In his new book "The Place of Media Power," about how ordinary people intersect with the media, London School of Economics lecturer Nick Couldry talks about the elation one video activist shared with him at getting footage on the air and thus "manipulating the media." Couldry was pleased that other voices were being seen, but also remarked that in seeking airtime the activist "unwittingly reconfirms" the media's symbolic power.

I don't see it that way. I am a media critic who is also a media maker, anxious to blast some holes in the media system for more diverse work to be seen, including my own. And like many independent filmmakers in an environment characterized by so much homogenization and the disappearance of what some programmers used to call "dissenting documentaries," it's not so easy. Commercial pressures have not only tightened things up at the big networks, they've affected noncommercial broadcasters like America's Public Broadcasting Service.

"PBS has been forced to rely increasingly on corporate sponsorship and support in Congress from across the political spectrum. The more PBS is perceived as promoting programming of the left, such as labor history, the less certain it is to receive the support of the right."

—Fred Glass, documentary filmmaker, whose "Building the House They Lived In," chronicles the California labor movement's successful fight for fair employment practices in the 1950s can be seen on the "Ready for PBS" documentary tour sponsored by Citizens For Independent Public Broadcasting.

Unlike many other countries where public service broadcasting is still strong, if at risk, PBS in America doesn't offer much of an ongoing cultural or political alternative. (For those who don't know, PBS is not a network but rather a programming service that supplies a primetime lineup a few nights a week to affiliated public television stations. In other time periods, locally run PBS stations acquire, and occasionally produce, their own shows.)

Critical filmmakers like myself, who are shut out of commercial TV for all intents and purposes, need robust public television because it is often the only game in town when you want a program you've made to be seen. And when you do, you want it on their national program service, what they call the "hard feed," because that guarantees it will be carried by all public stations nationwide. If the keepers of the PBS gates turn you down, you can still get your show on the air, but you have to try to sell it, or more likely place it for free, on a "soft feed" that gives stations the discretion to run it or not. This can mean it'll be on at different time periods, making a national promotion campaign very difficult. You have to lobby station by station across the nation like a beggar selling his wares.

Politicized Process
The selection process is driven by politics and personalities and internal conflicts, prompting PBS's best-known producer, Bill Moyers, to tell me once that "if you think the war in the Balkans is bad, imagine what would happen if the PBS stations were armed."

Internally divided, uncommitted to any alternative vision and dominated by a culture of conservatism and caution, PBS opts for safe programs even as some on the right see it as an outpost of communist propaganda. (Was it something that Big Bird of "Sesame Street" said or Chef Julia Child cooked?) That false image, exemplified by slogans like "if not PBS, who?" clouds the real content of the their often tepid and frequently recycled programming.

"The most frustrating part was the inability to even cross the fort, that is, to engage PBS personnel in a discussion, regardless of the outcome. Frequently letters were not replied to, phone calls were not returned. Oregon Public Television liked the film but informed me that 'stories with a foreign element no longer fly' at PBS national. ... 'POV,' which had encouraged the project under the former director, didn't return my calls."

—Kevin McKiernan, documentary filmmaker, whose "Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends But The Mountains," can be seen on CIPB'S "Ready for PBS" tour.

That's why producers and critics who believe that PBS was put on earth as a forum for controversy and debate, a place to present ideas that get screened out by the commercial monoliths, have been battling with PBS for a generation. And that's also why veteran PBS producers Al Perlmutter and Jack Willis helped set up the advocacy group Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting with support from Bill Moyers and others. CIPB is currently sponsoring a festival/tour promoting several current-affairs documentaries that were rejected by PBS called "Ready for PBS." Our company, Globalvision, produced a video for the group in part because of our own experience in getting frequent turndowns for our award-winning human rights TV series. The story of how PBS once told us that "human rights is an insufficient organizing principle for a TV series" is told in more detail in my book "The More You Watch, The Less You Know".

The Pulitzer For Falun Gong Coverage
And yet, glutton for punishment that I am, I went back to PBS this spring to ask them to run my new documentary based on my book of the same name, "Falun Gong's Challenge to China". This time I thought I might have a chance, especially after WNET, the New York PBS-affiliated station in the nation's number No. 1 media market, acquired the film and slated it to air during primetime (Tuesday, May 22 at 10 p.m.). It won many prestigious industry awards, as well as a weeklong theatrical screening, which is a big deal for a documentary.

Plus, the Falun Gong issue was back in the news, and The Wall Street Journal had just won a Pulitzer for coverage that made the rest of the media look pathetic. I figured with all this outside validation of the story and the film, PBS would be less likely to turn it down.

"We were told that it might be best to find a PBS affiliate station to support our project, but we found that unless we fit into one of the affiliate's predetermined formats, it was unlikely we would find support there."

—Barbara Zahm, documentary filmmaker, whose "The Last Graduation," on the dramatic success and ultimate killing of college programs in prisons by the 1994 "Contract with America" Congress can be seen on CIPB's "Ready for PBS" tour.

I was, of course, wrong, wrong, wrong. PBS did turn it down — for "editorial and craft problem[s]," they said. PBS rarely betrays political biases but instead takes refuge in the mantra of "editorial and quality" standards. Nothing is ever censored or suppressed at PBS. Those words are never used. Work that is tossed aside is always "not up to PBS standards." The situation illustrates the problems indy journalists face, especially because we invariably are forced to work with low budgets, meaning few celebrity narrators and not enough of the extra money PBS often requires for promotion. One of my essays on our experience with PBS will be out in June in "News Dissector," a new Akashic Books edition of my collected articles. And just to show you I am not alone, you can also read comments by fellow filmmakers on their experiences. Check out the documents and reach your own opinion. (You might want to order my film or book to learn more about the issue and to help a poor boy out.)

Happily, CIPB likes the film and it too has been accepted for "Ready for PBS."

A Pattern And A Problem
There is a ongoing and longstanding pattern of this type of exclusion. At bottom these disputes are about politics and values, not technique or temperament. The problem is that for many producers, if PBS says no, it is hard to find anyone to say yes. It also is probably not a wise career move to question the process or — Big Bird forbid — protest because then you are marked as a troublemaker.

From Prague to Poland, Bucharest to Helsinki, Europe's public service broadcasting is at risk of going the PBS way or worse, as demonstrated by threats of privatization and downsizing, prompting employee protests and strikes. Here in the United States, PBS is at risk of drifting even further rightwards. When the Dubya Bush administration is to the left of PBS on issues like Falun Gong, you know we are in trouble.

Readers: Lend me your ideas. If you have suggestions about what we can do to put the public back in public broadcasting, let us know. American readers, ask your local PBS station to air the film; non-Americans can try to get it on the air in your countries. All suggestions welcome in the Dissector Forum.

— MediaChannel Executive Editor Danny Schechter explains his concept of "mediaocracy" in detail in the new e-book, "Hail to the Thief: How the Media Stole the 2000 Presidential Election," from Electron Press.com. In June, Akashic Books will publish "News Dissector," a collection of essays spanning several years of work.

AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.

The Media Channel is a not-for-profit project of OneWorld and The Global Center, and is produced by Globalvision New Media.

For a wide range of critiques of public broadcasting, see MediaChannel's At Issue

Public Broadcasting PolicyBase
Key documents about the history, purpose, policy and structure of public broadcasting in the U.S. from Current.org

Winners of the "Ready for PBS" film festival from Citizens for Public Broadcasting

Read Danny's letter to CIPB on the rejection of his film by PBS