SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, I took a long look at the nation’s foremost liberal scold, Bill Moyers (here and here). Among the many questions the article raised was this one: Why would a show dedicated to promoting the views of the most extreme elements of the far left in America get a coveted prime-time spot on the television network funded by the American taxpayers?
Some PBS sympathizers guessed that the decision-makers at PBS either didn’t know or didn’t recognize just how left-wing the avuncular Moyers has become. There is some support for that speculation. At their convention last month, PBS executives invited the likes of Alan Alda, Robert Redford, and Ted Turner to address the gathering. One local PBS executive phoned in his complaint to The Weekly Standard. “I’m sitting here looking at the schedule and I can’t find a single right-of-center person on the entire thing.” So, yes, despite years of criticism that PBS skews dramatically to the left, maybe PBS big-wigs are still ideologically oblivious. It’s the ideological equivalent of Shaquille O’Neal looking at Manute Bol–he’s tall, but he’s not that tall.
But now, thanks to a report in April 8 issue of the Nation, we can posit a second hypothesis. PBS executives deliberately carved out a prime-time spot for Moyers because they see such programming as central to their mission. Indeed, at the PBS pow-wow last month, Moyers participated in a pep-talk dressed up as a panel discussion to address the issue directly: “Reaffirming Our Relevance–Public Affairs and the Public Broadcasting Mission.”
That mission, in its essence, involves providing programming that might not survive the harsh competition of market-driven television. The Nation report suggests that were Moyers subjected to competition, his brand of public affairs programming would be in trouble. Here is that item, in its entirety. It ran under the headline, “Bring Back Bill: Public Broadcasting Suspends Bill Moyers’s ‘Now’ Program”:
“Some thirty public television stations suspended Bill Moyers’s ‘Now’ during pledge drives, apparently on the theory that the program’s controversial stories might offend donors. If your PBS station isn’t carrying it–protest (and withhold your donation). Note: House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who says PBS is too liberal, recently called for totally defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a way of trimming the deficit.”
The Weekly Standard asked PBS and Moyers’s production house, Public Affairs Television, Inc., for a comment on the report in the Nation. In a statement, PBS spokesman Laura Nichols said, “The bottom line is that the Nation got it wrong, and we’re seeking a correction.” She further explains, “the stations that pre-empted ‘Now’ are most likely juggling their schedules to accommodate pledge drives. Depending on a local station’s format, theme and objective for any pledge drive, they often change their schedule and that means not running regularly scheduled programs. It’s not unusual for a show to get pre-empted–it happens to ‘American Experience,’ ‘NOVA,’ ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ and others.”
Su Patel, deputy director of special projects for Moyers’s show, had a similar theory. “As all loyal PBS viewers know, programming of all kinds (including all prime time programming) is subject to change during pledge drives. Even so, the vast majority of our stations carried ‘Now with Bill Moyers’ and no station has expressed to us any donor concern about the series’ content,” she said in a faxed statement.
And, finally, in a letter to the Nation, PBS senior vice president Jacoba Atlas wrote, “While we appreciate your interest in public television’s programming, the implication of this story is wrong and needs correction.”
The Nation published the letter, but not a correction, in this week’s issue. (It should be noted that the letter wasn’t sent until July 11, and only after inquiries by The Weekly Standard.) Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation, says she stands by the report. “We did fact-check our item. We stand by the report, including the part that says the show was suspended apparently for political reasons.”
For PBS viewers, pledge week comes as something of a mixed bag. They have to put up with constant money-grubbing from lego-haired news-anchor wannabes, but, at the same time, PBS affiliates generally save their best programming for those weeks dedicated to supplementing the funds provided by taxpayers. So even as PBS exists largely to shield “quality programming” from the market, pledge drives have an undeniable market-based assumption: The programs that viewers most enjoy will generate the most revenue.
So what is it about Moyers’s show that causes local PBS station managers to get nervous? A lot. Consider his show from July 5.
Many of us–this author included–spent this Independence Day celebrating, with a renewed appreciation, the freedoms we have and the wisdom of the American Founders. It was a time to pause, to have a few beers and some of the tastiest slow-cooked ribs ever known to man, and to think about the unique experiment in self-government that has endured for a remarkable 226 years. It was a time to remember the founding of a great country, a nation committed to the principle of moral equality of all men and the ideals of religious, political, and economic freedom.
But Bill Moyers has a, well . . . unique view of the founding. “It shouldn’t surprise Americans when people rise up to protest a foreign power’s encroachment on their rights. We started it all because of a multinational company called the East India company backed by the British Crown.”
Hmm . . .
That little nugget of insanity comes from Moyers’s introduction of an interview with Norman Lear, founder of the leftist People for the American Way. But at least there was a July 4 tie-in. Lear, Moyers says, is “a longtime friend, a patriot known to shed a tear when the flag unfurls.” The eccentric Hollywood producer paid $8.2 million for a personal copy of the Declaration of Independence, and though one might expect waves of outrage from Moyers about the privatization of national treasures, he merely compliments Lear as “a good showman.”
When Moyers wonders if “we are more sentimental about [the Declaration of Independence] than we are devoted to living it out,” Lear laments the forgotten notion of “sacred honor.” The famous producer then suggests “The Godfather”–though, he allows, for the “wrong reasons”–as one of the few places to see that concept in action. (Speaking of honor, it should be noted that Lear was one of President Clinton’s staunchest defenders throughout the president’s impeachment, giving Clinton the maximum allowable amount for his legal defense fund and going so far as to write fundraising letters targeting Republicans who argued in favor of impeachment.)
Moyers followed that inquiry with this one: “Did your heart leap with joy last week when the Federal Court in California said that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because that phrase ‘one nation, Under God’ violates the separation of church and state?” Which seemed to take aback even so progressive a soul as Lear, who answered, “I won’t say that I was pleased; I wasn’t upset.”
The two then shared a smirky chuckle at the idea that “people in the religious right” don’t know that the Pledge of Allegiance was authored by “a Christian socialist.”
On other shows, Moyers has given socialist gadfly Barbara Ehrenreich taxpayer-funded airtime for her an uninterrupted “Commentary” on “what a serious mistake our nation has made with welfare reform.” Commentator John Ridley got the same platform for his gripes about positive news coverage of the administration. Moyers used water rights in Bolivia as an illustration of the perils of capitalism. (Don’t take my word for all of this. There’s lots more at his website.)
Moyers spends much of his time pointing out the conflicts-of-interest of those in government and corporate America. Moyers calls Vice President Cheney’s claims of executive privilege “a cover up.” He says that SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt has “got so many conflicts of interest he makes a Wall Street analyst look like Saint Francis of Assisi.”
Compared to Moyers, however, Harvey Pitt is positively papal. For years Moyers has used taxpayer-funded television to get rich, and to give a platform to the left-wing groups he supports with foundation money. And despite his previous pledge to disclose these obvious and troubling conflicts, he hasn’t done so. On a recent show, he described Andrew Jay Schwartzmann from the Media Access Project as a “First Amendment watchdog,” without ever revealing that his foundation has given Schwartzmann’s group at least $125,000 since the mid-’90s.
From his comfortable cocoon of market isolation, Moyers continues his weekly assaults on anyone who shades right-of-center. His latest target is someone who, unlike Moyers, has taken on his prime-time television competition and won. Two million people tune in to his show each night. This, apparently, is too much for Bill Moyers, who expressed his disgust at the panel discussion in San Francisco.
“I don’t want to live in an America where Bill O’Reilly carries the day,” he declared.
Perhaps we should take up a fund for moving expenses.
Stephen F. Hayes is staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
Correction Appended, 7/29/02: Originally Andrew Jay Schwartzman was misidentified as “Patrick Schwartzman,” and the Media Access Project was misidentified as the “Media Access Group.”
