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Carnegie's Promise
TV's Public Broadcasting System is losing programming genres — and audience — to commercial cable stations across the dial. National Public Radio has made enemies through its fears of the low-power movement, while the Pacifica Foundation radio network is fighting internal battles that have brought out the cops. Activists and citizen groups are crying out that public broadcasting in America has abandoned its Great Society-era foundations and is failing its Carnegie Commission mandate to present diverse perspectives. They warn that it has bowed to commercial pressures and corporate influence, due to inadequate funding. Charges of bias abound from both the right and the left. In a media-saturated country and a media-saturated age, can we still seclude some public space from the marketplace?
Activists DeeDee Halleck and Jerry Starr have hope. Their tales of reform efforts, and these reports from MediaChannel affiliates, suggest that public broadcasting may yet be put back on track, especially with a push from the public.
- Aliza Dichter and Donnell Alexander, editors
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Visionary Origins
"Noncommercial TV should address itself to the ideal of excellence, not the idea of
acceptability," E.B. White wrote to the Carnegie Commission in 1966. His letter,
together with early budgets, recommendations and other key documents from the last
four decades, amount to a kind of regulatory history of public broadcasting.
From Current,
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Now More Than Ever
FAIR's in-depth study from 1999 spotlights political discourse and PBS.
If public broadcasting is to fulfill its founding mission — that is, "provide a voice
for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard," not to mention serve as a
forum for lively debate and deliver images of diversity — then today's cluttered
and commercial stand-in won't do.
From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), June 1 1999
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Storming The PBS Fortress
Veteran media activist DeeDee Halleck warns that an increasingly corporatist public broadcasting service is
failing its public-interest mandate. But a nascent media movement may
be the catalyst for change. From The Media Channel, July 12 2000
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Country-Club Stations
Public radio affiliates say they're having difficulty attracting minorities, both in the
newsroom and at the news director level. That's strange, writes Rochelle Lewis Lavin,
considering that public radio is unburdened by most of the constraints of commercial radio.
Also in this report: workers from stations around the country examine public radio's
greatest challenges and accomplishments.
From The Poynter Institute, February 18 2000
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Starr Power
When public-broadcasting activist Jerold Starr went on the road to promote his grassroots
reform group and his new book detailing his hard-fought battles, he encountered some
resistance from unlikely quarters. Starr's way of explaining the issues is a road map for
dissemination. From The Media Channel, July 19 2000
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Weakness At The Root
This spring's national PBS meeting in Nashville was, at the surface, a love-in.
But underneath was a tumultuous issue troubling your nearest PBS affiliates: the unmet
need for "localism." Aaron Barnhart reports on strategies for getting good ideas to
percolate upwards from inside a system that only knows how to drip down.
From TV Barn, July 5 2000
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Mission Critical
Robert McChesney, founder of Seattle magazine The Rocket, is a rarity among scholars: a media thinker whose critique is steeped in a practical knowledge of workplace machinery. In this interview with David Barsamian, McChesney discusses just how far NPR and PBS have strayed from the initial aims of public broadcasting. From The Media Channel, March 15 2000
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"S" Is For Shill
While the idea that a for-profit company can "identify" its product without "promoting"
it is dubious in itself, PBS further complicates the issue by prohibiting its underwriters
of children's programming from depicting their wares in ways that "encourage children to
ask for the products." Says Kimberly Pohlman: PBS nonetheless chooses to air
commercials that fall far short of this "ideal." From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), May 1 2000
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All The President's TV Men
No matter who enters the White House next, one thing's certain: he'll inherit a
natural spot for slotting cronies — the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
More than any other factor, insists James Ledbetter, presidential privilege has
politicized the system of public broadcasting. Every administration since LBJ
has loaded the CPB board with blatant political pals as opposed to visionaries.
From Salon.com, November 10 1997
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War Reporting
Independent voices like that of Pacifica Radio — the largest media outlet of the left —
are in more demand than at any time since, perhaps, the Vietnam War. Yet for many,
the troubles surrounding the network in recent years have overshadowed its often
invaluable coverage. Sorting out the collateral damage is much easier than figuring out
who's right and who's wrong. John Dinges undertakes a Herculean task.
From The Nation magazine, May 1 2000
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Selective Access
PBS didn't want the film, "Fear and Favor in the Newsroom." Dr. Yvonne Hadad battled with the public radio show "Fresh Air." And "Alternative Radio" producer David Barsamian found "ideological barriers" all over NPR. The National Radio project produced this roundtable on censorship inside the "forum for controversy."
From National Radio Project,
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AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE
MEDIA.
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