‘NewsHour’ Skewered in Media Study

For years, “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” on PBS has been regarded by many as the Bethlehem Star of newscasts, an illuminating beacon in the TV news industry’s tunnel of darkness.

Unlike the herd, this newscast takes things slow and easy. It gives a lot of time to a relative few significant stories--the centerpiece of the hour being a discussion, usually moderated by Robert MacNeil or Jim Lehrer.

Is the beacon dimming, however? More minutes don’t automatically equal more light.

“The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” has always been sort of gray and, like most of TV news and public-affairs programs, sort of narrow. Too narrow, according to a study commissioned by a media watchdog group called Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

Targeting another of TV’s most-revered news programs, it was a FAIR-commissioned study of “Nightline” last year that concluded that the ABC program was generally skewed narrowly toward the government and other elements of the Establishment. “Nightline” denied the accusation.

The latest study, prepared by Boston College sociologists William Hoynes and David Croteau, takes a second look at “Nightline,” finding it only slightly more diverse, but is hardest on “NewsHour,” depicting the PBS program as virtually a mouthpiece for the Establishment and power elite.

Day in and out, it concludes, “NewsHour” has a “very constricted guest list, rarely presenting critics of government policy or representatives of public-interest organizations.”

Consequently, charges FAIR executive director Jeff Cohen, the program “mocks” the original mandate of public television to provide debate and diversity.

“Much of ‘MacNeil/Lehrer’s’ coverage--its selection of newsmakers and experts--is even narrower than commercial TV,” Cohen said, citing the program for a “near lock-out of critical and minority voices.”

“That’s simply not true,” replied “NewsHour” executive producer Lester Crystal, who said he hadn’t had time to examine all of the raw data but had found “flaw after flaw” in some of the FAIR material. “I have a strong sense that FAIR didn’t credit the lengthy tape reports we have,” he said from New York.

The program “can and should do better” in the area of diversity, Crystal acknowledged, but added: “I think FAIR is primarily concerned with having its own bias represented.”

Cohen called that charge “gratuitous and false.”

As a politically left group labeling itself “progressive,” FAIR is hardly neutral. What’s more, Reed Irvine, director of the politically right media watchdog group Accuracy in Media (AIM), is generally supportive of “NewsHour,” lauding its attempt “to give both sides of issues.” He added from Washington about FAIR’s “constricted-guest-list” data: “You have to get the best people available instead of using some affirmative-action criterion.”

FAIR’s political leanings notwithstanding, the latest study is indeed a persuasive indictment of the guest lists of “NewsHour and “Nightline.” The study examined them for a six-month period in 1989, finding the PBS program “narrower, whiter, more male-dominated, more government-oriented and more conservative” than its ABC counterpart.

“As for diversity,” Cohen said from New York, “ ‘MacNeil/Lehrer’ gets an ‘F’ grade for flunking, and ‘Nightline’ gets a ‘D’ only in comparison.”

A “Nightline” spokeswoman said that the program would have no comment.

Here are more conclusions from the 31-page study:

--Two conservative think tanks--the American Policy Institute and the Center for Strategic Studies--were represented a combined 14 times as “NewsHour” panelists during the period studied, compared with no representatives from “progressive” think tanks. “Nightline” does not rely as heavily on think tanks, the study said.

--Concerning race and gender, 90% of “NewsHour” guests were white and 87% were male, compared with 89% and 82% for “Nightline.”

--Only 6% of “NewsHour” guests represented “public-interest, labor or racial/ethnic groups,” compared with 10% for “Nightline.”

--Only one of 17 “NewsHour” guests on environmental segments was a representative of an environmental group compared with two of 15 for “Nightline.” Instead, government and corporate representatives dominated, the report said.

--”NewsHour” coverage of Nicaragua “did not include any voices from Nicaragua, nor did it include any leaders of the anti-intervention movement in the U.S.” The “Nightline” coverage was better, the study said.

The guest list makeup is critical on “Nightline,” but even more so on “NewsHour.” That’s because, unlike “Nightline” host Ted Koppel, who at least sometimes plays the role of aggressive devil’s advocate, the “NewsHour” hosts almost never take issue with their guests. Thus, if the guests reflect only different shades of the same opinion, that’s the only opinion heard.

Even more fundamentally, the FAIR study speaks to a general aridness in nearly all of TV. When it comes to diversity of views, it’s a desert out there, with the political spectrum mostly ranging from moderate conservative to arch conservative.

Aside from the fairness matter, clashing philosophies would be good for ratings, and a good argument, moreover, would wash away some of the gray and energize the rigidly civil “NewsHour.”

FAIR is planning a second “NewsHour” study, along with another on TV coverage of labor issues, before honing in on the Sunday morning public-affairs programs. “This is just the beginning,” Cohen said.