Ken Previti alerted me to the appearance of this story in Harper’s, called “PBS Self-Destructs.” Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, so you will either have to subscribe or run out and buy a copy.
Aside from Bill Moyers, PBS has paid little attention to the astonishing, destructive, breath-taking assaults on the very principle of public education. Nor, with the exception of an occasional piece by John Merrow, has PBS devoted air time to the outrageous attacks on the teaching profession and the very idea of collective bargaining. Now is the time for hard-hitting journalism to exposé the outrageous profiteering by tech companies and the testing industry, and the capture of education by economists who think that whatever can’t be measured doesn’t count. Where is the Public Broadcasting System when public education is under siege?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Where they are is taking money from the Walton family and their K-12 “Reform” foundation. I heard an ad on my local PBS station just last night about how the Waltons support PBS and also “choice” for all parents.
Et tu, PBS!
LikeLike
I love that tag line. Here’s your choice: this charter or that. A public school? No longer a ‘choice’.
LikeLike
PBS doesn’t care about public education because the tote-baggers who are the core audience don’t care about educating other peoples’ children. And they do not want to pay a dollar more in taxes for something that does not benefit them or their families.
LikeLike
Actually, I disagree. PBS has carried plenty of children’s programming — Sesame Street being a long time classic, but many others — and I think parents appreciate that.
Have you noticed who the underwriters are for many of their programs? For instance, David H. Koch is a major underwriter for NOVA. Can you find any NOVA program that covers the science of global warming?
LikeLike
I agree. For years now I never understood why politicians wanted to cut the budget of PBS and NPR. It truly is a very small portion of the budget. I think it was their plan all along to cut the PBS and NPR budget so they would become beholden to their benefactors (e.g. Kochs and Arnolds). I believe these rich people knew they had to have some control of our public national news or they would be exposed.
LikeLike
Here is one: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/
LikeLike
Yes. “Home”. And ” Earth from Space”. Check YouTube. Entire programs are there.
LikeLike
This site is always quick to point out any and all impropriety in charter schools however slight or even rumored. I assume you want to be “fair and balanced” when a public school district behaved in such a manner, so I’m helping you out with the following item from Texas:
Texas School Officials Steal $4 Million
Two top officials in the Beaumont Independent School District have been sentenced to prison for stealing more than $4 million from the district. A U.S. district judge sentenced former finance director Devin Wayne McCraney to five years and eight months in federal prison after McCraney pleaded guilty in April to defrauding programs that receive federal funds. Former comptroller Sharika Baksh Allison was jailed for three years and 10 months following a guilty plea to conspiracy to defraud the same programs. The pair also have been ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution. In April, the Texas Education Agency announced it was taking over the district.
LikeLike
Thanks, Gipper, for pointing out one of the few public officials malfeasance (gee, perhaps transparency has something to do with that, eh). Now if you would please get us the data that shows the percentage of public school officials involved in malfeasance compared to the percentage of charter school officials involved in malfeasance.
The world is waiting to find out!
LikeLike
Duane, Of course you are both perceptive and funny. But, for the sake of accuracy. let’s not throw around legalisms such as “malfeasance”. That term was used in the post to which you replied, but, regardless, it ain’t “malfeasance” until proven in a court of law. Keep ‘knockin’ heads.
LikeLike
Notice Gipper, they were caught and sent to prison. Charter malfeasance is usually met with a limited expansion contract. The difference is breathtaking.
LikeLike
Diane, Thanks for your post. Today, I refused to renew my membership in my local NPR affiliate, WGBH. I cut and pasted your pos on my contact to the station. Perfect. Thanks. We all must do what we can to register our protests.
LikeLike
PBS’s lack of interest in the truth about public education and education reform is brought to you by the letters: G-A-T-E-and $.
LikeLike
PBS won’t expose the attempt at a corporate takeover of public education because they are increasingly dependent on corporate sponsorship. Haven’t you noticed how many programs are financed by the Kochs? It’s pointless to expect them to say anything positive about public schools or the union teachers who work in them. I stopped contributing when they nixed a series on the history of labor.
LikeLike
PBS has been co-opted by big corporate like the Koch brothers…who have their own insidious agenda. Bye-bye PBS
LikeLike
Res (To The Top) Ipsa Locquiter: the thing speaks for itself.
And lest we forget:
NY Times: WNET to Return $3.5 Million Grant for Pension Series
By ELIZABETH JENSEN
FEB. 14, 2014
“WNET, the New York City public television broadcaster, said on Friday that it would return a $3.5 million grant it received to sponsor an ambitious project on public pensions in the face of charges that it solicited inappropriate underwriting for the series.
In the absence of the funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the project, called “Pension Peril,” will go on hiatus, although WNET will continue to report on the topic. The series, which began in September, was examining the economic sustainability of public pensions.”
No more NPR or PBS support from me– they’re functional equivalents of the worst corporate networks
LikeLike
$$$$$ its always about the money isn’t it…such shame as everyone is a hypocrite
LikeLike
It’s worth buying or going to the library. I read it last weekend and couldn’t put it down. Explains a lot of their most recent fubars and the history of interference since its inception.
LikeLike
Which is why I stopped contributing to PBS. As long as they accept big donations from the billionaires who want to control the broadcasts, teachers should withhold their membership dues/donations. Recall that David Sirota exposed the sole funding of the PBS series “Pension Perils” by billionaire John Arnold in Arnold’s endless campaign to eliminate retirement pensions. PBS reluctantly stopped the airing and returned the money only after public outcry.
LikeLike
Unfortunately, with the end(?) to funding from the federal government, the need for $$ has led straight to those with deep pockets. Us little guys don’t donate enough. I have been watching the series on the Roosevelts which somehow has escaped the ax. The parallels with the present climate are intriguing. I wish my mother and father were around to explain the dislike for the Roosevelts with which they grew up. The series does not shy from pointing out their faults and faux pas, but I find myself perplexed as to how anyone could not approve of many of the policy decisions from which we still benefit.
LikeLike
I would be willing to sign up for continuing donations to PBS if they assured they would only accept small donations from individuals ($100 p/year?). I believe if PBS made that a public issue they would get a lot of individuals to sign up to get an unbiased news source with real investigations against corruption in government and corporations. PBS dropped plan to air a series on Koch Industries after pressure from the Koch family. I think (not sure) one of the Koch brothers is on the Board of PBS.
LikeLike
I listened to VPR this week and the story was pro Common Crap to the max. In between Segway’s they were doing a fund drive. I was do disgusted that I sent my $$$$ to Rachel Cohen instead to fund anti Common Crap bumper stickers and book markers.
They lost me as did Bill Nut the Science Guy.
LikeLike
That PBS doesn’t care about the assault on public education is a dog bites man story. That Harpers does seem to care is astounding news.
LikeLike
Maybe Michael Moore needs to cover this? I work in Education, sort of, in Ed-Tech, so I guess I am part of the problem. Until I started reading about the LAUSD iPad fiasco, I had no idea about the privatization of education.
LikeLike
I’ve wondered too about getting Michael Moore involved. Odd he’s not. Fox is now an underwriter for NPR, I think.
LikeLike
” the capture of education by economists”
What did you expect from economists? Economics is essentially the priesthood of
Capital. The dominant “Theory” at ANY time reflects the interests of Capital, NOT
nations, people, or the Greater Good.
“Good effective policy for them is policy that effectively works for their good.”
LikeLike
NoBrick,
I think your characterization of economics is mistaken. Primarily economics is about the basic questions that all societies must answer: what should we produce, how should we produce it, for whom should it be produced.
LikeLike
“teaching” economist is a case in point.
LikeLike
Harold,
While I am not sure what being a “priest of capital” is, I am fairly sure that I am not one.
LikeLike
back and forth, back and forth with teachingeconomist and a seemingly endless parade of well intentioned posters.; all that results is that readers develop sore necks watching the volleys. thank you, harold, for cutting through the ideological thicket.
LikeLike
I stopped giving money to PBS for this reason and also because they have accepted ads for natural gas. In my opinion, they have sold out.
LikeLike
I guess we have another Donna here.
LikeLike
Part of the reason may be that the Waltons provide $ support to PBS, thus buying influence.
LikeLike
I found this too:
“PBS responds to critical essay in latest Harper’s Magazine”
http://www.current.org/2014/09/pbs-responds-to-critical-essay-in-latest-harpers-magazine/
“A 12-page essay titled “PBS Self-Destructs: And What It Means for Viewers Like You” in the October issue of Harper’s Magazine has prompted PBS to reply to the magazine and provide stations with talking points in anticipation of viewers’ responses.
In the piece, writer Eugenia Williamson traces the history of the network with special attention to conservative interests that have buffeted PBS over the years.
“[I]t doesn’t matter that the Republicans couldn’t defund PBS — they really didn’t need to. Twenty years on, the liberal bias they bemoaned has evaporated, if it ever existed to begin with,” Williamson writes. “Today, the only special-interest group the network clearly favors is the aging upper class: their tastes, their pet agendas, their centrist politics. . . . [T]he present state of PBS is almost an inevitability, the result of structural deficiencies and ideological conflicts built in from the very start.”
PBS responded with a list of talking points for station managers who may get feedback from members about the piece. The talking points note that the essay “is filled with many basic errors and omissions.” The document highlights no particular errors but notes that “the American people named PBS and local PBS stations the most trusted public national organization 11 consecutive times.”
A letter to the editor of Harper’s from Beth Hoppe, PBS’s chief programmer, draws on the talking points and adds that the essay “bears little resemblance to the enterprise I am proud to serve as Chief Programing Executive.” She notes one specific error, that John Wilson has not been the head of programming for two years.”
LikeLike
NPR and PBS have gone over to the Dark Side. Just read the Los Angeles Times report “How PBS sold its soul to a billionaire donor” (LAT, 2/17/14). Or look at the PBS hatchet job on public employee pensions with the biased title “Pension Peril” that makes “unfunded liabilities” look like actual current debts instead of the easily affordable installment plans that they are, plus no mention of the fact that public employee pension money spent by retirees in any given state generates economic activity that provides a rate of return that far exceeds the state’s annual contribution to the pension plan and that eliminating pensions would actually lead to tax increases because of the lost economic activity in the state. No mention of the fact, either, that over the typical life of a 401k plan up to 40% of the plan’s growth will be taken by banks in forms of various “fees.” And PBS incorrectly reports that Social Security is going bankrupt, ignoring the fact that Social Security has a $3 trillion surplus safely invested in United States Treasury Bonds that critics call “IOUs” when in fact they are the safest security in the world and are where every nation, including China, puts its surplus funds for safe-keeping. The objective of the deceptive attack on Social Security is for the same reason as the deceptive attack on public pensions: So that both will be converted into 401k plans from which all Street banks will reap huge profits. The PBS News Hour brags about how trusted it is, but those who know the genuine facts about PBS reports on schools, public pensions, and Social Security know that PBS has been bought by billionaires and banks.
LikeLike
“NPR and PBS have gone over to the Dark Side. Just read the Los Angeles Times report “How PBS sold its soul to a billionaire donor”
That billionaire clearly is David Koch! I saw a NOVA show about vaccinations which turned out the be a very biased piece favoring big pharma. Guess who was one of the sponsors? David Koch!
Plus, Bill Moyers may still do a good job reporting on the important causes, but rumor has it that even he once attended a Bilderberg meeting.
LikeLike
Isn’t PBS on Bill Gates payroll?
LikeLike
I don’t think one should single out PBS.
There were public schools IN THE SAME building during the blanket Success Academy coverage, and we STILL didn’t hear about them. Right down the hall! It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. They told exactly half that story. It was if those other kids didn’t exist.
Let’s face it – public schools aren’t fashionable 🙂
LikeLike
Nor are public school teachers.
LikeLike
You can read it for free at your local public library.
LikeLike
cross- posted
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Harper-s-Why-Doesn-t-PBS-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Education_Journalism_Profession-140919-924.html#comment512139
I love NPR and National Public Television but there is no doubt in my mind, that they are ‘purchased’ by the billionaire’s club -Broad/Koch/Walton/Gates — that control the media and are undermining not merely collective bargaining and public education, but the middle class that depend on real news and TRUTH to inform their decisions.
BOO!
LikeLike
Here is the sheet with talking points that PBS has composed:
Click to access Harpers-Essay-Talking-Points-for-Stations.pdf
LikeLike
PBS’s reply is lame. Who cares how many awards their programs — independent productions, by the way –have won? Their reply doesn’t address the issues.
WNET had to rescind millions of dollars of Koch funding after complaints. An ITVS funded film, “Citizen Koch,” had its funding pulled. Alex Gibney’s film, “Park Avenue” had a disastrous history on WNET.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/a-word-from-our-sponsor
And, if you notice, Bill Moyers had his program cancelled and is now broadcast independently on PBS stations. It is not a “PBS” show.
LikeLike
My memory of a recent interview with the head of pbs is that she asserted that Moyer’s only wants to do a half hour show due to health/aging reasons and that is why he is now half an hour instead of a full hour. The caller who asked the question wondered if Moyer’s show was reduced due to its liberal viewpoint. If PBS fired him, then I will complain more to local public media.
I went to the library and found Harper’s Bazaar, but no Harper’s magazine. Does the Harper’s piece discuss PBS/npr lack of coverage of Gulen [Concept, Harmony, etc.] schools?
LikeLike
This is a wonderful piece on charter funding in Texas, real estate and how a “non profit” isn’t always a non profit.
“Scott, the Berkeley researcher, says it’s common for players in the charter school market to work through a nonprofit arm. “People are still skeptical of having for-profits in education,” she says, so there’s a P.R. benefit to appearing charitable. Scott says The Charter School Fund’s marriage of real estate and physical education seems unique. “But what is common is this idea of a hybridized organization—an arm that’s nonprofit, an arm that’s for-profit, and those arms kind of taking care of teach other.”
http://www.texasobserver.org/athlos-academies-texas-charter-school/
LikeLike
After your post on 9/5/14, I sent an e-mail (see below the line) to the new president of NPR, who had been interviewed on KQED. The reply, see below, came from the Ombudsman:
“Thank you for contacting NPR.
We appreciate you sharing your concerns with us. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.
NPR maintains a very strict firewall between its sponsors and our journalism. They have no input into news content, knowledge about it or access to our newsgathering staff. Sponsors’ funding provides general support to NPR, not to any particular program or area or coverage. NPR News covers on these companies as they do any others: with independent, objective, fair reporting.
In many instances NPR News has reported critically about a sponsor’s business activities. An archive of all our coverage can be viewed and heard by searching on http://www.NPR.org. The site also has more specific information about our News Code of Ethics and our sponsorship guidelines.
Thank you for listening, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.”
Sincerely,
Jarrod
NPR Audience and Community Relations
http://www.npr.org
_________________________________________________
Original Message: I would like Jarl Mohn to see the article on Diane Ravitch’s Blog, 9/5/14, posted this morning at 5:02 AM, titled:
Paul Thomas: NPR Whitewashes Disaster Capitalism in New Orleans.
Is NPR whitewashing the news to please large donors who benefit financially and failing to ask the critical questions??
To reply to this e-mail, please click on the link below. Thank you.
LikeLike
“NPR maintains a very strict firewall between its sponsors and our journalism. They have no input into news content, knowledge about it or access to our newsgathering staff.”
Then why do they not show the more critical documentaries that will help people see the light as to how the world is governed and by whom. Bill Moyers knows, but does he share on the subject of Bilderberg?
“In the past, darlings of the corporate media have attended Bilderberg meetings, including the late Peter Jennings of ABC, Joseph Harsch of NBC, the “liberal” Bill Moyers of PBS, the “conservative” William F. Buckley, Jr., Robert Bartley of the Wall Street Journal, the neocon William Kristol, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, the late Katharine Graham of the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, Leslie Stahl of CBS, and many others. Many are also members of the CFR and the Trilateral Commission. It is no mistake a Google News search reveals absolutely no reportage from the corporate media on the Bilderberg confab currently underway in Virginia. In effect, the Bilderbergers own the corporate media”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bilderberg
LikeLike
PBS has largely become a lifestyle channel.
PBS now stands for “Plutocrat’s Bull Sh**”.
Bill Moyers and a few are exceptions.
PBS does nto care about the assault on public education because PBS is IN ON IT.
Duh . . . . .
LikeLike
“Where is the Public Broadcasting System when public education is under siege?”
In the pockets of David Koch et al. I saw a NOVA show about vaccinations which turned out the be a very biased piece favoring big pharma. Guess who was one of the sponsors? David Koch!
Plus, Bill Moyers may still do a good job reporting on the important causes, but rumor has it that even he once attended a Bilderberg meeting.
LikeLike
After watching this, no one can believe that the American Dream still exists! Eye-opening! I highly recommend this documentary in which you will see that the people’s vote count/matter only marginally, if that! And….of the rich, David Koch of the infamous Koch brothers is the most miserly when it comes to sharing wealth. The doorman gets a check for $50 for Christmas! Most sane and healthy people with far less income donate more to good causes! Greed is a mental illness and we all may succumb to it if we were to become wealthy, as shown in an experiment in which people play a rigged game of Monopoly.
LikeLike
If PBS is as awful as everyone here thinks, let’s just get on with it and pull the plug already.
LikeLike
FLERP,
I support PBS because of Bill Moyers and Ken Burns. I have been glued to the set for six straight nights watching “The Roosevelt’s.” It is a wonderful series and reminds us that we have no Franklin or Eleanor today. People with a strong social conscience and the will to act on it.
LikeLike
Although not even Franklin himself could be a Franklin in today’s political and media climate. He’d be torn apart both personally and politically in the post-Bork (can you imagine how the “switch in time saves nine” would have played today?), post-Gary Hart era.
I’ll watch the series, it sounds interesting. Frankly, I don’t know nearly as much as I should about FDR. Was FDR’s executive order to arrest and intern a hundred thousand Americans an example of conscience and courage or expediency and weakness?
LikeLike
Bill Moyers is self financed.
LikeLike
I pulled the plug years ago, soon after my local PBS station started promoting their ‘corporate underwriters’. The handwriting was on the wall.
LikeLike
Then you missed Ken Burns “The Roosevelts” which was absolutely mesmerizing to everyone who watched it.
LikeLike
Wasn’t i?. I could watch it again, now.
LikeLike
It is not surprising that Harper’s left-leaning owners, the tax-exempt MacArthur Foundation would use the magazine and Ms. Williamson to attack the conservative
David Koch.
LikeLike