The "Assault" on Public Broadcasting
William Schulz
September 13, 2005
The long, hot summer that has swirled around public broadcasting actually began May 2 with a front-page New York Times report in which the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson, was accused of threatening PBS's editorial independence.
Within ten days, two powerful Democratic congressmen had called for CPB's Inspector General to undertake a full-scale investigation, which continues to this day. When a House Appropriations Subcommittee voted to cut the budget for public broadcasting, supporters of PBS and NPR -- including local affiliates -- launched a furious counter-offensive, prompting a torrent of angry phone calls and e-mails to Capitol Hill. The cuts were restored by the full House but the controversy did not subside.
E-mails received by me and my fellow ombudsman, Ken Bode, range from the thoughtful to the (occasional) near hysterical. "Think hard about becoming fascists," writes a PBS viewer in New Mexico. "The minority voices -- and the truths -- you silence today in the name of consolidation of political power will be your own tomorrow."
It should be noted that most of the comments we receive are highly supportive of the public broadcasting status quo but the disenchanted, for the most part, have tuned out. Thus a Wisconsin woman explains that she "choose(s) to listen to other radio stations because many PBS commentaries are definitely slanted to the left."
Media commentary on the ongoing controversy has been predictable. Conservative critics like L. Brent Bozell III and his Media Research Center cite chapter and verse of NPR and PBS programming to show bias. Liberal columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times claims that the "assault on public broadcasting" is part of an "insidious and ingenious" plot: "The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operation to the larger propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayer expense."
A July 11 hearing of a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee could have contributed to the dialogue but did not. It was too short; witnesses were given insufficient time to make their points; the participating senators were largely unprepared; topics ranged all over the lot from public broadcasting technology to Tomlinson's characterization of the PBS show, "Now with Bill Moyers," as "left-wing advocacy."
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) insisted that the Moyers show had been "balanced," apparently unaware that the public broadcasting newspaper, "Current," had come to a different conclusion last November . "Of the 75 'Now' segments over six months that treated controversial issues like the Iraq War, the state of the economy and the corrupting influence of corporate money on politics, only 13 included anyone who spoke against the thrust of the segment."
The most interesting comments at the Senate hearing, which was broadcast by C-Span, are found in a statement prepared by David Boaz of Washington's Cato Institute. Because of the truncated nature of the hearing, Boaz was unable to read the full text.
The only witness who favored an end (over five years) to federal funding for public broadcasting, Boaz was, in many ways, supportive of NPR and PBS. "As a libertarian . . . I'm sympathetic to some of public broadcasting's biases, such as its tilt toward gay rights, freedom of expression and social tolerance and its deep skepticism toward the religious right. And I share many of the cultural preferences of its programmers and audience, for theater, independent cinema, history and the like."
Answering charges of bias, David Fanning, executive producer of the PBS documentary series, "Frontline", has replied: "We ask hard questions to people in power. That's anathema to some people in Washington these days."
However, it is in the choice of topic -- not just the particular report -- that bias can be found, liberal or conservative. As Boaz notes: "There has never been a 'Frontline' documentary on the burden of taxes, or the number of people who have died because federal regulations keep drugs off the market, or the way that state governments have abused the law in their pursuit of tobacco companies or the number of people who use guns to prevent crimes."
Like many metropolitan areas, Washington has multiple NPR and PBS outlets. One evening this summer, Boaz was listening to public radio when a commentary by liberal former Labor Secretary Robert Reich was aired. Boaz switched to another NPR station, only to hear the views of liberal commentator Daniel Schorr. "That's not just liberal bias," Boaz says, "it is a liberal roadblock."
Boaz also raised the "one dirty little secret that NPR and PBS don't like to acknowledge in public debate": the elite status of their listeners and viewers.
PBS President and CEO Pat Mitchell assured the Senate subcommittee that "our viewers and our supporters reflect and mirror very closely the demographic make-up of our communities." Potential advertisers are told instead of a 2003 Mediamark poll commissioned by NPR. Compared to the general public, NPR listeners are 152 percent more likely to own a home valued at $500,000 or more; 194 percent more likely to travel to France; and 326 percent more likely to read the "New Yorker."
PBS demographics are only slightly more populist. Its viewers are 44 percent more likely than the average Joe to have a household income over $150,000; 39 percent more likely to have a graduate degree; and 177 percent more likely to have investments of $150,000 and up.
With the debate over public broadcasting unlikely to end soon, David Boaz has given us some food for thought.