Monday, May 09, 2005

The myth of liberal bias at PBS

So where are all the liberal advocacy programs on PBS? If you listen to conservatives rant about how liberal public television is you might assume the programming is chock full of liberal advocacy programs. But where are they?

Someone please check out the programming schedule at KLRN and show me where they are.

Where is “This Week with Noam Chomsky” or “The Nation Magazine Editorial Roundtable” or “Women’s Issues with Gloria Steinem and Barbara Ehrenreich” or “The Nightly Labor Report”?

These programs don’t exist, obviously. So what shows are considered so liberal that they constantly excite conservatives into a frenzy of media bashing? The best that liberals had was the investigative news program NOW with Bill Moyers, which has now been effectively neutralized by the CPB’s Republican activist chairman.

I almost conceded that the Tavis Smiley show might qualify, but then I looked at his guest lineup for the week:
Rosanna Arquette; Goldie Hawn, Martin Short, Henry Winkler...
This isn’t a liberal advocacy show, it’s a celebrity interview program.
The one politician in the lineup is Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Real biased programming there.

Compare that to the new Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered program which is featuring an interview this week with the teletubby-bashing religious right icon James Dobson.
Or The Journal Editorial Report. There is no comparison.

This may not make PBS a conservative media bastion, but it goes a long way to dispel the myth that PBS is the liberal equivalent of Fox News or Rush Limbaugh.

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