Don’t adjust your dial
Defunding public broadcasting may not be a political win for the right
By S. Robert Lichter Monday, March 21, 2011
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PHOTO:NPR
Photo of NPR Executive Ron Schiller www.npr.org/about/images/press/corporate_team/schiller_ron.jpg
NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller may end up doing what conservatives from Newt Gingrich to Jim DeMint could not — pulling the plug on public broadcasting’s government funding.
Over the course of a furtively recorded business lunch, he managed to validate just about every conservative stereotype of the arrogant and condescending liberals who run public broadcasting. In the wake of this self-destructive performance, it’s hardly surprising that, on Thursday, the House resoundingly voted to strip NPR of federal funds.
The irony of the vote is that, according to the most recent research on political bias, NPR and PBS are hardly the far-left mouthpieces that many on the right believe them to be. What’s more, taking away federal funding might have the unintended consequence of making some of the more overtly political programming of commercial broadcasters more popular.
Predictably, NPR’s journalists have taken pains to publicly dissociate themselves from the views expressed by Schiller. He was, after all, in charge of development, not programming. The episode certainly proves he was willing to follow the money by seconding the prejudices of prospective donors. But does that mean the same views pervade the newsrooms of public broadcasting?
Actual systematic studies provide a mixed bag of evidence on public broadcasting personnel and programming. The widely noted “media elite” survey that Stanley Rothman and I carried out way back in 1980, which first documented that most national media journalists were left of center, found that public broadcasting journalists were to the left of their peers at other news organizations.
A Center for Media and Public Affairs study of PBS documentaries found they echoed the concerns of liberals rather than conservatives on such topics as environmental protection, arms control, and race and gender issues. However, the CMPA’s studies of the presidential election coverage by the “PBS Newshour” found it to be both balanced and more substantive than coverage on the broadcast networks.
The most recent and systematic scholarly study that bears on public broadcasting’s ideological profile appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2005. Political scientist Tim Groseclose and economist Jeffrey Milyo arrayed major media outlets along an ideological spectrum based on the types of public policy groups and think tanks they cited most frequently as news sources, e.g., liberal groups like People for the American Way and NARAL Pro-Choice America versus conservative groups like the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation.
On this measure of ideological slant, PBS and NPR were rated as left of center, but no more than most national media outlets. On a scale from 1 (most conservative) to 100 (most liberal), NPR “Morning Edition’s” score of 66.3 was about the same as Time (65.4), Newsweek (66.3) and the Washington Post (66.6), but to the right of The New York Times and CBS’s “Evening News” (both 73.7). The “PBS Newshour” was more balanced at 55.8. The average for all outlets was 62.6.
By this measure, public affairs programming on public broadcasting is squarely in the mainstream of the mainstream media, which is itself left of center. PBS and NPR don’t stand out as liberal exemplars, but it is understandable that conservatives would object to paying taxes to support media perspectives similar to those they can object to for free.
Unfortunately for conservatives, defunding public broadcasting might prove more gratifying in principle than in practice. Schiller, their unlikely ally, opposed federal funding for pragmatic reasons. Because people think the government gives more money to public broadcasting than it actually does, it was harder for him to raise money from non-government sources.
There will always be foundations and corporations eager to associate themselves with programs prized by the “educated elite,” who might also open their wallets wider during those pledge breaks. Overall funding would drop, but the smaller local affiliate stations in communities around the country would bear the immediate brunt of the shortfall. The brand-name programs like “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “PBS Newshour” and “Frontline” might have to tighten their belts, but likely would survive.
Of course, the effects of defunding may be more subtle. By driving PBS and NPR deeper into the pockets of institutional supporters that would relish even more ad-like “underwriting spots,” while lengthening the already endless pledge breaks endured by long-suffering audiences, they may push despairing listeners and viewers into the hands of commercial competitors who have no government mandate of neutrality.. That would be a “market-based solution” with a vengeance.
S. Robert Lichter is Professor of Communications at George Mason University, where he also directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
Over the course of a furtively recorded business lunch, he managed to validate just about every conservative stereotype of the arrogant and condescending liberals who run public broadcasting. In the wake of this self-destructive performance, it’s hardly surprising that, on Thursday, the House resoundingly voted to strip NPR of federal funds.
The irony of the vote is that, according to the most recent research on political bias, NPR and PBS are hardly the far-left mouthpieces that many on the right believe them to be. What’s more, taking away federal funding might have the unintended consequence of making some of the more overtly political programming of commercial broadcasters more popular.
Predictably, NPR’s journalists have taken pains to publicly dissociate themselves from the views expressed by Schiller. He was, after all, in charge of development, not programming. The episode certainly proves he was willing to follow the money by seconding the prejudices of prospective donors. But does that mean the same views pervade the newsrooms of public broadcasting?
Actual systematic studies provide a mixed bag of evidence on public broadcasting personnel and programming. The widely noted “media elite” survey that Stanley Rothman and I carried out way back in 1980, which first documented that most national media journalists were left of center, found that public broadcasting journalists were to the left of their peers at other news organizations.
A Center for Media and Public Affairs study of PBS documentaries found they echoed the concerns of liberals rather than conservatives on such topics as environmental protection, arms control, and race and gender issues. However, the CMPA’s studies of the presidential election coverage by the “PBS Newshour” found it to be both balanced and more substantive than coverage on the broadcast networks.
The most recent and systematic scholarly study that bears on public broadcasting’s ideological profile appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2005. Political scientist Tim Groseclose and economist Jeffrey Milyo arrayed major media outlets along an ideological spectrum based on the types of public policy groups and think tanks they cited most frequently as news sources, e.g., liberal groups like People for the American Way and NARAL Pro-Choice America versus conservative groups like the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation.
On this measure of ideological slant, PBS and NPR were rated as left of center, but no more than most national media outlets. On a scale from 1 (most conservative) to 100 (most liberal), NPR “Morning Edition’s” score of 66.3 was about the same as Time (65.4), Newsweek (66.3) and the Washington Post (66.6), but to the right of The New York Times and CBS’s “Evening News” (both 73.7). The “PBS Newshour” was more balanced at 55.8. The average for all outlets was 62.6.
By this measure, public affairs programming on public broadcasting is squarely in the mainstream of the mainstream media, which is itself left of center. PBS and NPR don’t stand out as liberal exemplars, but it is understandable that conservatives would object to paying taxes to support media perspectives similar to those they can object to for free.
Unfortunately for conservatives, defunding public broadcasting might prove more gratifying in principle than in practice. Schiller, their unlikely ally, opposed federal funding for pragmatic reasons. Because people think the government gives more money to public broadcasting than it actually does, it was harder for him to raise money from non-government sources.
There will always be foundations and corporations eager to associate themselves with programs prized by the “educated elite,” who might also open their wallets wider during those pledge breaks. Overall funding would drop, but the smaller local affiliate stations in communities around the country would bear the immediate brunt of the shortfall. The brand-name programs like “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “PBS Newshour” and “Frontline” might have to tighten their belts, but likely would survive.
Of course, the effects of defunding may be more subtle. By driving PBS and NPR deeper into the pockets of institutional supporters that would relish even more ad-like “underwriting spots,” while lengthening the already endless pledge breaks endured by long-suffering audiences, they may push despairing listeners and viewers into the hands of commercial competitors who have no government mandate of neutrality.. That would be a “market-based solution” with a vengeance.
S. Robert Lichter is Professor of Communications at George Mason University, where he also directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
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