Conservative Bias in Public Media

Paid Lying: What Passes For Major Media Journalism

Posted at SteveLendmanBlog
November 9, 2009


Stephen Lendman, a progressive radio commentator (Republicbroadcasting.org) is a retired marketing analyst who worked at several large U.S. Corporations summarizes in this must-read article how corporate media distorts the truth and manipulates public opinion. He writes:

Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.

According to Lendman, the corporate point of view is broadcast regularly on public media, NPR and PBS. He draws from a 2004 study published by by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) article How Public Is Public Radio? published in FAIR, Extra! May/June 2004 by Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth determined that NewsHour is even more ideologically right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.

FAIR found that on four of NPR's news shows in 2003 All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday, "NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time." FAIR concluded that the NewsHour and NPR consistently tilt the bias in favor of those in power rather than the public interest.

A November 2009 article at FAIR.org discusses the effects on democracy of the deterioration of mainstream journalism. Public Media and the Decommodification of News
News behind pay walls is no help to democracy

While other countries fund public interest broadcasting, in the U.S. public broadcasting has not lived up to its potential as an independent source of information.

According to FAIR:

In practice, of course, governments often look out for their own interests, and those of their most powerful supporters. This has been the problem with so-called public broadcasting in the United States, whose promise has gone largely unrealized. Not only is the government funding for PBS and NPR pitifully small in comparison to the support other countries give their public systems (see chart), but the U.S. “public” broadcasters are by design dependent on massive corporate subsidies; with only 40 percent of public broadcasting revenue coming from federal, state or local government (CPB report, 9/09), it’s almost impossible to get a show on “noncommercial” television in the United States unless a wealthy for-profit company is willing to buy expensive “underwriting announcements” to air before and after it. (PBS’s primary news show, the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, is mostly owned by the for-profit conglomerate Liberty Media.) And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in theory is supposed to serve as a “heat shield” to protect programmers from political pressures, has in practice been turned into a vehicle for conservatives in Congress to police funding recipients for signs of dangerous ideological independence (Extra! Update, 6/05).