For years, when I thought about public radio, the only notions I could muster usually related to obscure classical music, droning voices and that cheesy All Things Considered music. The local station bored me -until I actually started paying attention to the news reports and feature stories.
What I found was a jackpot of interesting, detailed reporting on National Public Radio, something I had lost hope of finding in television news. On NPR, I could hear a feature story about a black contra-tenor singer with clips of his beautiful voice, a news brief about the ongoing war in Iraq with comments from our troops, Iraqis and public officials, or an interview about rats with the leading expert on the subject. Now, instead of passing by the station, I often linger in my car several minutes after I've parked, waiting to hear the end of a segment.
So I was saddened by the news that the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which controls NPR and the television equivalent, Public Broadcasting Service, is investigating a liberal bias on the stations. The chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson, is trying to correct a leftist leaning at the stations, according to a Monday New York Times article.
Though the Times, CNN and other commercial media outlets published news of the investigation, I learned about it in my car. NPR delivered a segment about the challenges to their programming in an amazingly calm manner. The report was fair and balanced -in an ethical, journalistic way, not the Fox News way. Unlike CNN, they didn't use the phrase pretty biased station for PBS. They didn't inject sadness or bitterness about the situation -which many of the reporters, editors and producers must feel -that someone is accusing them of poor, biased reporting and programming.
Several things about the investigation trouble me. For one, I worry the ombudsmen hired to observe the stations will base their reports on opinions, rather than conducting scholarly studies of bias in news reports and programs. I'm not sure what the methods of the investigation are, but I hope opinions are pushed aside. When journalism scholars -not the Ann Coulters of the world -look for bias, they systematically code stories, looking for words that indicate a prejudice. If a detailed study by scholars yields a result of liberal bias, I might believe it. But if it's a known conservative with loyalty to a party, I'll be hesitant to listen to a word he or she says.
This is the part where I become more and more of a pessimist. My greatest concern is two-fold: that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will censor its own stations and these great sources of information will become outlets for government propaganda. Maybe propaganda is too strong a word, but as a strong proponent of the First Amendment, I don't like to see the government meddling in journalism. I believe these broadcasting outlets should challenge the government and investigate or criticize when necessary. That is the job of the media, in addition to informing and entertaining. I'm terrified that NPR will lose some of its great reporters -such as Nina Totenberg, who visited OU last week -if the government tries to interfere with content to make it a more balanced outlet (read: government mouthpiece).
NPR was not created to mirror a corporate, profitable venture in the media. Loyal listeners, and maybe occasional radio passersby, need to speak up about this. We want our NPR, and we like it the way it is.
-Suzanne Wilder is The Post's special projects editor. Send comments to her at sw272801@ohiou.edu.
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Suzanne Wilder
