PBS

From RationalWiki
(Redirected from Public Broadcasting Service)
Jump to: navigation, search
Is it news?

Media

Icon media.svg
Random articles
Resources
The Latest News

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit broadcast television service. The successor to National Educational Television, PBS began broadcasting in 1970 and is carried by various member stations that determine their own schedules of PBS programming.

Contents

[edit] Programming

Programs on PBS cover a variety of educational, informational, and cultural topics. From Monday to Friday, the PBS NewsHour (formerly The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) serves as the daily newscast on PBS, and on Friday evenings a newsmagazine Need to Know is shown. Bill Moyers Journal and NOW on PBS used to be the Friday night newsmagazines. Frontline is the investigative journalism program. Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley also host talk shows for PBS.

There is also a good variety of science-related programs like Nova, the musical programs Austin City Limits and Great Performances, and the performance program Masterpiece Theatre among others.

Many PBS stations also import programs from the UK, including BBC World News and various British sitcoms and dramas from past and present.

Be prepared for an endless barrage of self-help programs from figures like Suze Orman and Wayne Dyer and musical programs during "pledge weeks" in which PBS pitches these programs on DVD to raise funds. Even worse, expect a serious overdose of medical woo from the likes of Daniel Amen, Mark Hyman or Joel Fuhrman for the same purpose.[1]

[edit] Accusations of bias

  • During the late 1990s, PBS broadcast a program called National Desk that promoted right-wing ideology regarding public education and sexism.[2]
  • When George W. Bush crony Ken Tomlinson became the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS dumped Bill Moyers and replaced him with the Wall Street Journal-produced Journal Editorial Report and another talk show hosted by Tucker Carlson.[3]
  • David H. Koch is a sponsor of Nova; given how Koch's business has so much axe to grind against climate change legislation it brings pressure to downplay science that undermines the oil industry.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. Robert Burton, PBS's latest infomercial Salon
  2. PBS's National Desk (Extra!, July/August 2000), Out of School (ibid)
  3. Inclusion vs. Exclusion at PBS (Extra!, September/October 2005)
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support