In class, we were introduced to a FAIR study about the lack of diversity in the US public broadcasting system. Although this study is from 2006, I believe a lot of these issues still pertain to our current broadcasting system.
Public broadcasting was introduced to deliver information to the masses that was not slanted by corporate politics. In order to achieve this, they would need to report on stories from a variety of different angles and give voice to all sides of an issue. The FAIR report claims that the US public broadcasting system has done anything but that. Their guests had been heavily white, male, Republican, and government officials.
Even more interesting is the difference between the United States public broadcasting system and the various European public networks. In general, Europeans tend to have significantly more diverse public broadcasting. In addition, more of them watch public broadcasting. It is not a jump to assume that those two facts correlate.
In my opinion, diversity is one of the most important aspects of all television media. Diversity is the first step towards news being truly objective. Very few news outlets are objective these days, but instead, they acknowledge their biases. It is common knowledge that Fox news leans right while MSNBC leans left. This at least makes it so the public is aware of where their news is coming from. My belief however is that a public broadcasting network should not be leaning in either direction. If their mission is to provide people with the facts and not propaganda, they need to invite guests from a variety of organizations with a variety of opinions.
In addition, I believe that public broadcasting will be obsolete if it continues down this path. I know very few people who still watch PBS for news purposes and I think its lack of diverse, cutting-edge reporting is partially to blame.
Here’s a link to the 2006 FAIR report
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