PBS Uses Advertising to Retaliate Against Critical Coverage
PBS was set up in part because of an understanding that advertising exerts pressure on media outlets. And now it’s using its own advertising to signal its disapproval of critical coverage.
Is PBS Trying to Hide Some of Public TV’s Best Work?
In the New York Times (3/19/12), Elizabeth Jensen reports on some unusual scheduling decisions at PBS that are diminishing the audience for some of the best stuff you’re likely to see on public television–the acclaimed documentary series Independent Lens and POV: After being bumped from Tuesday nights to a hodgepodge of time slots, Independent Lens […]
If PBS Is Afraid of Moyers, Maybe It Needs a New Slogan
Elizabeth Jensen has a preview (New York Times, 1/8/12) of the new Bill Moyers program coming to public television stations later this month–a show that is not being distributed by PBS. Why not? She reports: Mr. Moyers said he was unsure why PBS, where he has spent most of his career since 1971, declined the […]
Bill Moyers Is Back
According to a report in the New York Times (8/22/11), public television icon Bill Moyers will be back on the public airwaves next year–but not on PBS. The new show, Moyers & Company, will be distributed to stations for free by American Public Television. The Times reports that “PBS told Moyers it couldn’t find an […]
Democracy Now!: Moyers on the Media
Bill Moyers appeared on Democracy Now! this morning (6/8/11) to discuss his new book about his days at PBS, The Conversation Continues. Interviewed for the hour by anchors Any Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Moyers said, “The consensual seduction of the mainstream media by and with the government is one of the most dangerous toxins at […]
Bill Moyers’ Worst Hour Is Charlie Rose’s Typical Show
On the Daily Show on June 1, Bill Moyers talked about the types of outsider guests he preferred to interview on his TV show. As he put it at one point: “The worst hour that I ever put on, was many years ago, with Henry Kissinger…. I vowed after that never to do an hour […]
Bill Moyers and Tavis Smiley on Public TV’s Elite Bias
Bill Moyers on the Tavis Smiley Show (5/13/11), talking about the elite bias in the media: Television, including public television, rarely gives a venue to people who have refused to buy into the ruling ideology of Washington. The ruling ideology of Washington is we have two parties, they do their job, they do their job […]
Bill O’Reilly Defends Press Freedom—While Musing About Jailing Bill Moyers
Fox host Bill O’Reilly warned viewers on December 3 about “a disturbing development at the FCC”: Commissioner Michael Copps has been criticizing the failure of the media to provide citizens with substantive political information and discussion. O’Reilly zeroed in on these comments Copps made in a BBC interview (12/1/10): I think American media has a […]
‘Need to Know’ Doesn’t Know Why It’s No Replacement for Moyers
Trying to explain why Need to Know, the PBS public affairs show that appeared in the Friday night timeslot vacated by Bill Moyers Journal and Now, has gotten such a cool reception from viewers, co-host Allison Stewart seems to blame nostalgia. “Obviously you can’t replace Bill Moyers,” says Stewart (Show Tracker, 8/5/10). “That’s just a […]
Media Check Insurance Co. Abuse… Occasionally
Longtime health insurance company bigwig and former holder of “the ultimate PR job,” Wendell Potter recently told PBS‘ Bill Moyers (Bill Moyers Journal, 7/10/09) how he had been “involved in the campaign by the industry to discredit Michael Moore and his film Sicko,” and now sees that “the industry is resorting to the same tactics […]
The Results of ‘Smothering Torture in Euphemism’
In a Smirking Chimp piece (5/29/09) averring that “Everyone Should See Torturing Democracy“–the delayed documentary that “recounts how the Bush White House and the Pentagon decided to make coercive detention and abusive interrogation the official U.S. policy” and “also credits the brave few who stood up to those in power”–PBS‘ Bill Moyers spells out the […]
25 Most Influential (or Not) Liberals (or Not)
Leave it to Forbes to get someone from the Hoover Institution to do an “in-depth” feature on “The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media” (1/22/09). The results are about as bogus as you might imagine, including a number of people who are not only not liberals, but who are actively loathed by the […]
