News Intelligence Analysis
Whose agenda is it anyway?
Balance has long been an issue in public
broadcasting, but the debate
flares when some see a conservative push as a shove.
By Elizabeth Jensen
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 24 2004
NEW YORK -- Perennially cash-strapped public television producers
and
filmmakers would ordinarily be thrilled that the Corporation
for Public
Broadcasting recently unveiled a long-awaited initiative to fund
$20
million worth of documentaries on post-Sept. 11 terrorist attack
themes.
Instead, a recent forum in New York where the organization's
executives
explained more precisely what kinds of programs they are seeking
for
"America at a Crossroads" turned into a shouting and
name-calling
session.
One producer drew sustained applause from many of the 275
or so
attendees for complaining that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
was "asking me to do the bidding of the Pentagon."
An employee of the
National Black Programming Consortium noted "this whole
thing stinks,"
as he criticized a focus on the "Anglo-American world order"
by an
expert panel of white men who were brought in to suggest documentary
topics. That led Walter Russell Mead, a fellow at the Council
on Foreign
Relations, who had been invited to discuss American foreign policy,
to
snap back sarcastically: "We're evilly trying to destroy
public
debate.... We got our instructions this morning."
When producer Rory O'Connor called the presentation "tone
deaf" and
"offensive," because "I come here to find five
white men when you say
you are seeking balance and diversity," panelist Max Boot,
also a
council fellow, sniped that the audience had "a narrow,
one-dimensional
definition of diversity." He was shouted down.
The fight, which one veteran producer later called "fairly
sophomoric
name-calling," brought into the open tensions that have
been brewing
inside the noncommercial public television world for the last
year,
starting with the February 2003 appointment of independent filmmaker
Michael Pack to oversee the TV programming budget of the corporation
that administers federal funding for public broadcasting.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting funnels most of the
money
directly to local radio and TV stations, which then pay for shows
from
programmers such as the Public Broadcasting Service. But the
corporation
also controls its own influential programming money. The appointment
of
Pack - whose own films have explored such topics as "The
Fall of Newt
Gingrich," "The Rodney King Incident: Race and Justice
in America" and
most recently the debate over the role of faith-based organizations
in
providing social services - was viewed by many as part of a move
to
swing public television to a more conservative stance, in the
face of
loud criticism from some in Congress that public television has
been
pushing a liberal agenda.
An old debate
Political balance in public broadcasting is an old debate,
reflecting
the broader political and cultural wars that rage regularly,
but it
flared up with the return of Republican control of the White
House, at
the same time that PBS gave a prominent new weekly public affairs
program to Bill Moyers. His Friday night "Now" series
has been a
lightning rod for critics who complain that Moyers has a liberal
bias on
issues.
Starting June 18, PBS will attempt to balance the equation
by adding a
Friday series hosted by CNN's bow-tied, generally conservative
commentator Tucker Carlson, whose father, Richard Carlson, is
a former
Corporation for Public Broadcasting president. Moyers, meanwhile,
has
announced he will retire from the show after the November election.
Still, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is expected to
undergo
Senate Commerce Committee reauthorization hearings in May, with
the
issue of objectivity and balance front and center.
Objectivity and balance came up at the November Senate confirmation
hearing for two new Corporation for Public Broadcasting board
members.
One, Republican appointee Cheryl Halpern, raised eyebrows when
she
talked about the contradiction in the Public Broadcasting Act,
which
requires shows to be objective and balanced but prohibits the
corporation from interfering with the content of programming
other than
deciding whether to fund it. Some took her remarks to mean that
she
thought the corporation needed to have more power to reign in
producers
who don't provide balance in their shows.
The ideological battles raging across the country help explain
the
current tensions, said Corporation for Public Broadcasting President
Robert Coonrod. He also acknowledged that Pack's appointment
has caused
some unease because he has a "worldview that's a little
different from
some in public television." Pack, he said, "is an independent
producer
who is by his own admission a Republican and a conservative.
I don't ask
producers what their politics are, but by and large I believe
people who
produce for public television tend to be more liberal than not."
Moreover, Coonrod said, "there are people who would generally
be
categorized as on the conservative side of the spectrum who feel
public
television isn't as fair as they'd like, that the values they
think
important are not reflected. We have an obligation to hear those
people"
by including "more voices," not excluding those such
as Moyers'.
However, "America at a Crossroads," Coonrod said,
was conceived not to
bring more balance to public television but to make it more "relevant"
to viewers. He said Pack has brought a welcome new perspective.
"He has
been talking to people that have never been talked to by people
in
public television before, and it will be interesting to try to
engage
them somehow. The trick ... is to make really good programming
out of
this."
Personal views irrelevant
In his first public interviews in his more than a year on
the job, Pack
declined to identify his political views, saying they aren't
relevant as
to whether he can be a fair programmer.
He said the "America at a Crossroads" initiative
- and another pending
project to improve students' knowledge of U.S. history - resulted
from
his extensive conversations with station executives, academics
and
independent producers and was designed to "raise the level
of public
debate about an important subject."
In its official plan, the corporation says it wants programs
that
address issues such as "the duration and direction of the
war on
terrorism, the use of American power against states that harbor
terrorists, preemptive military action, unilateralism, American's
international role and image, regime change, homeland security"
and
"civil liberties conflicts."
Pack, whose title is senior vice president for television
programming,
said he hopes to find proposals for shows that are unusual enough
to
"break through" what he said is "Sept. 11 fatigue,"
adding "we are
challenging the producing community to approach those topics
in a
different way." Pack, and panels he has assembled, have
invited
filmmakers to discuss "America at a Crossroads" in
San Francisco next
Monday and in Los Angeles on March 31.
Pack defended his choices of panelists for the New York gathering
but
insisted there was no intention to muzzle certain opinions. "We
are
committed to reflecting a diversity," he told the New York
crowd. "I
think public television needs to be more controversial. Part
of the
point of this initiative is to expand the debate." He added
that
proposals seeking funding "can have strong points of view.
And obviously
in this room there are strong points of view."
Later, calling the fears of some producers "groundless,"
he said that
"people can hold me accountable" and that "I want
this process to be
transparent and open." The advisory board for the project
will soon be
posted on the corporation website.
Not everyone was convinced, producer O'Connor said later.
"They handed
out a piece of paper that said they want to ensure political
and
philosophical balance and diversity, but I didn't get any answer
when I
asked how they were going to ensure that."
Cara Mertes, executive director of the PBS documentary series
"P.O.V.,"
said she hopes the initiative will reflect "the same richness
in funding
choices" that corporation-funded projects have shown in
the past, but
she added, "My concern is that consolidating most of CPB's
production
funding under one framework, the post-9/11 role of America in
the world,
may limit CPB's capacity to encourage a full spectrum of new
and
vigorous approaches to media-making for public broadcasting."
Attendee Cal Skaggs, president of Lumiere Productions, whose
credits
include PBS' "Local News," had a different take. He
said he has bristled
in the last year at the criticism directed at Moyers and thought
Pack
could have assembled a more diverse panel. But he defended Pack,
noting
"I don't think he is a narrow right-wing ideologue whatsoever,"
adding,
"I was really embarrassed by some of the questioners - they
seemed to me
ill informed and they seemed to me knee-jerk. They seemed to
me to be,
rather than asking questions, taking positions that I thought
were
irrelevant.
"I do take him at his word. And until proven otherwise,
I think other
people should. Let's submit the most left-wing thing we can think
of but
really well done, thoughtful and well-researched. And then if
all of
those are turned down, then convict the guy."
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
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