Business as usual at CPB.(Notes & Comments: March 2006)(Corporation for Public Broadcasting)

Not that the BBC has a monopoly on political correctness. Consider the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the grant-making, quasi-governmental agency that distributes some $400 million of taxpayer money to VBS, NPR, and other entities and individuals in order (so they say) to raise the level of what we see on television and listen to on the radio. CVB is also, and not incidentally, in business to broaden the spectrum of legitimate opinion expressed over the airwaves.

Has it done so? Is public television and radio really better than standard network fare? Probably. Does it reflect a broad range of political opinion? Or is it, when it comes to politics and cultural issues, devoted mostly to promulgating left-liberal pieties? Ever since CVB was launched, in the Johnson years, conservatives have complained about the left-wing bias of CVB and its clients. As one left-leaning politician explained, "You have Fox News and talk radio, we have NPR and PBS." What he didn't say was that his side also had The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, most network news shows, the universities, Hollywood, and most organs of elite cultural opinion. Nor did he point out that CVB and its clients, being publicly funded, ought also to provide a place at the table for creditable opinion that dissented from the reigning left-wing orthodoxy.

There was a moment, a couple of years ago, when that seemed about to happen. Three years ago, the distinguished independent film producer Michael Pack joined CPB as head of television programming. Part of Mr. Pack's task was to broaden the menu of CVB fare, bringing conservative voices to a conversation hitherto overwhelmingly dominated by the Left. Such initiatives were ...