MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour at 20:
Hold the Cheers

excerpted from the book

Wizards of Media OZ

by Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

September 27, 1995

As the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour prepares to mark its 20th anniversary, press releases are hailing the PBS program as "one of the most influential news sources in the world." But from where we sit-in front of the TV screen-that's no cause for celebration.

Aired on more than 300 TV stations in the United States, MacNeil/Lehrer has a nightly audience of 5 million people. Meanwhile, the program reaches viewers around the globe via satellite networks-including the official U.S. Information Agency's "WorldNet" system.

With the NewsHour poised to enter a third decade, some changes are underway. In late October [1995], longtime co-anchor Robert MacNeil will leave the program, which is being renamed the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. And MacNeil/Lehrer Productions is hoping to start a second nightly news broadcast, for an 11 p.m. slot, on the nation's public TV stations.

"We will bring the very same standards to the new program that we've been using on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour," the president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Al Vecchione, told us in a recent interview.

His words were meant to be reassuring. But they sounded ominous to us.

PBS viewers hardly need another national news program with "the very same standards."

The media watch group we're associated with, FAIR, conducted a detailed study of every MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour program during a six-month period in 1989. Among the findings:

* The program's guest list was chock full of think-tank "experts" from conservative, corporate-funded outfits-in particular, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the American Enterprise Institute, which had 14 appearances between them. In contrast, analysts from various progressive think tanks never appeared.

* Nine-tenths of the U.S. guests on MacNeil/Lehrer were white, and 87 percent were male.

* Almost half-46 percent-of the U.S. guests were current or former government officials. However, only 6 percent of the guests were from public-interest groups (such as consumer-rights, civil-rights and labor organizations) critical of government policies.

* The program exhibited a knack for having discussions about the environment while excluding environmentalists. Only one of 17 guests on environment-related segments was a representative of an environmental group.

In seven MacNeil/Lehrer discussion segments on Central America, all 22 guests were either U.S. officials or representatives of U.S.-allied governments in the region. No one was invited from the U.S. mass movement against military intervention.

Overall, the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour has excelled at serving as a nightly transmission belt for official opinion. Most of the time, disagreements are well within the range to be found among powerful politicians and lobbyists in Washington.

No wonder the show has been repeatedly praised as "balanced" by rightist groups-like Accuracy in Media and the National Conservative Political Action Conference-which normally bash network TV news for being too "liberal."

The man soon to become chief anchor of the NewsHour, Jim Lehrer, has little patience with calls for genuine diversity. Former NewsHour staffers have told us that Lehrer dismisses progressive policy critics as "moaners" and "whiners" unfit to appear on the show.

The response was similar when we asked the president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions to comment on charges that the NewsHour lacks diversity. "I think that's an outrageous criticism of our program," Al Vecchione replied. 'It's in a class by itself in terms of being fair and even-handed."

Introspection is not a strong suit at the NewsHour.

But then again, those who pay the media piper tend to call the tune-not every note, but the prevailing melody.

From the outset, the program has depended on corporate "underwriters" for major chunks of its financing. In the past, these underwriters have included AT&T and Pepsico. This year, two politically active firms the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland and the New York Life lnsurance Co.-account for about $11 million, nearly half of the program's budget.

The show's producers, of course, are quick to proclaim total independence from funders. But the companies funneling money to the most important show on PBS have reason to be pleased with their investments. Few of the program's 15,000 minutes of news coverage each year are likely to cause anything approaching distress in corporate suites.

When a subsidiary of the private media-conglomerate TCI purchased two-thirds of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions last year, PBS network president Ervin Duggan promptly called it "a welcome infusion of capital into the NewsHour."

These days, it seems odd to hear PBS referred to as "public television" when the funding-and content-of its public affairs programming are so dominated by private, for-profit, big-money institutions.

So we won't be cheering as the NewsHour begins its 21st year. And we won't be hoping that MacNeil/Lehrer Productions is successful in its plans to team up with the Wall Street Journal to create another national news show.

The new program would draw 90 percent of its funding from outside corporate underwriters. And the show would be owned by a pair of private media powers-Dow Jones & Co. and TCI. All in all, it's a remarkable concept for "public" television.

Wizards of Media OZ