The Public Gets Shut Out of ‘Reinvented’ Public TV

Ideas put forward by officials of the Public Broadcasting Service for “reinventing public television” sound more like those of bureaucrats worried about protecting their cushy jobs than any notion of serving the public. Talk of “a high-tech distribution service able to send as many as 60 video channels through a new satellite” without any discussion of the content of those 60 video channels is a typical bureaucratic-corporate solution to the crisis facing PBS (“Public TV Boards Face High-Tech Future,” Calendar, Dec. 4). It completely misses the key issues.

The problem with PBS is that it has forsworn its mandate to “help us see America whole, in all its diversity,” serve as “a forum for controversy and debate” and “provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard” (the Carnegie Commission Report, 1967). Instead PBS, just like the commercial networks, increasingly caters to its corporate sponsors, who determine what is seen or not seen. One example: A program on the “Nova” series argued for a less critical attitude toward corporations that may have caused chemical and other environmental hazards. It was funded by Chevron Corp.

Corporate dollars (from companies such as Mobil, Pepisco, GE, AT&T; and MetLife) sponsor specific programs. But how pledges from viewers are used is totally at the discretion of the system. The net effect is that the public pays for the overhead while corporations pick and fund the programs they want on the air. The public is subsidizing corporate advertising and programming on PBS.

The corporate takeover of public television has gone largely unreported in the mainstream (corporate) media, even though it’s obvious from the commercials seen every hour on PBS.

While PBS has no regular programming from a consumer rights or working people’s perspective, each year it airs hundreds of hours about business and investing including “The Nightly Business Report,” “Wall Street Week” and “Adam Smith’s Money World.” A 1989 City University of New York study found that nine times the amount of PBS programming focused on the upper classes than “addressed the lives and concerns of workers as workers.”

As part of its corporate programming policy, PBS refuses to broadcast important shows that are critical of corporate practices or corporate-backed government policies. A few examples:

* “The Panama Deception,” 1992 Academy Award, documentary feature.

* “Deadly Deception: General Electric Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment,” 1991 Academy Award, documentary short.

* “Building Bombs,” 1990 Academy Award nominee, documentary feature. (PBS said it “does not give adequate voice to those who are proponents of nuclear arms.” After three years of unnecessary delays, an edited version was finally broadcast last August, as a result of public pressure.)

* “The Money Lenders,” about the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. (Rejected by PBS as having “a perception of bias in favor of poor people who claim to be adversely affected.”)

* “Dark Circle,” about the nuclear industry. (Originally rejected by PBS for failing to meet its “journalistic standards.” When it finally aired seven years later, it won the national Emmy Award for outstanding individual achievement in news and documentary.)

* “Rights and Wrongs,” hosted by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, reports on human rights around the world. (PBS stated that “human rights is not a sufficient organizing principle for a television series.”)

* “One on One,” which Howard Rosenberg said was “some of the most stimulating television . . . you’re denied the opportunity to see” (Calendar, Dec. 8). The show was submitted to KCET a year ago and remains there “for consideration.”

PBS continues to deny that there is any problem with its refusal to broadcast Academy Award-winning documentaries. In several meetings during the last year between the Coalition vs. PBS Censorship and Jennifer Lawson, head of PBS programming, all suggestions for diverse and innovative programming to reflect public needs were flatly rejected. This included an immediate rebuff of a proposal for a yearly special showcasing short and feature- length Oscar-nominated documentaries to coincide with the Academy Awards.

The new PBS president, Ervin S. Duggan, recently stated, “Public broadcasting is the natural platform upon which any new or future national information infrastructure should be built.” But the corporate domination of the Public Broadcasting Service has caused it to repudiate the “public” and “service,” so all that remains is “broadcasting.” Thus, the public is being shut out of the upcoming information superhighway before it even comes into existence.

The Coalition vs. PBS Censorship is organizing the “Banned by PBS Film Festival” in Los Angeles this year to present a public forum for discussion of these issues and to show the public what they’ve been missing.