Public Television and its relative NPR are under the microscope as Republicans continue to charge that it shows a marked political bias. This clamor has gone on for years only now there is a difference: the GOP controls virtually all of the machinery of government and now has people in place who can raise this issue as overseers of public TV and NPR.
There are clearly two views on this.
From the Republican/conservative viewpoint, PBS and NPR have been kind of like a government, corporate Lone Ranger — out there showing what conservatives feel is an anti-conservative bias with no controls.
From the Democratic/liberal viewpoint, what seems to be looming as a crackdown on PBS is an example of the administration stifling anyone who does not toe the party line and the clamor to change PBS is a call to turn it into a propaganda machine for the government.
Conservatives feel there is a liberal bias that needs to be toned down so it’s more objective; liberal feel the conservatives consider “non-biased” to be Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
So you have two totally divergent schools of thought on this. Two of more interesting views on this controversy have come our way today. Read them both in full, but we’ll give you excerpts here.
ATypical Joe outlines the controversy — then argues PBS’ supporters should simply kiss off public funding:
A look at the numbers is revealing: NPR got only between 1 percent and 2 percent of its 2004 budget of $369 million from CPB. (PBS got 24% of its budget, approximately $80 million, from CPB and federal grants.)
Compare that to Howard Stern’s $100 million a year contract with Sirius.
NPR should keep its tax exempt status and operate as non-profit entity, but kiss off its government support. And they should do it loudly and proudly on the principle of breaking free of government meddling.
The partisan in me thinks that this will be a broadly popular move, a poke in the Tomlinson eye. It could even sway public opinion enough to reign in his efforts at PBS.
It could, too, start the dominoes falling and bring down the whole Public Broadcasting structure as it is now. That would be a shame. But a groveling handmaiden of political power is worse.
That is an interesting idea. If NPR couldn’t get the funding to replace the lost government funds it might still have enough to operate. (As way of disclosure: in the late 1970s this writer did some telephone news reports from Madrid for NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Spain’s move from dictatorship to democracy).
Another intriguing argument is in an op-ed piece written for Newsday by William Hoynes, a professor of sociology and director of media studies at Vassar College. He argues that people are missing the point — that PBS has now gotten too commercial and has lost its way from its original mission. A few excerpts:
Political conservatives have been targeting PBS for more than 20 years with a stream of public relations campaigns designed to rein in public broadcasting’s independence and cut into its public and congressional support. Now they are back with more charges of liberal bias.
Kenneth Tomlinson, the Bush-appointed chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which manages public TV’s congressional funding, hired a consultant to track the guest list of Bill Moyers’ program “Now,” brought aboard a White House communications officer as a special adviser, and is ensuring the addition of more programs with a conservative bent – all in the name of achieving “balance.”
Mostly what he’s doing is creating a distraction. Those who think that Tomlinson is providing any fresh evidence that public television leans left are not only mistaken, they are missing a much bigger story: the maturation of a market-savvy PBS that is barely distinguishable from its commercial counterparts.
He details what he means:
On PBS today, children are sold breakfast cereal and fruit juice, among other products, before and after each of the daytime kids’ programs. And these programs serve as daily advertisements for their own repertoire of licensed products, from toothbrushes to computer games. The business programs all are directed at investors, covering the economy through a narrow corporate lens. And news programs feature the same elite talking heads who appear regularly on commercial television news.
What happened to the old PBS, whose slogan so well described its vital role in our culture: “If PBS doesn’t do it, who will?”
Historically, PBS became known for its long-standing commitment to quality children’s programming and to public affairs documentaries and cultural programs. But by the 1990s, cable networks began running programs that looked a lot like public television. The History and Biography channels offered documentaries, and A&E and Bravo offered cultural programming. Nickelodeon, and later Noggin, offered quality children’s programs. And 24-hour cable news meant that the PBS “NewsHour” was no longer the primary alternative to the 30-minute network evening newscasts.
As the growth of cable TV ushered in the 500-channel universe, public television had one key asset that could have made it distinctive: It was noncommercial, meaning that programming did not have to depend on audience ratings or please advertisers. Higher social values could drive the content.But, instead, PBS has chosen to become increasingly market-driven. While it still is a home for quality educational programs, it is becoming more difficult to define how it is “noncommercial.” Programming decisions are deeply intertwined with concerns about funding sources, audience size and demographics, and with a general desire to avoid offending vocal constituencies.
Hoynes notes that surveys show most Americans ARE willing to pay for public television and support it. Here’s the challenge:
For starters, PBS needs to re-establish itself as noncommercial, which will, by itself, make the PBS viewing experience decidedly different. Quality programming is always expensive and difficult to produce consistently. But PBS can gain public support and build its audience by articulating an overarching programming philosophy that will clearly distinguish its offerings from the rest of television.
He also notes that studies show Tomlinson’s charges of bias are off the mark — which, in turn, lend credence to the idea that what Tomlinson is really seeking to do is to turn public television and NRP into one more conservative-oriented voice:
Studies of public television over the last decade show that Tomlinson’s charges of liberal bias are off the mark. In contrast to conservative claims that public television routinely features the voices of anti-establishment critics, scholarly research shows that alternative perspectives are rare on public television, and are effectively drowned out by the stream of government, expert, and corporate views that represent the vast majority of sources on public television programs. These bias charges only reinforce the idea that public television is better off playing it safe.
Instead of a debate about bias, we need a national conversation about how to repair the public service foundations of public television. First on the agenda needs to be a discussion of how to adequately fund public broadcasting, so it can be free to put on challenging programming without pressure from critics like Tomlinson who have the power to hold the network hostage to its government funding. A public broadcasting trust fund, managed by an independent nonpartisan board, would achieve this.
Noncommercial public broadcasting can play an important role in this hyper-commercialized age, but only if its leadership takes seriously its founding mission to broadcast programs that include fresh perspectives, expand dialogue and welcome controversy. This is the public television that the public deserves.
But, given our highly polarized political climate, it may not be what the public gets.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.