October, 19 2010, 08:15am EDT
Major FAIR Expose of PBS: Taking the 'Public' Out of Public TV
PBS Fare Differs Little from Commercial TV
NEW YORK
A multi-part FAIR expose of PBS's most prominent news and public affairs
programs demonstrates that public television is failing to live up to
its mission to provide an alternative to commercial television, to give
voice to those "who would otherwise go unheard" and help viewers to "see
America whole, in all its diversity," in the words of public TV's
founding document.
In a special November issue of studies and analyses of PBS's major
public affairs shows, FAIR's magazine Extra! shows that "public
television" features guestlists strongly dominated by white, male and
elite sources, who are far more likely to represent corporations and
war makers than environmentalists or peace advocates. And both funding
and ownership of these shows is increasingly corporate, further eroding
the distinction between "public" and corporate television. There is
precious little "public" left in "public television."
FAIR undertook the examination following news last fall that PBS was
canceling Now and that Bill Moyers was retiring from Bill Moyers
Journal. PBS announced that it was replacing the two shows, which
exemplified the public broadcasting mission, with Need to Know, a news
magazine launched in May and anchored by two journalists from the
corporate media world.
FAIR's findings reveal:
Need to Know. FAIR's study of the first three months of Need to
Know's guestlist and segments finds that its "record so far provides
little encouragement that it will ever serve as an adequate replacement
for Now and the Bill Moyers Journal."
The program's heavily white (78 percent) and male (70 percent) guestlist
failed to "break out of the narrow corporate media box." Corporate
representatives outnumbered activists 20 to 12. And black people
appeared overwhelmingly on stories on drugs and prisons.
PBS NewsHour. If PBS's signature news show is any indication, the
system is doing little to help us "see America whole, in all its
diversity."
-- The NewsHour's guestlist was 80 percent male and 82 percent white,
with a pronounced tilt toward elites who rarely "go unheard," like
current and former government and military officials, corporate
representatives and journalists (74 percent). Since 2006, appearances
by women of color actually decreased by a third, to only 4 percent of
U.S. sources.-- Women and people of color were far more likely to appear as "people
on the street" providing brief, often reactive soundbites, than in more
authoritative roles in live interviews.-- Viewers were five times as likely to see guests representing
corporations (10 percent v. 2 percent) than representatives of public
interest groups who might counterweigh such moneyed interests--labor,
consumer and environmental organizations.-- While Democratic guests outnumbered Republican guests nearly 2-to-1
in overall sources, Republicans dominated by more than 3-to-2 in the
program's longer format, live segments. (FAIR's 2006 NewsHour study,
which examined a period when Republicans controlled the White House and
Congress, showed Republican guests outnumbering Democrats in both
categories: 2-to-1 among all sources, 3-to-2 in the longer live
interviews.)-- On segments about the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the most frequent
story of the study period, viewers were four times as likely to see
representatives hailing from the oil industry (13 percent of guests) as
representatives of environmental concerns (3 percent).-- On segments focusing on the Afghan War, though polls show consistent
majorities of Americans have opposed the war for more than a year, not
a single NewsHour guest represented an antiwar group or expressed
antiwar views. Similarly, no representative of a human rights or
humanitarian organization appeared on the NewsHour during the study
period.
The NewsHour, "public TV's nightly newscast," is actually privately
owned. For-profit conglomerate Liberty Media has held a controlling
stake in the NewsHour since 1994. The company is run by industry
bigfoot John Malone, who has declared that "nobody wants to go out and
invent something and invest hundreds of millions of dollars of risk
capital for the public interest." Public dollars still support the
NewsHour, and former PBS president Ervin Duggan declared the show "ours
and ours alone," but Liberty CEO Greg Maffei refers to the program as
"not our largest holding," but "one we're very proud of."
And it's not just the NewsHour. The Nightly Business Report was sold
earlier this year by public station WPBT to a private company. The
details of the deal-- which shifts the most-watched daily business show
on television into private hands-- are mostly unknown.
The Charlie Rose Show--a show produced outside the PBS system but
widely carried on public television stations--boasts a remarkably
narrow guestlist. FAIR found the most common guests (37 percent) were
reporters from major media outlets, and corporate guests, well-known
academics and government officials also made frequent appearances. Of
the 132 guest appearances, just two represented the public interest
voices that public television is supposed to highlight (equaling the
number of celebrity chefs who appeared). Eighty-five percent of guests
were male, and U.S. guests were 92 percent white.
Washington Week, the longest-running public affairs show on public
television, suffers from similar problems--which would seem to be by
design, given the show's inside-the-Beltway focus. In four months of
programs (May-August 2010), Washington Week presented 29 [64] reporter
guests; only one did not represent a corporate-owned outlet. Only four
of 64 appearances by guests were by non-white panelists (6 percent),
and the guestlist was 61 percent male.
FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and BrasÃlia's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular