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| How "great" are public media greats? |
Recently, The Texas Tribune has come under a barrage of withering criticism from James Moore, a long-established journalist on-the-scene here in Texas (check his HuffPo piece here, and four-part full-court-press Philippics here). Broadsides aside, Moore has taken on the serious task of raising fundamental questions about the ethics underlying what is intended to become "the next great public media brand in the United States."
The fact is that The Trib has become a key player on the political scene here (FULL DISCLOSURE: I have been a Trib "supporter" - have donated money to it, am a frequent attendee at Trib events, and cite it here regularly) with little critical review. All else being equal, this should be a welcome occasion for public discussion of the Trib's not-for-profit model for "print" journalism in the Online Era. Moore's provocations have received some some response from The Trib. Executive Editor Ross Ramsey addressed questions about transparency this morning on WFAA's "Inside Texas Politics." Still, an in-depth public discussion of both the larger issues raised and the particular problems claimed needs to happen if the Trib is to claim true "public media" status.
Since the Trib intends to become "the next great public media brand in the United States," let me join the discussion here with problems I've seen with two of the "great public media brands" - National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
About ten years ago, I had an administrative gig at what was then NPR's Living on Earth, the weekly environmental news program (now distributed by PRI - FULL DISCLOSURE: after amicably ending my employment there, I continue to support LOE. In addition, Steve Curwood, the program's Executive Producer and host, remains a close personal friend). Part of my work for the show was sitting in on "air checks." Living on Earth is an independent production. Programmers at the network critique outside productions regularly to be sure they remain above reproach.
What I observed during these conference calls was problematic at best.
Living on Earth has championed the climate change story since going on-air in the early 1990's. Here, more than a decade later, this obscure topic was finally entering into the mainstream. As such, it had become a palpable threat to those profiting from the "Carbon Economy" based on fossil fuels. Much of the reporting featured on the show included interviews with noted climate scientists about their findings. How did the NPR programmers judge this public communication of scientific research? They criticized it as being "unbalanced." In their opinion, the science needed to be evened-out by other "stakeholders" - eg. industry public relations for the oil industry. So what if the spin was intended to negate the science!
This was not an isolated event. I remember a shocking moment at the Public Radio Program Director Association's conference in San Antonio in 2004. The PRPD is THE conference for public radio programming. This is where station Program Directors, the people who pick what goes onto stations, meet to discuss programming trends and to meet with show producers. As you might imagine, this world revolves around NPR.
The PRPD is serious business, but it is also a lot of fun. Like any professional conference, a wide assortment of speakers are invited. That year, noted environmentalist Bill McKibben was along to talk about an article he'd recently published in Harper's Magazine, "Small World: Why one town stays unplugged." It was about the power of radio to enhance "localism" and community. McKibben took the occasion to call-out NPR's leadership about a major new "underwriter" for NPR - Walmart. He nailed them for the hypocrisy of inviting him to laud the very localism that, he said, Walmart destroys.
The public broadcast crowd is a fairly insular group, and it's rare to have anyone openly break ranks like that. Of course, what explains this breach of decorum is the fact that McKibben was an outsider. Any insider that did so would find themselves on the outside fast!
So, as beloved as NPR is to many - despite how "great" this "great public media brand" is, corporate funding can taint coverage. Worse, there's little likelihood for effective internal opposition to the distortions induced by such forces.
One of Moore's fundamental issues with the Texas Tribune? Partisans on the political scene in Texas paying for coverage of Texas politics. Does the Trib, like NPR, police itself? Can it do better?
NEXT - Part II: the Koch Brothers balance the coverage on PBS's NEWSHOUR.
The fact is that The Trib has become a key player on the political scene here (FULL DISCLOSURE: I have been a Trib "supporter" - have donated money to it, am a frequent attendee at Trib events, and cite it here regularly) with little critical review. All else being equal, this should be a welcome occasion for public discussion of the Trib's not-for-profit model for "print" journalism in the Online Era. Moore's provocations have received some some response from The Trib. Executive Editor Ross Ramsey addressed questions about transparency this morning on WFAA's "Inside Texas Politics." Still, an in-depth public discussion of both the larger issues raised and the particular problems claimed needs to happen if the Trib is to claim true "public media" status.
Since the Trib intends to become "the next great public media brand in the United States," let me join the discussion here with problems I've seen with two of the "great public media brands" - National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
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| PRI's Environmental News Magazine |
What I observed during these conference calls was problematic at best.
Living on Earth has championed the climate change story since going on-air in the early 1990's. Here, more than a decade later, this obscure topic was finally entering into the mainstream. As such, it had become a palpable threat to those profiting from the "Carbon Economy" based on fossil fuels. Much of the reporting featured on the show included interviews with noted climate scientists about their findings. How did the NPR programmers judge this public communication of scientific research? They criticized it as being "unbalanced." In their opinion, the science needed to be evened-out by other "stakeholders" - eg. industry public relations for the oil industry. So what if the spin was intended to negate the science!
This was not an isolated event. I remember a shocking moment at the Public Radio Program Director Association's conference in San Antonio in 2004. The PRPD is THE conference for public radio programming. This is where station Program Directors, the people who pick what goes onto stations, meet to discuss programming trends and to meet with show producers. As you might imagine, this world revolves around NPR.
The PRPD is serious business, but it is also a lot of fun. Like any professional conference, a wide assortment of speakers are invited. That year, noted environmentalist Bill McKibben was along to talk about an article he'd recently published in Harper's Magazine, "Small World: Why one town stays unplugged." It was about the power of radio to enhance "localism" and community. McKibben took the occasion to call-out NPR's leadership about a major new "underwriter" for NPR - Walmart. He nailed them for the hypocrisy of inviting him to laud the very localism that, he said, Walmart destroys.
The public broadcast crowd is a fairly insular group, and it's rare to have anyone openly break ranks like that. Of course, what explains this breach of decorum is the fact that McKibben was an outsider. Any insider that did so would find themselves on the outside fast!
So, as beloved as NPR is to many - despite how "great" this "great public media brand" is, corporate funding can taint coverage. Worse, there's little likelihood for effective internal opposition to the distortions induced by such forces.
One of Moore's fundamental issues with the Texas Tribune? Partisans on the political scene in Texas paying for coverage of Texas politics. Does the Trib, like NPR, police itself? Can it do better?
NEXT - Part II: the Koch Brothers balance the coverage on PBS's NEWSHOUR.
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Tips? Suggestions? Ideas? Drop a line to carl (at) inanityofsanity (dot) com
Thanks for throwing out what might be the first pitch in the discussion since James Moore sang the national anthem.
ReplyDeleteWhat you described about NPR is also true for PBS, and the Tribune seems to be well on its way to diverging into the same commodified modulating role as the bigs.
What they all eventually become is the discourse equivalent of a soothing wintergreen Tic-Tac. Or maybe News Lite: "Tonight, Great Taste versus Less Filling, more after a word from...". Certainly, 'reporting' the 'controversy' on NPR and PBS approaches that comfy level of inanity and does about as much good.
Underwriting = Ghostwriting when sustaining sponsorships are accepted. I suspected as much from the very beginning 40 years ago, when PBS began accepting sponsors. Then I watched with horror but not surprise as the two-headed both-sides news monster developed its monocular cyclopsean vision of the world on public media. And that world was corporate and the Business Roundtable said it was good and high-fived all around.
What developed at PBS and at NPR was an imbalance I consider 'Neither-Nor' reporting. 'Either-Or' presumes the audience is supposed to assume that one 'side' or the other must be correct or more correct. I consider it 'Neither-Nor' because what the audience ultimately infers is that it can't really obtain actual useful information from the news source. I consider that an imbalance because of the mindset that Carl describes in the back-and-forth between Living on Earth and NPR.
The corporatados (waiting for a gravy train) have their fat thumbs on the scale. Simple as that. News organizations taking corporate sponsorships can't help but become under their thumbs (cue The Rolling Stones). It's the way of the world. It's inevitable. It even happens with University-level research.
Then the reporting recedes into a hazy category alongside elevator music, a schlock 'n craw effect, if you will (if you will, you are very tolerant). This is already being called Newszak, by someone evidently much quicker than me with a pun (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_NewsZak?#slide=4). And that kind of says it all.
The Tribune experience is already akin to listening to the Muzak version of Black Sabbath in the elevator on the way upstairs to a conference of corporate middle-managers, formerly known as editors. I'm not sure if the Tribune is in bed with its donors or acts more like an embed surrounded by the trappings of power. Time will tell. Will Smith be too proud or stubborn to turn back now that he's gotten a taste of the great fortunes that limit Texans' horizons? I say proud.
Larry Piltz
Austin