Yesterday the New York Times reported on the status of a new PBS news program Worldfocus. Amidst budget cuts at the New York station where it originates, the program has received some unusual financial support--a $1 million grant from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. What does the funder expect to get out of it? The Times reported that

the foundation expected Worldfocus to produce reports examining how other countries have dealt with the challenges facing the United States, like healthcare and Social Security reform.

The head of the foundation, David Walker, added that the show will maintain "total control over the content."
That's pretty standard language; what the Times should have explained is that the Peterson Foundation has for years specialized in scare-mongering over the future of Social Security and warning against the perils of deficit spending.

Thus, the public broadcaster is taking funds to cover a set of issues from an institution that spends its money advocating a specific political agenda on those issues. Is this OK at PBS? The answer would seem to be yes; over the years FAIR has documented the network's conflict-of-interest double standard.

Tags: PBS, public telivision, Social Security

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Advertisers, Media Business, Media Criticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.