Has anyone noticed any changes in the PBS News Hour?
Besides a welcome change in format, there's been a more subtle shift in news coverage, marked by A) a decided dumbing-down of political debate and B) a marked difference in the number of minutes allotted to "liberal" and "conservative" issues and viewpoints.
On Sept. 17, for instance, a large chunk of time was devoted to the news and views of the Tea Party and its antagonism to the Obama agenda. Next week, we get to hear a major segment on Sarah Palin. It seems to me that news from the leftish side of the spectrum is confined to news while editorial viewpoints are freely aired from the right. Quoting from a speech by the President, the NewsHour showed Mr. Obama saying,"....This is a tough election season. People are hurting and they are understandably frustrated. And a lot of them are scared. And a lot of them are anxious."
However, they neglected to quote what came immediately after: "Because if you don’t think the stakes are large -- and I want you to consider this -- right now, all across the country, special interests are planning and running millions of dollars of attack ads against Democratic candidates. Because last year, there was a Supreme Court decision called Citizens United. They’re allowed to spend as much as they want without ever revealing who’s paying for the ads. That’s exactly what they’re doing. Millions of dollars. And the groups are benign-sounding: Americans for Prosperity. Who’s against that? (Laughter.) Or Committee for Truth in Politics. Or Americans for Apple Pie. Moms for Motherhood. I made those last two up. (Laughter.) None of them will disclose who’s paying for these ads. You don’t know if it’s a Wall Street bank. You don’t know if it’s a big oil company. You don’t know if it’s an insurance company. You don’t even know if it’s a foreign-controlled entity." Good old selective quotations, leaving out the important point.
Another item which may have escaped your notice is the frequency of "experts" from the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute and other right-wing think tanks while the opposite views are generally taken by relatively mild-mannered (with the emphasis on "mannered") professors from Georgetown University or similar institutions of higher learning.
Many of the readers of Daily Kos acknowledge that speakers from the right, like DIck Armey, Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell, have been brought up on the pit-bull theory of political debate. We also have seen that those on the left (with the possible exceptions of Al Franken and Michael Moore) are usually more polite and restrained. The result on the NewsHour is a little like a poodle battling a Doberman over a bone.
I think the decline of the NewsHour is symptomatic of the decline of the entire system of public broadcasting. Ever since the concerted attacks on PBS and NPR by the Bush Boys, the spineless (and spinless) folks who rely on corporate and foundation funding have realized that it doesn't pay to bite the hands that feed them and that the public will mostly continue to support endless pledge drives and mind-numbing repeats so that they can escape the bombardment of idiocy they get on commercial channels. However, even that is changing - fast. Watch the nauseating commercial for Boeing that uses our armed forces to pass along the message "This is why we're (Boeing) is here." Making money has, of course, nothing to do with it. There follows messages from Exxon, Bank of America, etc.
There seems no better time to leave PBS than now. In response to the argument that if we don't continue to support mediocrity, we may lose it, I respond that continuing to encourage what used to be a fine source of information for the American people is just giving more rope to a network determined to self-destruct, selling its principles for a buck - does this sound familiar?