Bias at PBS?

The May 2, 2005 piece in the New York Times about political bias at PBS prompts me to enter the fray. Seems I've got that right since I've faithfully listened to PBS' two drive-time shows, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, for some 15 years now. Obviously there's a lot that I like about PBS programming or I wouldn't tune in so faithfully, though some of my preference is driven by my dislike of the commercial alternatives. Listening half the time to annoying adds did play a large part in driving me to PBS, but the quality and depth has kept me a fan. And whereas most commercial talk shows are ideologically extreme, I have found the PBS material reasonably balanced by comparison.

While it may be close to center, make no mistake about it: PBS is clearly left of center in its overall orientation. But don't get me wrong. NPR is certainly not the "National Communist Public Radio" or "National Propaganda Radio" that critics on the right make it out to be. The right only looks silly when it uses its heavy artillery in a situation like this. The level of bias once found on its airwaves has gradually moderated over the years that I've listened. Go back 10 to 15 years and all political commentary had a leftward lean to it and an openly conservative spokesperson was never heard. During their entire presidencies, I don't think Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst for NPR, ever had a kind word for Reagan or Bush Sr. Sure he criticized Clinton too, but it always came across as coming from a friend. Criticism of Republican presidents, by contrast, always seemed to carry a noticeable adversarial tone. One could also be excused for thinking that the liberal Brookings Institute was the only game in town given the near lock it had on the political reporting; they were clearly the go-to think tank for PBS.

Though some remnant of these issues hang on, in recent years a subtle shift toward the center and more balance has been evident. Long before the addition of Paul Gigot's The Journal Editorial Report, conservative political commentators actually began to appear in the lineup. Members of the American Enterprise Institute and even the Heritage Foundation can sometimes be heard too. The term "prolife" also entered their lexicon some years back, balancing out the previously slanted portrayal of the abortion debate under the terms "prochoice" and "anti-abortion." These are welcome changes for a public institution under legal obligation to be non-partisan.

But for an organization committed by their own Code of Ethics and Practices to "unbiased coverage," treating all "important views on a subject... even-handedly," and to separating out personal "political ideology" from subjects being covered, the recent presidential election demonstrated some significant progress still to be made. Most egregious was a pattern of partisanship evident on Morning Edition during the daily campaign diary segments. When summarizing Bush's talking points, the piece would often supply snappy counterpoints as if to neutralize, quickly, any positive benefit for Bush from having replayed his soundbites. For Kerry campaign highlights it was a whole different program--the counterpoint was conspicuously absent. If any criticism was offered it would invariably deal with non-ideological matters such as campaign strategy or the like. Sorry NPR, but the "personal political ideology" of your staff bled right through.

Just as I fervently believe that our government should stay absolutely neutral on religious matters, so also should National P-u-b-l-ic Radio, funded partly with our tax dollars, on things political.