PBS doesn't allow a debate about funding for PBS on the airwaves of PBS. Instead, you only get the pro-PBS side. On Tuesday's News Hour, co-host Amna Nawaz tossed softballs at PBS CEO Paula Kerger about how wonderful they are and how defunding them is an existential threat for some PBS stations. Their overwhelming bias was not challenged.
What is your sense of the effort to rescind those funds? Is it a done deal at this point?...
I know you're meeting with lawmakers, speaking to them to make the case. What is the argument you're laying out to them and what are you hearing in response?...
We should note there's been Republicans who have long sought to cut funding for public media. So is there something different about this effort this time around?
On the last question there, Kerger claimed PBS has always had "bipartisan support," and "for many of our stations...this would be an existential crisis," something that couldn't be fixed if Democrats restored the funding when they regained power.
This is the closest Nawaz came to liberal bias, but she pitched it as conservatives don't like certain issues -- and NOT how those issues are tremendously tilted:
There's also a couple of arguments we have heard from the administration as they look to cut those funds. They argue that, by covering issues like race in America and gender issues, that public media is broadly engaging in what they call cultural indoctrination.
They also cite, among other things, the former NPR editor Uri Berliner's accusations that he said his network pushed progressive viewpoints. That was at NPR, which is not PBS, to be clear. But do you worry about that? And what's your response to that accusation?
Like a politician, Kerger claimed "I think we work very hard, and I'm proud of this broadcast of its focus on bringing the most important stories forward." And then she said news was just 10 percent of what PBS does -- the objectionable 10 percent! -- and pivoted as usual to kiddie shows like Sesame Street and the defunct Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, that PBS is somehow crucial to pre-kindergarten education: "We're parents' first partners. We're deeply involved in providing content for classrooms."
Nawaz finished with a polling question, that a Pew poll found 43 percent favor continued funding, 24 percent favor defunding, and 33 percent are unsure. "So that means about 57 percent of Americans are either not sure or don't want to see federal funds continue for public media. What does that say to you?"
Kerger referred to internal PBS polling, claiming bizarrely that 65 percent of Trump voters love PBS. Wouldn't it be something to see those polling questions, and who they sampled?
