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Something is Rotten at PBS
Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World.
Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all - UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan - to learn about how they do it.
Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common - none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.
Frontline then said to Reid - okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around America.
So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.
The documentary that resulted - Sick Around America - aired Monday night on PBS.
But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.
And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform - don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.
They can sell for-profit insurance for extras - breast enlargements, botox, hair transplants.
But not for the basic health needs of the American people.
Instead, the film that aired Monday pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies.
And the film had a deceptive segment that totally got wrong the lesson of Reid's previous documentary - Sick Around the World.
During that segment, about halfway through Sick Around America, the moderator introduces Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the lead health insurance lobby in the United States.
Moderator: Other developed countries guarantee coverage for everyone. We asked Karen Ignagni why it can't work here. Karen Ignagni: Well, it would work if we did what other countries do, which is have a mandate that everybody participate. And if everybody is in, it's quite reasonable to ask our industry to do guarantee issue, to get everybody in. So, the answer to your question is we can, and the public here will have to agree to do what the public in other countries have done, which is a consensus that everybody should be in. Moderator: That's what other developed countries do. They make insurers cover everyone, and they make all citizens buy insurance. And the poor are subsidized.
But the hard reality, as presented by Reid in Sick Around the World, is quite different than Ignagni and the moderator claim.
Other countries do not require citizens buy health insurance from for-profit health insurance companies - the kind that Karen Ignagni represents.
In some countries like Germany and Japan, citizens are required to buy health insurance, but from non-profit, heavily regulated insurance companies.
And other countries, like the UK and Canada, don't require citizens to buy insurance. Instead, citizens are covered as a birthright - by a single government payer in Canada, or by a national health system in the UK.
The producers of the Frontline piece had a point of view - they wanted to keep the for-profit health insurance companies in the game.
TR Reid wants them out.
"We spent months shooting that film," Reid explains. "I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it."
Reid has a book coming out this summer titled The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care (Penguin Press, August 2009.)
"I said to them - mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world," Reid said. "I said I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book. They said - I had to be in the film because I was under contract. I insisted that I couldn't be. And we parted ways."
"Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit," Reid said. "But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit. You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance."
"I don't think they deliberately got it wrong, but they got it wrong," Reid said.
Reid said that he now wants to make other documentaries, but not for Frontline.
"Frontline will never touch me a again - they are done with me," Reid said.
Reid says that "it's perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy."
"We disagreed, and we parted ways," Reid says.
It might be perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy.
But it's not perfectly reasonable to mislead the American people on national television in the middle of a health care crises when Congress is shaping legislation that will mean life or death for the for-profit health insurance industry.
- Posted in
66 Comments so far
Show AllA very interesting article with some truly sad but not very surprising news.
Sadly, many semi-educated folks who think that watching PBS makes them progressive will remain under the assumption that basic health care must remain for-profit.
The corporate underwriters of PBS who guarantee the PBS executives lush compensation for what should be public-service jobs will not allow any open and honest discussion of the issue.
Health care becomes just another issue on which the Dems have bailed mightily.
Thanks for the heads up, Russell.
q
PBS Also the made the film Oswalds Ghost with KNOWN CIA JOURNALISTS
HUGH AYNESWORTH AND PRICILLA JOHNSON
very significantly this was aimed at the left. Classic gatekeeping a la CIAs Encounter Magazine.
See
Hugh Aynesworth Spartacus
Priscilla Johnson Spartacus
the go over to the Education Forum for debate/discussion about these two CIA journalists.
Why the Kennedy Assassination for left censorship?
Simple. The legislative Executive and Judicial is a basic common denominator in all 300 million heads. They will not let that get messed with, because it is the common denominator of power, even if it has very little to do with the way power really works now. Also they lie constaantly about JFK s policies trying to make him seem like just another cold warrior. Must read JFK and the Unspeakable on this. Irerefutable.
Please read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, or people will remain thinking that the Presidents Chosen by Wolf Blitzer will change everything, and we-- as a species will devlove into quivering lime Jello, and not even cold quiverin
Great story.
But, this is not by a long shot the first time that Frontline has ended up being a shill for the mainstream view.
They usually purport to give an alternative look at an issue, but then skew it JUST enough that it veers right back . . . well, veers to the right.
Though the quality is often funky, I trust community-cable T.V.'s independently produced news & opinion shows more that I would EVER trust Frontline.
Bill Moyers has also found a way to conduct interviews with an impartiality that allows alternative views to get a hearing on PBS.
Otherwise, PBS would be a wasteland in the news dept. just like the usual MSM.
What's so infuriating is that the "mainstream view", if one goes by public opinion, is rarely reflected in the "mainstream media" or in public policy. Whether it's the Middle East wars, healthcare, bailout packages for the banks, military spending vs. social programs, or a host of other issues the opinions of the majority of US citizens are ignored. What James Madison said back in the day still holds true, "the role of the government [and media?] is to protect the opulent minority from the majority".
Would you still object to Madison's quote if the word "opulent" was removed?
PBS censors stuff all the time. When it is something from a conservative point of view, no one on the left seems to care. Censorship works both ways.
We the people, know that a single payer strategy is the best answer to our medical system that puts profit above care everytime. Taking the profit out of paying providers would save a enormous amount of money. If you believe that is not so; why are for profit health providers fighting so hard to keep the status quo.
Our representatives have a gold plated health care plan. Medicare is a single payer entity which has adminstration cost of around 3%. The VA buys drugs at a cost that they want to pay. We all need to take personal responsibility of our health and realize that we can't spend a million dollars to save each of us.
We should incorporate many practices that work to make Americans healthier and more productive.
Frontline, a program I have a healthy respect for, just took a nosedive as far as i am concerned. I understand there is always a certain amount of "influence" in any production but this is ridiculous. Looks like the insurance companies bought themselves an asset.
Bill Moyers Journal is still one of the best news programs around. Yes, PBS is not free of corporate control, but it is still a cut above the mainstream news media.
Yes Bill Moyers is great but as you say, the first and last ten minutes of any pbs show is taken up with commercials for insurance companies and defence contractors.
That is hardly what I would call a "public" network. Take a few moments to watch real public tv around the world and you will see the difference in quality.
Bill Moyers is great (just watched him with Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald), but PBS as a whole is not such a cut above anything anymore. The packaging is more appealing, but the message has been co-opted.
Bad tidings for those who think they're getting "the rest of the story."
I still watch PBS, but I no longer trust.
I watched the American Experience Reagan bio on PBS a while back. There was no mention of the Southern Strategy or the “states rights” he gave speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi or the air traffic controllers strike or welfare queens. You can copy and paste the transcript of Parts 1 & 2 from the website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/) and see for yourself what all they left it out. On the website they have a feedback section that is totally useless as far as I can tell. There wasn’t any way to read feedback from others, just the usual self-promoting FAQs, and so far no one has responded.
Don’t let anyone tell you that PBS has a liberal bias. Sure, there’s Bill Moyers and other liberals that conservatives love to point to as evidence of liberal bias, but the real truth is that corporate sponsors took over a long time ago and while we’ve been distracted by Republican shenanigans and the Bloody Bush administration, they’ve been rewriting our history, which they are actively peddling to schools as history rather than the propaganda that it really is.
>>>Lee Emmett wrote: I still watch PBS, but I no longer trust.
...Don’t let anyone tell you that PBS has a liberal bias.
Sadly, that's my position too. I think it's human nature to want to trust until and unless something happens, may be more than once, and then you become cautious. It's not a nice feeling. I see that PBS has gone too far with its "balancing act" - may be they'll start calling themselves "fair & balanced" someday. Taking corporate sponsorship may be inevitable, but there's no reason to actively promote corporate interest or serve as a medium for their views. I see that from time to time on Charlie Rose - another disappointment.
Liberal bias? Yeah, right! That's the right-wing strategy to put the media on the defensive.
"...from time to time on Charlie Rose..."--PBS could just as well change the name of the show to 'The New World Order Power Hour'.
You can tell from the initials P BS and N PR - Public BS and National PR.
This is a society of cheaters and the cheated. PBS exemplifies this perfectly.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
J. Krishnamurthy
Great Krishnamurthy quote.
So that explains my square peg syndrome.
Public Broadcasting has never been the same since NET was replaced by PBS in 1969 because NET was supposedly 'too liberal.'
The rightward shift of PBS was quite noticeable since GWB became President. I even think Bill Moyers uses too much language that copies the alarmist Republican memes when he asks questions of his guests.
Our country has destroyed any trust I ever had in the honorableness of leadership and institutions in this country. And I am betting they wanted it that way, so none us of knows what is what or where to find the slim truths that leak out accidentally.
Tough job, trying to inject your bias and be believable.
You have to make people believe you are truthful, and if you can twist the truth you can always argue your way out of it.
Then there is the outright lie as debunked in this story.
Most people are so starved for the truth they will fall for anything; PBS, MSNBC and all the other so called "liberal" media are full of corporate controlled content.
I don't care where I read things anymore, it has to pass the sniff test before I accept it as truth.
"Tough job, trying to inject your bias and be believable."
I think that's why they used Reid--to lend the whole thing credibility.
the insurance industry sometimes seems like just one more spawn of the military industrial complex--- to make money off of a 'service' of precious little actual substance. privatizing health care, education, infrastructure, water, even our very 'intellectual property' is all part of the game that has greatly added to the wealth (materially, anyway) of the 'have-mores' and sunk more and more people across class lines into insurmountable debt, following the incessant siren call of mammon.
all this is incredibly unhealthy.... right on, kalidas.... have always loved that krishnamurti quote! frontline kinda blew it from the sounds of it. but maybe they'll redeem themselves... we'll have to wait and see.
i am one of countless 'uninsured' and happily so. growing some of your own food helps. avoiding nasty fake foods helps. riding a bike helps. getting acquainted with your neighbors helps. finding a support system to reduce carbon-footprint and work for social justice helps. honestly assessing your addictions helps you get over them. acceptance of our human mortality and love of the planet & each other helps. taking the time to meditate and think outside the monoculture box helps. supporting media of conscience and integrity helps. keeping a watchful eye out and asking hard questions helps. finding common ground with 'the enemy' can help too.
do no harm.
Matangicita, great post. And all the best for your (courageous?) 'uninsured' life!
You're right about the insurance industry making money off of a 'service' of precious little actual substance. On the face of it, insurance to cover any unforeseen risk is a good idea - it is only a formalized arrangement where a community chips in and helps out those who happen to face a misfortune such as a sickness or an accident. Since the insurance company should be in a position to cover such risk, it collects premiums, invests this premium on something profitable, and essentially keeps a reserve to pay for any claims. Based on history and projections,the premiums can be adjusted so that we pay a really reasonable and nominal amount to cover for some unexpected risk. At least that's how it should be. And, ideally, the insurance companies SHOULD NOT be making a profit. This may not make sense to many Americans. But, how could an insurance company make a profit unless they overcharge on the premiums and underpay on the claims? Salaries for the professionals who do the risk analysis and process the claims? Absolutely yes. But profits for "shareholders"? What the hell is that? "Shareholders" in what? An industry that simply 'scoops up' the savings of working people to invest in profit-making ventures? I got the feeling that this opportunity might have interested Warren Buffet early on - reading his 'biography'. I may be wrong.
This is one of the many questions that's not asked in a capitalist system. Now all these insurance companies are pressuring emerging economies such as India to 'open up' their domestic insurance sector (which so far had mostly public-private partnerships that seem to do a decent job) because there's so much money to be made off of other people's savings. Yes, life insurance in some countries is actually treated like a saving - with tax benefits, interest on premiums for life insurance and such, so everybody benefits - even the life-insurer while still alive! And the medical care, while not up to "western standards", is still relatively cheap since most people, including, or especially, the poor, pay for care out of their pocket. That all may change when "western" companies start to takeover the market. The poor suckers there may not even know what hit them until it's too late!
This is an important story. It's not just that the PTB are blocking single-payer care. It's more than that, worse than that. Think of it as NAFTA. Under the guise of feel-good stuff like technology, modernization and healthcare, they are implementing an Orwellian solution that doesn't even address the problem.
What is the problem? We don't have affordable access to care.
What is Obama's solution? "Modernize." We will put all health records on the internet and that will make care affordable. Will it? Think carefully about the problem and the proposed solution.
Big players like GE's healthcare unit have supported Obama in order to get this $19B payout. If being able to outsource American healthcare jobs to India was such a good deal, I'm not sure why we have to pay billions to build out the infrastructure for it.
If you look at any of the players involved, they have partnerships with healthcare technology in India. For example, GE announced they are spending $250 million in an initiative with Intel who is also eager to make big bucks in health care. GE also has a partnership with a company called HCL, a company that focuses on "transformational outsourcing... remote infrastructure management... and BPO. (BPO= Business Process Outsourcing). That gives you the flavor of it. Or look at athenahealth, a company run by Jonathan Bush, Jr. set to profit from this. Athenahealth promises a full solution for both back and front offices for doctors. Pay attention folks: ALL medical office jobs can be outsourced to India via this wonderful Electronics Medical Records solution to health care Obama is proposing.
Now I know there can be good things about these proposals, but here is what you need to think about before Congress votes. Many healthcare dollars are going to go to a "solution" that personally, I think will not provide anymore care but actually make things worse. Beyond that, it is a Trojan horse. Under the guise of stimulus - of creating jobs in this country so that we might be able to afford care - it has us create the means for a job destruction unrivaled since NAFTA. Think about it. There are a lot of medical jobs in this country. They don't pay a lot of money, but they are relatively good jobs. They do a necessary and honorable job. Obama and Jonathan Bush, team players, have decided that getting rid of these jobs by outsourcing to India will make care affordable.
Since I don't watch television, I can't really comment on PBS. But NPR moved . . . marched . . . far to the right several years ago and I gave up on them when they started dishing out the patriotism-God-bless America line. This situation with PBS sounds like the same thing: not necessarily an outfit taken over by Republican apparatchiks but a bunch of gooey sentimental liberal yuppies who really came to believe in MONEY and all the Birkenstocks and Volvos and eco-tourist trips it can buy. Public Bull Shit.
Mr. Shiblikov, As one whose opinions I read and respect I would ask why you consider NPR to be as you describe it? I happen to be one who listens to my local affiliate most of my working day and find very little that qualifies as what you claim they program.
When George Bush politicized the CPB there was a rather temporary dip in quality at NPR in a rather surprising ( to me at least) attempt to patronize the bastards with less left leaning reportage. But it seems that they learned and now rely more upon listener support for the dollar and have gone back to sterling and very, very fair coverage.
They are not Pacifica Radio remember and their hallmark has always been to cover all sides of issues, for which I am grateful. I am one who likes to make up his own mind and want to hear all the sides soas to make that possible.
Yes, I to still listen to NPR mostly out of habit and the fact that it's at least partially non commercial. I still keep a very watchful ear though, just like I do for most MSM.
I recall this last summer on a supposedly factual discussion of nuclear energy being "green" on NPR and they where repeating the nuclear industry's lobbyists talking points just like the shills on fox. Yes, the nuclear (military) industrial complex is about as green as the $$$ they throw round at anyone willing to swallow their bribes. Remember the nuclear industry is just the Paul Bunyon version of the national rifle association, selling testosterone and penis size through their guns, fear and deadly weapons.
How can there be freedom of speech when it costs so damn much money????
I do not recall the debate on nuclear energy but, considering the penchant at NPR, I would be surprised had they not aired the various sides in that debate. I would also note that the nuclear industry is more an energy related industry ( at least in this context) than in bed with the MIC.
I do agree that the power of money has certainly usurped but not eliminated the power of truth.
NPR is going down the tubes, too. They ran a story on the special election in NY-20 the other day. After explaining that there was a 70,000 voter registration advantage for the Republicans - the district was built to be a safe republican seat - that the Republican candidate was a fixture in State politics for 20 years, the Democrat an unknown newcomer and the Republicans had dumpped massive amounts of money into the race, Mara Liasson (sp) then concluded that a Democratic win meant nothing since the Democrats had held the seat "since 2006." In other words, just over two years. They won a close race in 2006 after the incumbent Republican, John Sweeney, had been charged with assault against his wife and photographed drinking with minors at a frat party at Union College. They won again in 2008. As I recall, Republicans were routed nationally in both elections but especially 2008.
That's just one example of many. Add to it the fact that commenters like David Frum or representatives from the American Enterprise Institute, Cato or Hoover seem to have a virtual monopoly on opinion air time. (You could be forgiven if you were one of the many who have concluded that the experience of the last 8-20 years have revealed their ideology to be totally bankrupt - figuratively and literally. Yet, NPR gives them seemingly endless opportunities to continue promoting their nonsense.)
I won't even talk about hacks like Juan Williams, Cokie Roberts and Bob Simon that are fixtures as moderators and analysts.
To go back to the 70,000 vote registration advantage for a moment. This is in a district with probably about 300,000 registered voters. (There were 154,450 votes cast in this special election. I believe the turnout was about 50%) Factoring in Independents and other parties (mostly Conservatives) I would guess you're talking about approximately 140,000 Republicans to 75,000 Democrats. So close to 2-to-1. But, according to NPR, you don't want to devine anything if the unknown with the 2:1 disadvantage pulls out a victory. Classic on-the-other-handism.
I believe I heard the broadcast you refer to but I remember two such about upstate NY politics so I am uncertain. The one I remember featured a democratic victory when the republican was a very popular figure and the GOP had outspent the Dems by a sizable amount.
In either case I guess it is more a matter of what the listener hears rather than what was actually meant.
PBS has been living of an old reputation for a very long time, the way that the NYTimes & Washington Post have been living off their Pentagon Papers/Watergate/Church commission era reporting.
A friend who went to the USSR after the collapse was told by people he befriended "Yes, we knew we were being lied to, we just didn't realize how much we were being lied to."
The same holds true for Americans -- most have no idea how much every die they're being lied to. A woman who thinks herself liberal told me that she thought Rachel Maddow was "too far to the left".
America's corporate controlled government [sic] allows for-profit health insurance vampires to feed
on those least able to protect themselves. The empty, homeless corpses are then tossed on the bankruptcy pile. Instead of electing these parasites to office we must repeal corporate citizenship!
Something is rotten and it's spreading.
It used to be you could count on the accuracy of PBS as you could on the integrity of Ted Kennedy. Now you can't count on either--they've both sold out.
But you can see Lawrence Welke and countless shows that cater to aging right wing, viewers. PBS lost my support years ago. I look at Democracy Now on access TV, and the History Channel, and Animal Planet. If I want to see something from PBS, I rent it on Netflix.
I agree Democracy Now is a great source of information--but I wonder if more people--especially Democrats--are not merely "changing the station" of their own consciences to something less oppositional, more comfortable, passive and inward--something more "realistic" instead of fighting back.
I think that's how the rot starts to spread.
-but I wonder if more people--especially Democrats--are not merely "changing the station" of their own consciences to something less oppositional, more comfortable, passive and inward--something more "realistic" instead of fighting back
This is a good point. But how is watching, Fox News for ex., “fighting back”. Surely PBS, NBC etc, executives are not idiots. They know they are peddling crap. You can call them on it when you see it but, in the end, all they care about in selling your eyeballs to sponsors, right? So, spend your “news dollars” on products you respect and that have integrity.
History Channel, (and Nat. Geo. for that matter) are heavily skewed to the right. Watch how so many of their shows tout the status quo, establishment reasons for various wars and blind patriotism, their gov't spin on UFO phenomena, etc.
How about not spending mony on cable period? You can rent interesting documentaries at the library anyway. Cable companies are now becoming monopolies where I used to live recently.... and raising their fees outrageously. Now, living abroad, I would pay about $30 for cable and high speed internet combined. Basic cable alone was higher back home.
The rotting at PBS started in the mid 1990s when Newt Gingrich, as house speaker, threatened to cut off funding to PBS.
Since then PBS has accepted more corporate sponsorships and this has definitely changed their editorial policy.
Every since MacNeil was forced to leave the MacNeil/Lehrer Report (due to MacNeil interviewing the leader of the American Socialist Party and thus Gingrich's rage) PBS has become more right wing.
The message all Americans need to know from this documentary is what T.R. Reid said, "Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit," Reid said. "But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit."
this is true. Something similar happened with the BBC.
Did you hear about the "sexed up dosier" story? The BBC caught on early to the fraudulent Bush/Blair falsified documents that supposedly supported the case that war with Iraq was necessary. The story, as we now know was spot on but the BBC, which is supposed to be at arms length from the government, got royaly lambasted nevertheless with threats to their funding. If the truth is not safe on "public" news, then it is all the more important that we move swiftly to support shows like "democracy now" and similar enterprises.
I quit supporting PBS too, because of their skewed priorities. I even TOLD THEM the reason why - too much corporate influence; too many lies. In fact, I quit watching ANY TV a long time ago. It was only a fluke that I even saw this egregious program - and I was outraged at the sick insinuations. I really hit the ceiling when Karen Ignagi came on, whimpering her bullshirt, as if working for the ENEMY was in any way moral. I hope she gets hit by a truck and her insurance company dumps her on the scrap-heap too.
Frontline went far off-base long ago, with its Afghanistan BS - and that was way back. They had fairly informative programs from time to time, but I always wondered what they were covering up. I never trust a liar again - you never know when you're being scammed (again) - or why they are presenting a certain perspective at a certain time. The 'healthcare reform' crap leaked like a sieve - I've lived in Europe, and US military can get excellent healthcare in Japan (we have enough bases over there) or Germany. Why doesn't PBS just run 'Sicko' - which was far more accurate (I despise that Moore guy, by the way) and showed how REAL healthcare worked in MODERN countries (as opposed to this backwards regressive fascist state.)
A & E, History Channel, Learning Channel - they all do the same thing because they're paid by the same corporate psychopaths. I get my programs on DVD now, from the local library - I wouldn't pay or contribute a dime for such tripe. And it doesn't have to be that way - they could just as well tell the truth.
Give PBS an earfull - I usually do, even if they don't listen, at least they know we're watching and telling our friends about all their lies and misinformation.
Why does everything conservatives touch turn to shit?
Because that's generally what most conservatives are - shit.
Margaret Warner is a total idiot. You can be sure when she gets the assignment or does the interview there will be nothing to it; won't even rise to the level of the BBC at its worse. She's even worse than the airheads on NPR.
Kudos to Mr. Reid.
The guys at Frontline have little to no credibility left. And I can't imagine anyone but the most gullible donating to PBS.
Last week on "10 Trillion" they blasted medicare and social security as being our major budget "problem", while not once mentioning the insane --INSANE--defense expenditures. Not ONCE.
These people are no friends of The People.
Don't donate to them.
The thread of comments here, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundamerica/talk/ is worthy of perusal. Lots of negative feedback for the blackout of singlepayer and the usual lame excuse for its lack of inclusion.
Nice article. I flipped over just in time to see that interview. I remembered watching the other documentary, which I thought was well done.
As the lady was talking, I thought, well surely they're gonna probe her on this. Nope. And then I switched back to my favorite stupid comedy show.
On PBS I mostly enjoy the random old documentaries shown later at night, when they think nobody's watching. Anything to do with politics is often stale and useless audible gum-chewing with an overdose of East Coast slant. (While NOW did a hilarious interview with Joe Arpaio a week or so ago, the hilarity came from the fact that it was Joe Arpaio--and the fact that the journalist and show seemed surprised to learn that Phoenix conservatives are like a SS version of GWB Texans, sans the cowboy hats and anachronistic accents.)
Anyway, I still enjoy the News Hour (even though I call it the "Establishment News"). NPR, however, is toast--98% of their programming is irrelevant press-release material.
Twenty years ago, I was a regular supporter of PBS/NPR, but no more. Can't stand any of their jabbering, useless reporters. Still like the classical music, but it doesn't excuse the propaganda.
When my brothers and I were young children in the '70s we would, as little boys often do, flesh out the then meaningless (to us) acronymns with words that were amusing to us. PBS had an annoying "commercial": This is PBS followed by three bell tones. As we heard the bell tones go off, we would say "Pooh", "Butt", "Stink" and break out into fits of laughter.
How prophetic and apt that turns out to be.
TURN OFF YOUR TVs!!!!