NewsHour Stands By Its Balance (PBS too conservative?!)

Broadcasting & Cable ^ | 10/4/2006 | John Eggerton

[AT7Saluki]

PBS NewsHour stands by its political balance in the wake of a study by Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) that accused it of a lack of balance and diversity and with not providing "a true public-minded alternative to its corporate competition.

FAIR, which endeavors to track media bias, says it pored over the show's guest list from October 2005 to November 2006 and found that Republicans outnumbered Democrats two to one, people of color only represented 15% of "U.S. sources," male sources outnumbered women four to one, and "stay the course" war sources outnumbered pro-withdrawl from Iraq sources by more than five to one.

[AT7Saluki]

Apparently "FAIR" stands for the carnival kind rather than the balance kind.

[Paloma_55]

I find the show difficult to watch when they have callers isolated into "Democrat", "Republican" and "other" which results in 2/3 of the calls being anti-Republican.... not to mention, fake repubublican callers.

[HHFi]

This group gave itself the acronym "FAIR" from "Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting," even though they have a stated leftwing bias and an agenda to find rightwing bias in the media. So they started right out by misrepresenting themselves with their very name. That should tell you how reliable their findings are.

Usually, when "FAIR" accuses a conservative of "lying," that means a conservative talk show host read a story off the front page of the Washington Post which later turned out to have a detail incorrect. Either that, or the conservative expressed an opinion that "FAIR" disagreed with, which will also go down as a "lie" in their book. In my job, I actually do have to sort through lots of news sources to write material for radio jocks, sorting out the hype, hoaxes and spin from actual facts, and I consider "FAIR" to be completely untrustworthy as a source, as well as pernicious and counterproductive because they claim to be a beacon of objectivity while actually promoting a partisan agenda.

Anytime a liberal scoffs at Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan, I point out "FAIR" to them and ask, "So do you seriously think they're as bad as that?"

[Mad Dawg]

The goal is clear: ONE viewpoint, crypto socialist/Stalinist, articulated by a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse appearances.

[meandog]

Scheeezch! These guys ever listen to "Washington Journal"? They'd know in a DC minute that PBS is on the "left" of the frequency spectrum!

[Drango]

The FAIR report was done by a white male, so it isn't relevant.

[montag813]

people of color only represented 15% of "U.S. sources,

Blacks are 16/% of the population

[blitzgig]

Left-wingers tend to accuse PBS shows like the NewsHour of right-wing bias whenever Republicans are in power because of the news prominence of Republican administration figures.

[dalereed]

That pile of manure is a banned channel in this house.

[linda_22003]

Callers? I think you are confusing the News Hour with C-SPAN's Washington Journal. Different show, different network.

[sauropod]

FAIR is anything but. I hate them.

[BenLurkin]

I say pull the plug on PBS completely.

It was a bad idea whose time has long gone.