Media Musings: PBS vital to in-depth reporting
Thirty-seven years ago, amid ruffles and flourishes, public broadcasting was born in America.
Ringing rhetoric filled the floors of Congress as the new service was heralded as an intellectual counter-balance to commercial TV. We shall build a shining service of educational and informational programming in the vast wasteland of Babylon, spoke the prophets of politics.
Listen to Lyndon Johnson’s address to Congress, Feb. 28, 1967: “Non-commercial television and radio in America, even though supported by federal funds, must be absolutely free from any federal government interference over programming.”
Yet, in a matter of very few years, Congress made it abundantly clear that “controversial” programming couldn’t be tolerated. During the past few years, PBS has so angered conservatives that major efforts continue to either defund it altogether or reduce the size of its government check, now at $380 million a year plus $25 million to become digital.
You may remember the last major assault, led by Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was at the apogee of his power and he thought he could convince the public all of the programming produced for PBS radio and TV could either go to the commercial networks or be completely funded by donations, which was ridiculous. The public support for PBS rattled the rafters of Congress. The effort died.
Even so, the conservative battering continues. Bill O’Rielly, a master basher of scream talk, used his newspaper column to attack Bill Moyers, the last standing intellectual in American TV, for his liberal weekly TV show, “Now with Bill Moyers” saying Moyers shouldn’t use the people’s money to promote a political point of view. O’Rielly must be dancing around the Fox newsroom because Moyers is leaving the show to write a book. Ah, but the show is heavily underwritten by foundations and will continue.
Then there’s National Public Radio. One recent letter to the editor wants NPR sacked because it airs the British Broadcasting Corporation’s news program. He charged the BBC was filled with bias and distortion as demonstrated by its proven lapses in coverage of an allegation that the justification for British involvement in the war on Iraq was “sexed up.”
But serious reading of serious British newspapers and intellectual writers reveals that Lord Hutton was Blair’s boy and delivered what Blair needed by denouncing the BCC for bias. The Brits didn’t buy the Hutton findings, if the polls are any indication. Now the BBC is under a cloud, two top directors were sacked, and there is the grim talk of “more oversight of the news division” which is Brit for censorship. One man wants the BBC killed: Rupert Murdoch, who wants no competition for his British news empire.
NPR is always being chastised for its in-depth reports on the Israeli-Palestinian war. Letters always say any report is biased, especially towards the Jewish position because there are “so many Jews” at NPR.
Let’s take two steps back. When the fascinating papers of Supreme Court Justice Henry Blackmun became available, NPR, PBS “The Leherer Report” and The New York Times were given access before the rest of the nation’s media. That’s because they are serious news organizations with excellent reputations for balanced reporting.
The only in-depth, serious documentary work done on the Iraqi Freedom war continues to be PBS’s “Frontline”, which has so many national and international awards they must have built walls to hold them.
The major TV news divisions are shrinking today. ABC has virtually no foreign correspondents in the global village (the irony of it numbs). NBC thinks a documentary is airing Court TV tapes. And CBS thinks any criminal investigation is worthy of “48 Hours.” All of the major nets are afraid of the government and the people.
And while it’s correct to say PBS has problems and flaws and, yes, even excesses, it’s the only serious game left in town and it’s too vital to allow it to become weaker and weaker under the endless battering of the right.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)