he would say anything different on PBS,

though in a test show (L.A. Times, 6/18/04) he referred to the

Democratic convention's diversity goals as " a new affirmative action

plan for gays, lesbians and cross-dressers, " and called Indian

evangelist Dr. K.A. Paul a " spiritual advisor to the scum of the

Earth. " ( " He's willfully non-P.C., " explained WETA programming chief

Dalton Delan.)

 

And the Wall Street Journal editorial page, included in every edition

of the nation's second-largest newspaper, is already widely

available-- and widely read. Ironically, the Journal has long been

hostile to the notion of publicly funded broadcasting: After it was

discovered that some public TV stations were selling their donors

lists to political parties, a 1999 Journal editorial advised: " In a

better world all this would lead Congress to do what it should have

done a long time ago: cut off the public tap, freeing Barney, Big Bird

and the other wonderful PBS creations to find

a profitable niche on cable without having to shill for public

television's other, more politicized, offerings. "

 

The Journal's Paul Gigot, who's hosting the new show, said that it was

not hypocritical for the Journal to now get on the public tap, saying

(Boston Globe, 8/30/04): " We're putting up an enormous amount of

resources in terms of staff time and energy. I don't think this is a

free lunch. "

 

PBS president Mitchell defended the recent programming decisions,

telling a meeting of TV reporters (Miami Herald, 7/10/04): " I suppose

that we're being accused on the one side of being too liberal and on

the other of being too conservative probably means we're getting it

mostly right. "

 

Given that PBS is responding to conservative complaints by adding more

conservative shows, and is not responding in any substantive way to

progressive complaints, one can only conclude that if the network had

been " getting it mostly right, " it'll now just be getting mostly

right-wing.

 

There is one audience that seems pleased: Republican senators who were

among PBS's most vocal critics. Coincidentally or not, as these

discussions about programming and political bias were heating up, the

Senate Commerce Committee was discussing the re-authorization of the

CPB's funding. The committee convened to discuss the matter in late

July; though the subject of liberal bias came up, even Lott " noted

progress " on that front (Public Broadcasting Report, 7/23/04).

 

CPB was initially intended to be a " heat shield " for public

broadcasting,protecting programmers from political pressures from

partisan lawmakers who control the purse strings. It's long since

become a mechanism for transmitting Congress' ideological desires to

public broadcasting, and the new shows announced for public TV show

that it's very effective in that role.

 

 

ACTION: Please ask PBS's Pat Mitchell what new shows are planned to

balance the new conservative-oriented public TV shows.

 

CONTACT:

PBS

Pat Mitchell, President and CEO

viewer

Phone: (703) 739-5000

Fax: (703) 739-5777

 

Or use the PBS comment form:

http://www.pbs.org/aboutsite/aboutsite_emailform.html

 

You might also want to contact your local PBS affiliate about PBS's

rightward lurch:

http://www.pbs.org/stationfinder/index.html

 

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously

if

you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair with your

correspondence.

 

----------

Your donation to FAIR makes a difference:

http://www.fair.org/donate.html

 

SUBSCRIBE TO EXTRA! AND GET FAIR'S NEW BOOK FOR FREE:

The Oh Really? Factor

http://www.fair.org/ohreally.html

 

FAIR SHIRTS: Get your " Don't Trust the Corporate Media " shirt today at

FAIR's online store:

http://www.merchantamerica.com/fair/

 

FAIR produces CounterSpin, a weekly radio show heard on over 130

stations in the U.S. and Canada. To find the CounterSpin station

nearest you,

visit http://www.fair.org/counterspin/stations.html

 

Feel free to respond to FAIR ( fair ). We can't reply to

everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate

documented examples of media bias or censorship. And please send

copies of

your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses,

to fair .

 

You can to FAIR-L at our web site: http://www.fair.org . Our

r list is kept confidential.

FAIR

(212) 633-6700

http://www.fair.org/

E-mail: fair

 

---