Bill Moyers, Masterpiece, and liberal bias
Joel Kaplan
February 3, 2012
Bill Moyers has been a lightning rod for conservative criticism of public broadcasting since he was a young White House assistant to President Lyndon Johnson when the original Carnegie Commission report landed on his desk. That report eventually turned into the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.
That criticism intensified during his years hosting two shows on public television: Bill Moyers' Journal and Now with Bill Moyers. In fact, the criticism became so harsh that then CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson ordered a content analysis of Mr. Moyers' show to prove his liberal bias. The ensuing controversy ended with the resignation of Mr. Tomlinson and the creation of CPB's office of the ombudsmen.
Mr. Moyers' last appearance on public broadcasting was in 2010, but last year he announced a new hour-long weekly interview show, Moyers & Company. Unlike his previous shows, PBS is not broadcasting this one. It is produced by WNET and distributed by American Public Media. The show began broadcasting last month.
That new show immediately prompted a complaint from Prof. Victor Lieberman of the University of Michigan's history department. Here is his complaint:
"CPB has a statutory obligation to present balanced, non-partisan news coverage. How can you possibly reconcile such an obligation with the weekly broadcast on Sundays of Bill Moyers and Company? That program is strident, undisguised left-wing advocacy, the left-wing equivalent to Rush Limbaugh. Moyers makes no attempt at balanced analysis, nor is his weekly jeremiad balanced by a partisan conservative show. The chief difference between Limbaugh and Moyers is that Limbaugh, being wholly privately financed, has no obligation to pursue balance and objectivity, whereas CPB does. Shame on you! You wonder why the public complains about the news media's liberal bias! I'm sending copies of this complaint to my congressmen and anyone else I can think of, urging an end to public funding of what is in effect private political opinion.
"I should like you to attempt to defend what seems to me to be completely indefensible programming."
My role is not to defend such programming but to investigate and explain and, where appropriate, to criticize. I pointed out to Prof. Lieberman that CPB plays no role of the funding, production, or distribution of Moyers & Company. I also pointed out that many local public television stations do broadcast conservative-leaning programs such as the McLaughlin Group and, previously, the Journal Editorial Report. I mentioned that one of Mr. Moyers' guests on his first show was David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director. Finally, I asked Mr. Lieberman for specific examples of bias.
In response, Mr. Lieberman wrote:
"I was unaware of the decentralizing nature of CPB program selection and funding, so it apparently makes most sense to direct my concerns to Detroit Public Television rather than CPB per se. As for content, Bill Moyers' show is no more and no less than the unalloyed perspective of Occupy Wall Street, with no interest whatever in nuance, complexity, or in divergent opinion. All of which might be fine if it were balanced by a partisan Tea Party presentation, so that viewers could consider different views."
I shared Mr. Lieberman's complaint with the producer of Mr. Moyers' show. Mr. Moyers said that Mr. Lieberman's criticism "seems a classic case of bias in the eye of the beholder."
Mr. Moyers goes on to say:
"Take a look at only our first three broadcasts and you'll find guests from across the political and cultural spectrum, including President Reagan's former budget director and a corporate CEO. More diversity to come. Here's another must-know: my broadcast is privately funded, and my colleagues and I base our journalism on careful and thoroughly fact-checked research and reporting, drawing our conclusions solely in accord with the evidence we gather."
Prof. Lieberman is not just upset about Mr. Moyers' new show. He also takes aim at a well-known PBS drama:
"While I have your attention, may I mention too my concern that Masterpiece Theater's contemporary English drama entitled "Page Eight," which was broadcast some weeks ago, presented an outrageously hostile, factually insupportable view of Israeli policies in the West Bank. I write as a scholar who teaches a large lecture class on the Arab-Israeli conflict, who has published on that topic, and who can claim considerable expertise. To be sure, Masterpiece Theater is allowed some dramatic license — the show was not a documentary. The problem is that the CPB's dramatic license, the political bias of shows like Bill Moyers and Company, and the political bias in BBC News broadcasts that many CPB channels feature all run in one direction — toward liberal (often anti-Israel) positions. I find no compensatory, counterbalancing sentiment from a conservative direction.
"Though often exaggerated, complaints that CPB is part of a liberal elitist establishment have merit, and if the CPB is to retain public funding from what may be a Republican-dominated Congress after 2012, it will have to exercise far greater prudence. But pragmatic self-interest aside, I should hope that journalistic integrity, a desire to separate as far as possible "fact" from personal opinion, would push in the same direction."
The Masterpiece complaint centered on one scene in the drama where a female character says that the Israelis killed her brother two years ago. When asked how, she responded that he was waving a white flag, trying to stop the Israelis from knocking down a house.
I contacted Masterpiece senior producer Steven Ashley, who said that it appeared Prof. Lieberman's "agitation with our 'Page Eight' was a small example of his larger concern about the bias of network programming. In other words, it didn't seem so much Masterpiece's issue but rather PBS or CPB's to contend with."
Mr. Ashley said there was a protest back in November when the drama ran and the complaints were addressed by PBS ombudsman Michael Getler in his report, "For Some, a Mystery about Masterpiece."
Here is Mr. Getler's take on that situation:
http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2011/11/for_some_a_mystery_about_masterpiece.html
