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 In My Opinion
George Curry
Columnist Page
Friday, May 13, 2005; Page 22
Hijacking Public Television
The Public Broadcasting System was created more than three decades ago to “provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard” and serve as “a forum for controversy and debate.” Even though PBS has failed to fulfill its original mission, it is being hijacked by conservatives falsely claiming that the television network is too liberal.
If there was any doubt about PBS becoming more politicized or conservative, they should have evaporated last week with the publication of a New York Times story detailing heavy political interference by PBS Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Republican with close ties to the White House.
“Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests’ political leanings on one program, ‘Now With Bill Moyers.’
“In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.”
The coziness with the Bush White House did not end there.
“Mr. Tomlinson has also occasionally worked with other White House officials on public broadcasting issues. Last year he enlisted the presidential adviser Karl Rove to help kill a legislative proposal that would change the composition of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board by requiring the president to fill about half of the seats with people who had experience in local radio and television. The proposal was dropped after Mr. Rove and the White House criticized it.”
Additionally, Tomlinson had made it clear that his choice for the next president and CEO of PBS is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee now serving as an assistant secretary of state.
Ostensibly on a mission to bring “balance” to PBS, Tomlinson has leaned on stations to carry “The Journal Editorial Report,” hosted by Paul Gigot, the editor of the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page. Tomlinson helped raise $5 million in corporate funding for the program.
Tomlinson is correct about a lack of balance at PBS. However, he is wrong about the direction. Professor William Hoynes of Vassar College conducted content studies of PBS in 1992 and 1998. Both studies found that PBS relied on a narrow selection of sources. For example:
-Corporate Voice: More than one-third of all on-camera sources (36.3 percent) during the two weeks studied in 1998 were representatives of business or Wall Street;
-Politics: Coverage of domestic political issues featured the views of government officials (50.2 percent), professionals, mostly journalists (31.2 percent). “Consumer, environmental or labor advocates, for example, were almost invisible.”
-Economics: Seventy-five percent of sources in economic stories were from the corporate or investment world. On the other hand, labor unions (1.5 percent of sources), consumer advocates (0.4 percent), non-professional workers (1.1 percent) and the public (1.8 percent) were “virtually invisible” in 1998.
-Citizen Activists: Those involved in community, religious, health, environmental, ethnic/racial or other community-based issues accounted for only 4.5 percent of PBS sources in 1998, a decrease from 5.9 percent in 1992.
-The public: Only 5.7 percent of total sources in 1998 were everyday people, down from 12 percent in 1992.
Given the excessive use of public officials and the limited use of progressives or activists, it should come as no surprise that the majority of views expressed over PBS are anything but liberal.
Compounding the problem is PBS’ aggressive courting of corporate donors. Prohibited by law from running commercials, PBS circumvents this prohibition by offering corporate underwriting of its programs. Consequently, pro-business bias, whether intentional or not, finds its way into deciding who will appear on the airwaves.
Rather than shifting PBS farther to the right, a coalition of groups – Free Press, Common Cause, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America – has called for Chairman Tomlinson’s resignation.
“Tomlinson insists that he’s trying to restore ‘objectivity and balance’ to public broadcasting,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press. “But this top-down partisan meddling goes against the very nature of PBS and the local stations Americans trust. Let the future of PBS be decided by the people, not by the secret dealings of White House operatives.”
George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com. His most recent book is “The Best of Emerge Magazine,” an anthology published by Ballantine Books. Curry’s weekly radio commentary is syndicated by Capitol Radio News Service (301/588-1993). He can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com. |
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