National Radio Project

MAKING CONTACT

Transcript: #05-98 Selective Access: Public Broadcasting
February 4, 1998

Program description and guest contact information at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/1998/9805.html

Phillip Babich: Welcome to Making Contact, an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas, and important information. This week on Making Contact --

Yvonne Hadad: They wanted to interview me, because they had special recommendations from all over the country that I am the specialist in the area and I agreed to do the interview. And then she said, "Would you fax me some of your publications," and I said, "Why would they need my publications? Do you censor me?" And she said, "Oh no, we don't censor. We just choose."

David Barsamian: What I'm encountering is an ideological mindset of skittishness, milquetoastishness, and fear and timidity among the gatekeepers.

Phillip Babich: Though originally intended to be insulated from money and politics, public broadcasting is increasingly becoming a forum for business news and run-of-the-mill programming; hardly an alternative to commercial television and radio. Perhaps more disturbing, independent producers are encountering varying degrees of censorship on public airwaves. I'm Phillip Babich, your host this week on Making Contact.

One of the least reported subjects in corporate media is corporate media itself. Often the connections between a media outlet’s business interests and its reporting go unchecked in the mainstream press. To expose this blurred and, in some cases, vanishing line, filmmakers Beth Sanders and Randy Baker interviewed some of the most distinguished journalists in the United States, including four Pulitzer Prize winners, who told their stories about censorship -including one account about PBS' McNeil/Lehrer News Hour. When it came time for distribution, however, this acclaimed documentary narrated by Studs Terkel, ran into some roadblocks of its own. At first, PBS refused to satellite feed the film, titled "Fear and Favor in the Newsroom." But, after one year of negotiations, Sanders and Baker reached an agreement with PBS. In November, PBS uplinked the film, but media activists around the country are still having to urge their local public television stations to air the program. Correspondent Kevin Henry spoke with Sanders and Baker about the film and their experiences with funders and PBS.

Beth Sanders: I think if you take an example like the Gulf War -There was such an overwhelming consensus on how to approach that war -you found very little coverage that went into the history of that conflict, that revealed unflattering facts about the US role in the Middle East. And that was quite frightening to me to have that experience, where you turned on the TV and it was like Never-Never Land. Talk about a complete failure of the American press to really critically look at an issue where our people's lives were at stake. I mean that's the perfect example for me. And in our documentary we go into the Gulf War.

We have Jon Alpert, who was on a contract basis with NBC News. It was a long standing relationship with NBC News. He went into Iraq during the War. He was the only American in there, behind the lines. He got footage of the results of US policy. He showed the effect of the US bombing on civilian populations. And he came back with this unique footage and it couldn't get on the air. Now, this is -to me- a very important example, because what we're talking about when we're talking restrictions on journalists... We're not talking about them stepping on the toes of their corporate bosses, where there is some immediate financial interest at stake. -I mean that happens, but what we're talking about is the kind of consensus on what is acceptable to report on. And, in the case of John Alpert, he just bluntly says, "I got past the Iraqi censors, but I couldn't get on the air in the United States."

That should just shock every American - it should make them question, "What's the information that I'm getting over the news?" "To who's benefit?" "Who benefits from this kind of perspective that's being projected?" And also, on the Gulf War, it's pretty amusing to use that as a litmus test, because so many of the pundits that you saw who were giving us advice about what was going on during the Gulf War, those are the same people who failed in their analysis of what was leading up to the war. These were the cheerleaders for US policies before. A failed policy. You didn't see on the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour people who had said we shouldn't give Saddam Hussein credit - agricultural credits - to boost his government when it was a bankrupt - literally, bankrupt - country and he slaughters Kurds. He does all these nasty things that were brought up during the Gulf War, but he did all those nasty things when we were supporting him. Where was the press then?

Kevin Henry: What are some of the other examples of how something can be slanted? In some cases, we’re talking about a story that just doesn't run or footage that just isn't seen. Are there editors at newspapers that will edit out certain things?

Randy Baker: There is one case in our documentary which is kind of dramatic, because we got the excised footage. Peter Graumann was a reporter for the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour and in the early 1990's he did a story on the citing and the controversy around the siting of a nuclear waste facility in Ward Valley. It didn't say "dump." It was a "facility." And, basically, the story showed two sides of the controversy.

There was the large corporation, I think it was US Ecology, that was building the dump or planning to build it. The government, I think the Federal Government, was supporting it. And then the people who had to live near the dump and a lot of environmentalists and, I think, some Native American tribes who were opposing it. And his story basically showed that the "pro" argument was, "Look, this is a safe, scientific, thoughtful, environmentally responsible thing to do." And the other side of the argument in his story was, "Well, there were three other low level waste sites built in the country, two of them by US Ecology; they all leaked and one of them is on the [Environmental Protection Agency] Superfund List. US Ecology has been sued in court before by the state of Illinois for trying to abandon this dangerous leaking dump. And this dump, this facility, is going to be an unlined pit in the ground."

Well, after the story aired, Graumann looked at it; what was missing from the story was the fact that all the other dumps had leaked and that, physically, this facility was a hole in the ground. And so the effect of the story -and Graumann points this out in the documentary- is it made the people opposed to the dump look like a bunch of nuts, because they're just shown waving signs saying "We don't want it." And then the only people you hear any reasoned discussion from are supporting the facility. So, it looks like, "Well only illiterate fools yelling in the street oppose it and reason shows that it's a good thing to do."

So, I think that's the kind of thing that goes on. In one sense, McNeil/Lehrer could say, "Well, we showed both sides. We showed there were other people who didn't like it." But, in reality, the viewer who doesn't know the whole story is going to be unable to think much but, "Well, it's a reasonable project and it's too bad that these other people are upset, but if they listened to reason they wouldn't be so concerned."

With McNeil/Lehrer, it's an interesting case, because, of course, this is public television. So, it's clearly not a case where the owner of the news outlet is somehow directly profiting from the facility. That's not what's going on. What is going on is McNeil/Lehrer, and PBS in general, does rely tremendously on corporate sponsors. And it's much more kind of an "in the club, out of the club" kind of thing. "You are a reputable source and we want to hear your point of view, if you're from the Fortune 500; if you're from a foundation, like the Heritage Foundation, that's supported by the Fortune 500." A reporter focusing on points of view and spokespersons from these organizations is on safe ground at McNeil/Lehrer and all the large media, because that's part of the consensus that they'll accept discussion within. But these protesters, they're not Fortune 500 people, they don't own a foundation -

Beth Sanders: They don't have a Ph.D.

Randy Baker: Yeah, they might not have a Ph.D. And so, they are supposed to be treated kind of like lesser sources and they're not entitled to the same deference and respect. So, you get this slanting, which is subtle, because, ostensibly, you get both sides; but, if you think about what's really involved in presenting both sides [you’ll realize] you are not getting both sides.

Kevin Henry: The two of you have had a bit of a time getting this distributed, aired -

Beth Sanders: Well, first, funded.

Kevin Henry: Funded. All right, let's start with that.

Beth Sanders: Funding was awful. We could only get it from small foundations. We kept going back to them over and over again. So we'd get $3000 here; another $3000 there. We were rejected by every major corporation - every major foundation. We were rejected by every entity of PBS: ITBS, PBS, CPB, and POV -where we had an interview with the head person there, Mark Wise, who told us, "Well, this is not the kind of show that's going to get reviewed in Redbook. So, we don't want to support it." And we were very fortunate that, in the eleventh hour, when we had no money -we were completely broke- the San Jose PBS station stepped forward and provided us with on-line editing and had no influence whatsoever on editorial control. We had free reign over it. And they are the ones who also stepped forward to do the negotiations with PBS, trying to get it satellite-fed to all the PBS stations, and that's going to happen as well, because of Danny McGuire, executive producer of KTEH.

Randy Baker: I think it's important to mention, PBS -the entity which brings you McNeil/Lehrer News Hour- refused to broadcast it; even though it was sponsored by a public broadcasting affiliate. There's a little feeding chain which is so arcane, I still don't understand it. But, they're the big fish in the feeding chain of programming -national programming for PBS affiliate stations around the country. So, they refused it. The second big fish on the chain refused it; they tipped their hand and sounded a little like what I would have thought a party hack would sound like, when they said, "Your program isn't ‘’balanced enough.’ And then the smallest fish or one of the smaller fishes in this national programming source did accept it; and they will be the satellite feed source to PBS stations around the country. But, what that means is getting pushed down the feeding chain -the likelihood of any affiliate picking it up and showing it in prime-time is radically reduced. There are financial incentives to put the big guys first and there're prestige incentives; both are lacking with this lesser fish. So, to ensure affiliates pick it up, we're probably much more dependent than we otherwise would have been on people in communities serviced by a particular PBS affiliate letting that affiliate know that they care -that they want to see the program.

Phillip Babich: Randy Baker and Beth Sanders, producers of "Fear and Favor in the Newsroom", speaking with Kevin Henry.

You're listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. This program can now be heard on over 120 stations in the United States, Canada, Haiti, and South Africa, and around the world on Radio for Peace International Short-wave. If you want to get in touch with any of the organizations you hear about on this program, please give us a call. It's toll-free: 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes or transcripts, or if you have a comment or suggestions for future programs. That's 800-529-5736.

Phillip Babich: In communities around the United States, activists have been struggling to preserve and enhance public radio. Our national producer, David Barsamian, founder and host of the weekly program Alternative Radio, spoke at the Media and Democracy Congress in New York, last October about the communication needs of a democratic society. He began by highlighting the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, signed fifty years ago. Article 19 of that document guarantees, "freedom to opinion and expression without interference" and "grants the right to seek, receive, and impart information through any media regardless of frontiers."

David Barsamian: I'm encountering these frontiers in my work in community radio, as well as in National Public Radio; encountering electronic barriers, encountering boundaries -ideological boundaries: what is permissible, what can be spoken, what can be heard and what can't be heard. For example, the news editor and host of All Things Considered -National Public Radio's premier news magazine, which began in 1971- Bob Segal said he wasn't particularly interested in what Noam Chomsky had to say. The premier intellectual figure of this era, who is acknowledged as such outside our borders -our ideological borders. But, the host of All Things Considered is not particularly interested. And Chomsky has been on, I believe, three times in the 25 years of National Public Radio's existence. So, if you tune in every eight years, folks, you might hear him.

Unidentified member in the audience: (Inaudible question)

David Barsamian: I'm talking about National Public Radio. OK.

What I'm encountering is an ideological mindset of skittishness, milquetoastishness, and fear and timidity among the gatekeepers. Each one of these stations, I and other independents and other endangered species have to encounter, have to deal with these program directors or station managers -usually, it's one person; sometimes, it's as many as two- who decide what you, the audience, get to hear. So, as my colleagues and friends at FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] say, "The spectrum at National Public Radio used to be A to Z. Then it was A to P. Now it's about A to AP, AB." It's increasingly declining.

What's the evidence for that? -I mean, we could just have rhetorical flashes here. We study this stuff and we have proof. For example, less than seven or eight years ago, Michael Harrington was a regular commentator on National Public Radio -one of the premier Democratic-Socialists in the United States. That kind of view is nowhere to be heard. Molly Ivins, whatever you may think of her -I think she's a liberal Democrat- she's very funny. She reaches lots of people. She's a nationally syndicated columnist. She was a regular commentator on NPR. Not to be heard. Erwin Knoll, the former editor of The Progressive -another voice. None of these people, when they moved on -or whatever happened- were replaced by comparable voices. Instead, we have people like David Frum and pundits from the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the golden rolodex that not just NPR feeds off of -all of these networks live off this trough of intellectual manure. And so that partly explains that.

Let me give you another example of how constricted and constrained NPR has become: I had the unfortunate opportunity to attend the Public Radio Director's conference in Denver, a couple of weeks ago. A couple of people in the audience were there as well. I had the lack of good manners -I'm sorry, I didn't go to finishing school and I never finished college- to bring up the Carnegie Commission Report.

Thirty years ago, a very radical document was produced in this country, called the Carnegie Commission Report. It had such well known Marxist-Leninists as the President of Harvard University, the head of MIT, even the head of Polaroid and on and on -we're talking the creme de la creme of the East Coast Establishment. [They] produced a document in which they laid out another vision of what public broadcasting could be in the United States. "The programming", I'm quoting here, "can help us see America whole, in all its diversity; serve as a forum for controversy and debate; and provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." That's from the Carnegie Commission Report. Hardly anyone at that conference in Denver knew what I was even referring to when I mentioned it. I sort of injected that into one public forum.

Now, with PBS -which directly formed from that Carnegie Commission Report- and National Public Radio -which spun off a couple of years later- the idea that the Commission had -to fund this new entity, public radio and public TV in the United States- was to provide an insulated heat shield from political pressure. Guaranteed funding in advance- three to five years in advance- not subject to Congressional Committees, Congressional votes, and the vagaries of the political climate.

Well, Wilbur Mills, who was a very powerful Southern Democrat from Arkansas, at the time, was head of the House Appropriations Committee. He absolutely refused on this single point of providing that insulated funding for public radio and public TV. And Johnson went along with it, because he needed war funding for Indochina and Mills had his tap on the purse string as the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee -to give you a little historical background. So, Johnson conceded -everyone forgot about that- and now, this system had, structurally, a built-in flaw: it was subjected to political pressure. You didn't have to wait long to see how it would play out.

There was a PBS documentary on banks in the United States and corruption in the banking industry,; Nixon went ballistic and vetoed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding in 1972. And you've seen it go up and down. It hit another fever-pitch, in '95, with the Contractors on America who came to power. Newt Gingrich: denounced PBS and NPR as a soundbox for the elite. Dole: sick and tired of the "unrelenting liberal cheerleading" which was on PBS. -I'm sure he had William F. Buckley in mind; John McLaughlin, and the other left wing voices that completely dominate public broadcasting -both NPR and PBS. When you look at the evidence measured against the right wing rhetoric, it's laughable on its face.

Let me just sort of wind it up on a hopeful note, because I think it's really important to leave people with a sense that change is possible -and it can be positive change that we drive and direct -and not coming from external forces. I think there is a broad-based movement in this country. As Urvashi Vaid, who is one of my heroes, said about an hour and a half ago, "We’ve got to figure out ways to pull people together." And we're going to pull people together when we start talking to the congregation in the language of the congregation. I love you all. I'm really glad you're here. You're the choir, you're the converted, and I'm glad to reach you; but I'm really interested in a broader media and political strategy that will reach the congregation.

Phillip Babich: David Barsamian, national producer of Making Contact and also founder of Alternative Radio.

A prevalent bias in mainstream media is to mischaracterize Islam as a violent belief system that advocates terrorism. According to at least one observer, such was the case on Fresh Air, one of the corner stones of NPR's news and information programming. Dr. Yvonne Hadad, a historian and expert on Islam told correspondent Brian Trembly at WMUA Radio in Amherst, Massachusetts, that Fresh Air refused to run an interview she had done with the show’s host Terry Gross, because she would not label Islam as an extremist religion.

Yvonne Hadad: I received the call from the reporter that does the interviewing and she said that they wanted to interview me, because they had special recommendations from all over the country that I am the specialist in the area. I agreed to do the interview and then she said, "Would you fax me some of your publications?" And I said, "Why would you need my publications? Do you censor me?" And she said, "Oh, no; we don't censor. We just choose." I didn't fax her any of my publications.

So, the next day, I was interviewed and we agreed that I would be interviewed for a half-an-hour and they would cut it down to 15 minutes. And so, they asked questions and I responded to them. Then, at the end of the interview, she said, "Don't hang up. Don't hang up. My producer wants to talk to you." So, she came on and she did not like some of my answers. And so, she went over them and then they asked them again. We did a follow up interview and I responded in the same manner I responded the first time; they didn't like them, obviously, because they never aired the program.

Meanwhile, they got in contact with Professor Esposito, who's a colleague of mine. He was at Holy Cross at the time. They asked him if he was willing to have an interview and he said yes. So, they asked him to fax some materials to them. Now, he knew that I was having this interview; so, he called me up and said, "Boy they really want stuff on Muslim Fundamentalism, because they're going to have an interview with me." And I said don't fax them anything. "Oh." he said, "No, it's all right. They already made the appointment." So, the next day, he sat next to the phone at the appointed time and they didn't call him. So, he called them up and they wouldn't take his call. He faxed them and they wouldn't respond.

Brian Trembly: So, did they explain why they didn't like your answers? -Or they said they just didn't like them.

Yvonne Hadad: Well, I'll tell you what the questions that they didn't like were. They asked, "What is it in Islam that drives people to terrorism? -And why are they so violent?" And I said I think that we have a stereotype that anytime a Muslim does something it sort of gives a blanket indictment of all Muslims. For example, there are Jews who kill people and they are terrorists, but we never say that Judaism is a terrorist’s religion or "Why is Judaism violent?" We have Christians in Ireland that are killing each other. We never say, "Why are Protestants so violent?" or "Why are Catholics terrorists?" and stuff like that. So, I was trying to say that there are Muslims who are terrorists, but it doesn't mean that Islam itself is a terrorist’s religion; [rather] that, generally, the press tends to indict the whole religion that way. They didn't like that answer. They really did not like that answer, because I think it did not fit into the stereotype of what they were trying to say. What they were trying to get me to say, the whole time, was that Islam is a terrorist religion and that Muslims are violent people. "It's something in the religion." -It was very clear to me that that was the answer they were looking for.

Brian Trembly: And when they didn't get it, they canned the whole thing.

Yvonne Hadad: They canned the whole thing. They canned Esposito, because he wouldn't say that either. He probably said the same thing I did. They've had interviews with Jack Shaheen, who's written a book called The TV Arab. He has discussed how Arabs are sort of projected on television as slimy, as terrorists. And they had an interview with him which they did not air. He wrote a letter, also, to NPR, and they did not respond to him either.

We do know that even PBS, during the Gulf War -of all the people they had on the evening news, of all the people interviewed to reflect and answer questions about the Gulf War- one was giving the other position. So, they really, in a sense, feel they are the mouthpiece of the government, I think, and do not provide access for people with a different opinion.

It troubles me, because I grew up in Syria, which is a terrible country; where you are censored, where the government tells you what to think and if you think otherwise you end up in jail.. What I love about America is the freedom of speech -freedom to express opinions, but also to expose the facts. When as a historian some of the other people who have been excluded, we're talking about historical evidence. If we were just providing a spin, I can see why it might be excluded, but when we are talking about material that, you know, ideas that are documented, I think that that is censorship. And that's what troubles me. It troubles me, because it has sort of echoes of Hafez Assad of Syria and that shouldn't be what America is about. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought -this is what America is about. And it's the thing I really relish about America. There are things I say -if I were in Syria they'd put me in jail; I'd be dead a long time ago But that's not the issue. This is America, and we should be given equal access to express what we think are the facts. We're not talking about opinions, we're talking about the facts of the situation.

Phillip Babich: Yvonne Hadad, a history professor at Georgetown University, speaking with Brian Trembly.

That's it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at censorship and public broadcasting. Thanks for listening. Be sure to give us a call if you want more background information on the film, "Fear and Favor in the Newsroom", and how you can help get this film aired on your public television station. I'm Phillip Babich.

Samantha Hamovitch: If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts or if you'd like to make a comment about what you just heard. That's 800-529-5736. Making Contact is an independent production funded by individual contributors. We're committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. Our producers our David Barsamian, Phillip Babich, and Denise Graab. Our senior advisor is Norman Solomon. And our executive director is Peggy Law. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. For everyone at Making Contact, thanks for listening.