F.A.I.R.'s 1990 Study Of The `NewsHour'--Part 2

After F.A.I.R. issued its critical report about the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in June 1990, F.A.I.R.’s then-executive director, Jeff Cohen, was invited to debate [the PBS evening news show’s then co-anchor Robert] MacNeil on Channel 13’s then-local New York City show, The 11th Hour. But within a year the show that had aired this debate, The 11th Hour, had “gone off the air,”observed Cohen.

Asked by Downtown in the Spring of 1991 whether MacNeil then seemed willing to invite a F.A.I.R. representative to debate him on his own show, Cohen replied:

“There was no willingness to have a F.A.I.R. representative on MacNeil’s show. Just as Nightline ended up cancelling a previously scheduled appearance by me on its show to discuss F.A.I.R.’s study of Nightline. It seems like F.A.I.R. may be `blacklisted’ from these shows.”

Asked to respond to a June 17, 1990 charge by then-New York Times TV critic Walter Goodman that F.A.I.R.’s report on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was just an expression of its own political bias, Cohen said:

“The reaction to our report was, at first, very defensive. They said `F.A.I.R. is biased’ and that it `wants a MacNeil/Lehrer show composed of guests who are just critics.’ But what we want is a balanced show, where advocates for consumer groups, minorities, women and labor have an opportunity to appear on the show as well. That’s what public broadcasting should be all about.

“MacNeil/Lehrer hails itself as `independent.’ But that’s not the case.”

Asked by Downtown whether the release of F.A.I.R.’s study in June 1990 had any effect on the show, Cohen said he felt it did, but that the “changes only lasted a few months.”

“One week they actually interviewed Noam Chomsky—alone. And the next night they interviewed [the now-deceased] Edward Said—alone. And for a few days there was a period in which it seemed like a balance of policy-makers and policy-critics appeared. But then it was business-as-usual after the war broke out. Lately, it’s like it was before the study was released.”

In 1991, F.A.I.R. then-shared a Friday morning radio show on Pacifica’s WBAI, with then-Undercurrents radio show producer Laura Flanders, which monitored the media. Downtown asked F.A.I.R.’s executive director in 1991 whether Channel 13’s management had ever approached him about having a media monitoring show televised on Channel 13?

“No. But I’m sure it’s been discussed.”

Asked if there were any other recent changes [in 1991] at WNET in response to F.A.I.R.’s study,” Cohen noted that the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour now “sometimes includes an editor of Progressive magazine on its panel of five journalists” who appear on the show from time to time.

“I think Channel 13 is feeling community pressure to reflect the community’s diversity. We put a lot of heat on it when it allowed The 11th Hour to die. But Big Business is still calling the shots. Our theory is that corporations weren’t interested in diversity. And so we did campaigning on The 11th Hour issue—but MacNeil/Lehrer has all the money. So they let The 11th Hour show die for some cheaper show—though the cheaper show has had some very decent community segments.”

Cohen noted that Channel 13’s new “cheaper” show—not the plush NewsHour was even planning in 1991 to let the F.A.I.R. spokesperson get on the TV screen the following night.

(Downtown 5/8/91)

Next: Discrimination At PBS Historically

F.A.I.R.'s 1990 Study Of The `NewsHour'--Part 1

In June 1990, the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [F.A.I.R.] liberal media watchdog group, which then had an office at 130 W. 25th St. in Manhattan, released the results of its study of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. In the spring of 1991, Downtown spoke with F.A.I.R.’s then-Executive Director Jeff Cohen to learn what were the major conclusions of F.A.I.R.’s 1990 study.

“We had already done a study of [ABC News’] Nightline. We decided to study the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour to see if public broadcasting was giving `a voice for the voiceless’ and `reflecting an America on the air in all of its diversity,’ in the words of the Carnegie Commission on Public Broadcasting.

“We found that the guest-list on PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was more narrow than it was on Nightline. There were more government officials and less critics than on Nightline. And a greater percentage of the MacNeil/Lehrer guests were men and white.

“We did a case study of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour’s coverage of environmental issues for six months, during the period of the Valdez oil spill. And we found that not one environmental activist had been invited to appear on the show. The show’s guest-list had pro-corporation people, but no representatives from public-interest groups,” Cohen recalled in 1991.

(Downtown 5/8/91)

Next: F.A.I.R.’s 1990 Study Of The NewsHour—Part 2

British Influence On U.S. Public Broadcasting Historically

The Carnegie Commission report of 1979, A Public Trust, also discussed PBS’s anglophilic tendency to employ former BBC correspondents and broadcast programs produced by English producers for BBC on PBS, rather than programs produced by noncommercial, unemployed, native-born U.S. producers:

“It is often easier, cheaper, and less risky to acquire programs produced by other broadcasters, particularly those in Great Britain…The effect on American viewers is the impression that public television prefers actors and commentators with British accents.

“…Such problems give rise to accusations of `elitism’ and anglophilia. For the professionals involved in the domestic production industry the problem is more serious. The vast resources of the American creative community are presently underused. Except at the very pinnacle of the field, unemployment is rampant.”

(Downtown 5/8/91)

Next: F.A.I.R.’s 1990 Study Of The NewsHour

Protest Columbia University's Complicity With U.S. Imperialism: April 24-27, 2008

To mark the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Columbia Anti-War Student Revolt against Columbia University’s complicity with U.S. imperialism,veterans of the 1968 Columbia Student Strike will be converging at Columbia’s School of Journalism between April 24 and April 27, 2008. See the following link for the schedule of commemoration events:

http://www.columbia1968.com/

`Bloody Minds'

Come, you Bloody Minds
Look what I done find
I done did research
IDA exists.
Laugh between your walls
And sit behind your desks
And watch your missiles fall
IDA exists.

The value-free school
Your mask we see right through
The weapons of the Pentagon
Their brains procured by you.

Godly Grayson Kirk
On the board he knits
Smokes upon his pipe
While his bombers bite.
Problems he assigns:
“How to make men die?”
Professors they plan
Death for Viet Nam.

In ’56 to serve Defense
Five schools they did combine
Four years later
Columbia
It joined the Bloody Minds.

City slums they rot
Homeless live in lots
Atoms to destroy
They’re your little toys.
Oh, they pay you well
To create a hell
Did you see the news?
Twelve children they slew.

A division
Its name Jason
In summer they study
They meet, they talk
They plan, they plot
Counter-insurgency.

Lovers they must part
Lamps they now are dark
Knowledge turned to swords
Kirk sits on the board.
Schools changed into guns
For the Pentagon
Students now they learn:
How to make kids burn.

You stand in class
You spout your facts
A” noble scientist.”
But then at night
You join the fight
You do secret research.

Murder poor peasants
With the tools you sent
Orphan thin children
Help the Junta win.
Kill them with your mind
Paralyze their spines
Someday you will die
And in slime you’ll lie.

To listen to this protest folk song about Columbia University’s complicity with the U.S. war machine during the Vietnam War Era, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” site at the following link:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

The Bloody Minds protest folk song was written in a Furnald Hall dormitory room on Columbia University’s campus in March of 1967, after I discovered that Columbia University was an institutional member of the Pentagon’s Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research think-tank and that Columbia University President Grayson Kirk was a member of both IDA’s board of trustees and IDA’s executive committee. The Bloody Minds protest folk song was lyrically patterned somewhat after Dylan’s Masters of War protest folk song of the 1960s (which was sung to the melody of the traditional folk song Nottamun Town that Jean Ritchie used to sing in the late 1950s and early 1960s).

IDA continues to exist in 2008, continues to perform weapons research for the U.S. war machine and continues to include representatives from U.S. universities like M.I.T., Harvard, the University of South Carolina and the University of Texas on IDA’s board of trustees. For more information about IDA’s most recent war research in this current 21st-century “era of permanent war”, you can check out IDA’s website at http://www.ida.org/

Next: Protest Columbia University’s Complicity With U.S. Imperialism: April 24-27, 2008

Corporate Influence On Public Broadcasting Historically--Part 3

Lies Of Our Times was a now-defunct monthly Downtown Manhattan magazine, with offices at 145 West 4th Street in the early 1990's, which focused on misinformation and disinformation in the New York Times and other Establishment media. In 1991, Downtown asked its then-managaing editor, Bill Schaap, what was his opinion of PBS’s NewsHour, in terms of the issues that Lies Of Our Times was then raising?

“It’s a little hard to generalize. But, generally, it’s not quite as independent and unbiased and impartial as it purports to be. I think PBS is subject to the same pressures as the commercial networks,” Schaap answered.

Did the NewsHour ever invite any editor of Lies Of Our Times to discuss the issues that Lies Of Our Times raised?

“No,” said Schaap. “But they’ve certainly dealt with some of the issues, occasionally.”

Schaap noted that the Institute for Media Analysis, which then published the Lies Of Our Times magazine, also published a book, The Rise and Fall Of The Bulgarian Connection which documented that the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour “did exactly the same thing as the commercial networks for four years” in spreading misinformation about the alleged involvement of Bulgarian secret police in the attempted assassination of the now-deceased Pope John.

"It’s hard to see where they’re much different than the other networks. They’re definitely pretty bad on their UNESCO coverage. Only in minor ways does their coverage differ from private networks,” Schaap said.

Why?

“They’re very much dependent on the good will of the Establishment and the government. You don’t suppose Mobil Oil would fund PBS if it exposed Mobil too much? Or that the government would provide it with funds if it was too anti-government?"

Downtown asked Schaap in 1991 how he would respond to the NewsHour’s then-spokesperson who maintained that a “line in the sand” existed between the show’s corporate funding sources and its editorial decision-making.

“I would disagree. It’s probably not blatant. The president of a corporation doesn’t go around the studio with a blue pencil. But there’s self-censorship.”

The Institute for Media Analysis was started by Schaap in the late 1980s, before it started to publish the now-defunct Lies Of Our Times.

“We really decided that there was a need for a major magazine devoted to this kind of media analysis in a magazine format,” recalled Schaap in 1991.

Had the media gotten better or worse since the Institute for Media Analysis was started?

“It continues to get worse. What happened is that the dependence on government keeps growing in the news media. They’re becoming dependent on sources of information in the government for their news. There’s also been greater pressure on the media from the Reagan and Bush [I] administrations in recent years [in the early 1990s],” observed Schaap.

Although Schaap agreed that “having anybody else tell them what to say” might raise freedom of the press issues if public participation in PBS editorial policy-formation increased, he dismissed the notion that more public accountability of PBS represented a greater threat to freedom of the journalists in the media than corporate control. “The fact is that the corporations have vast power over the media,” said Schaap.

Despite NewsHour spokesperson Ramsey’s 1991 contention that editorial independence of his publicly-funded show was not threatened by the acceptance of corporate funding, the Carnegie Commission also observed in its 1979 report that:

“An examination of the national television program service distributed by PBS reveals that outsider funder control is a very real issue in the present system…Corporations have become particularly visible in public broadcasting…Corporate underwriting has undoubtedly skewed the total schedule in the direction of cultural programs which are popular among the `upscale’ audience that corporations prefer. Controversial drama, documentaries, public affairs, and programs for minorities and other special audience must then compete for remaining discretionary money. Too often they have become casualties in a neo-Darwinian competition for scarce funds…

“Other funders have shown a similar interest in specifying the terms under which they will provide financial support…

“The fact is that public television, so dependent upon outside funding for its basic national schedule, has repeatedly forfeited its autonomy in programming. In one instance, rather than lose vitally necessary funding, programs were accepted by PBS and a large East Coast station even though PBS and the offering station did not agree with the program selected by the major corporate funder…The fact that underwriters can choose the programs they wish to fund or not to fund considerably reduces the system’s discretion.”

(Downtown 5/8/91)

Next: Bloody Minds protest folk song lyrics

Corporate Influence On Public Broadcasting Historically--Part 2

Asked by Downtown in 1991 what was the relationship between MacNeil-Lehrer Productions and PBS’s NewsHour, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions’ then-spokesperson, Christopher Ramsey, said that “MacNeil-Lehrer Productions produces the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and WNET co-produces it.” Ramsey also noted in 1991 that his MacNeil-Lehrer Productions company produced other programs besides the PBS evening news, such as a PBS series on the English language and a series featuring the Surgeon General which NBC broadcasted.

Asked by Downtown in 1991 if the NewsHour was then involved in a relationship with Time-Warner, Ramsey answered affirmatively and noted that the relationship with Time magazine involved photo access and purely journalistic concerns.

Asked by Downtown how he would respond to critics who felt that there was a conflict-of-interest involved in the publicly-funded MacNeil-Lehrer Productions operating as a commercial venture, Ramsey questioned whether any such critics exist and said:

“All of the producers on PBS are independent contractors. And all the programs are contracted. There’s nothing wrong with a production company for public television making some small profit like any other business. Otherwise, you become dependent on just one funding source.”

Asked how he would respond to those critics of public broadcasting who worry about the dangers of “clandestine commercialism” within the public broadcasting system, Ramsey replied:

“That’s part of a much broader issue. We don’t have any kind of pure public broadcasting system in the United States. Maybe some commercialism can be avoided elsewhere. But even in the BBC they pay a salary or contract out on the basis of a production fee that insures a fair and reasonable profit to program producers.”

Downtown then asked Ramsey how he’d respond to critics of public broadcasting who argue that commercial funding of the NewsHour leads to commercial editorial control.

“We have a line in the sand drawn between our corporate funders and our editorial decisions. Corporate funders like AT&T have never tried to influence our program,” Ramsey said.

When Downtown noted that some people felt that the NewsHour doesn’t report on issues involving AT&T because AT&T funds the program, Ramsey replied in 1991:

“We’ve done quite a lot on AT&T. I can show you the transcripts of many programs on AT&T.”

Downtown then asked Ramsey whether he could recall if the NewsHour had ever done a show about the Gannett Company?

“I can’t off the top of my head. But Gannett is a low-profile company. And we tend to focus on issues of public policy and are less involved with issues related to companies like Gannett.”

(Downtown 5/8/91)

Next: Corporate Influence On Public Broadcasting Historically—Part 3