PBS updates its set of editorial standards Moves follow threat to its federal funding

baltimoresun ^

[phoenix_004]

Facing charges of political bias and a threat to its funding from Congress, the Public Broadcasting Service yesterday adopted an updated set of editorial standards and announced that it would add an ombudsman who will report directly to PBS President Pat Mitchell.

The action comes in the wake of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's hiring of two ombudsmen in April to give viewers a place to take their "complaints" about public broadcasting, according to CPB Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson.

The panel includes Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute of Media Studies; Marvin Kalb, senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University; Geneva Overholser of the University of Missouri School of Journalism; John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University; and former CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, served as professional adviser to the committee.

The standards announced yesterday update PBS program policies adopted in 1971 and revised in 1987. The changes were minimal, and the alterations that were made were done mainly with an eye toward PBS material that would appear on the Internet.

In an introduction to the new standards, posted yesterday on the pbs.org Web site, the committee called the 1987 document "well conceived and remarkably contemporary." Overall, it urged PBS to "continue to operate according to the overall principles" articulated in 1987. But it also saw a need for "policies less exclusively concerned with television" and more in touch with such new realities as Web sites, online journals and blogs that might involve PBS material. Whether the material is on-air or online, the new standards urge "that a hallmark for PBS ... should be transparency."

[joesnuffy]

End the tax payer rip off of PBS leeches NOW

[DH]

You just can't change the spots on a leopard. Shut them down and be done with it.

Sure, they will change their operation until the liberals get back into power.

[Bommer]

The panel includes Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute of Media Studies; Marvin Kalb, senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University; Geneva Overholser of the University of Missouri School of Journalism; John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University; and former CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, served as professional adviser to the committee

They add a panel of liberals and hope to balance out programming? For a "educational" network, PBS is comprised of incredible morons! Only ones missing are Dan Rather, Micheal Moore and Bill Moyer!

[pabianice]

The panel includes Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute of Media Studies; Marvin Kalb, senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University; Geneva Overholser of the University of Missouri School of Journalism; John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University; and former CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, served as professional adviser to the committee.

I believe the whole lot are on record as being in favor of banning private ownership of firearms.

[Ole Okie]

Marvin Kalb? Bernie Shaw? And the other liberals?

Well conceived?

My goodness gracious sakes alive! Bias is running rampant, and they think their standards are "well conceived".

Inmates running asylum.

[Publius6961]

This proposal sounds like the fox watching the henhouse.
Didn't all these academic names produce the current crop of intellectually inert propagandists and indoctrination types?

[Mears]

I think Moveon.org has a petition going to prevent any changes.

That ought to tell us something.

[marktuoni]

Let's get Osama and Sadam to review our foreign policy...

[This Just In]

It's all smokin' mirrors.

Tax payers shouldn't have to pay for a side show they're not interested in.

[DManA]

I hope the Republicans follow principle and aren't swayed by this ideological bribery.

[niteowl77]

Geneva Overholser? Not only a practitioner of leftist advocacy journalism, but one who has something of a reverse Midas' touch. She was instrumental in changing the Des Moines Register from a paper of declining standards to one with hardly any standards at all.

[ops33]

If they didn't have an liberal editorial bias there would be no need to update their editorial standards. The fact that they did this is an admission of their leftist views.

[andyk]

that a hallmark for PBS ... should be transparency.

I concur. It should be impossible for me to see.

[RinaseaofDs]

Yeah, did you see their board members? Bernard Shaw, a Harvard guy, John Siegenthaler, a professor of journalism, etc.

Liberals all.

That should restore some balance to things over there.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Too little too late.

[gaspar]

Too, too true! Recall, please, that former RINO congressman and Des Moines Register sockpuppet Doug Bereuter hurried the process along.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Geneva Overholser ?

[Owl558]

"The fact that they did this is an admission of their leftist views."

Good point. And the people they tapped to be on their panel shows you how leftist they really are.

[niteowl77]

Heh, heh... you said "sockpuppet." And I agree.

My folks had gotten the Register ever since I could remember (that's back to when Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House), but dumped it a while back when the number of homosexual advocacy articles/editorials in each issue exceeded the number of sections. I suspect that they might have initially missed making fun of Rekha Basu's ignorance of reality, but when you have a cat and a large paper bag, you pretty much have equivalent amusement right there.