FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Public television host Charlie Rose enjoys a reputation for highbrow talk. “A Larry King for Mensa members,” he “conducts a conversation, not an interview,” according to the New York Times (4/25/07). The paper added that Rose is “a facilitator, creating a comfortable ambiance where important people and opinion-makers can speak at length and make more […]
When Bill Moyers announced last November that he would be stepping down from Bill Moyers Journal, and PBS decided to cancel its other Friday night news show, Now, the network lost two hard-hitting independent programs from its lineup. To fill the hole, New York PBS station WNET announced the launch of a new one-hour program, […]
On air and on its website, the PBS NewsHour acknowledges its funders. Along with PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the show gets money from some usual-suspect corporations, like Chevron and Bank of America, and a dozen or more foundations—in various amounts and arrangements worthy of examination in themselves. But who owns public TV’s […]
A new FAIR study of the PBS NewsHour finds that public television’s flagship news program continues to feature sources drawn largely from a narrow range of elite white male experts. The study, the third FAIR has conducted of the NewsHour since 1990, documents a pattern of failure by the PBS news show to fulfill the mission of public television to provide a broader, more inclusive alternative to commercial news programs.
If any PBS show perfectly captures the problem with public TV’s public affairs programming, it might be the oldest one: Washington Week. Billed as the “longest-running news and public affairs program on public television,” Washington Week is a half-hour chat show where familiar faces from commercial media outlets give viewers an inside-the-Beltway, who’s up-who’s-down take […]
Public’s Longstanding Opposition to Roads and Bridges Matt Bai wrote of the Obama administration in the New York Times (9/9/10), “Little was achieved by way of investing in 21st-century infrastructure, largely because the public never seemed open to the idea of huge new spending.” Really? When Bloomberg (12/10/09) polled on this last year, its write-up […]
Education Needs Structural Change The reforms I hear bandied about today are reheated versions of those I observed during my 50-year teaching career. For all their good intentions, reformers do not have a clue on how to bring about substantive fundamental change. This includes Randi Weingarten and Arne Duncan—two sincere individuals. Jonathan Kozol [“A Deeper […]
