On her Next Question podcast, Katie Couric, the former anchor of NBC's Today and CBS Evening News, mostly commiserated with PBS chief executive Paula Kerger, whose network is under fire for is undeniable liberal bias that’s caused an existential crisis under the Trump administration which is aiming to cut its taxpayer funding. Yet Kerger refused to even consider the bias argument when she was finally, gently confronted by Couric (who doesn’t believe media bias exists) almost a half-hour into the podcast.
Katie Couric: The president and Republican Party say the impetus for all of this is bias in your coverage and creating quote, “left-wing propaganda.” The White House released a document accompanying the executive order criticizing PBS and NPR's coverage of the pandemic and Hunter Biden among other things, to say that this, you know, the information that you all are disseminating on PBS and NPR is basically biased, and I'm curious to hear your response to that.
For some reason Couric questioned PBS’s CEO about two NPR-related examples from that document, not the many PBS-related items, including three citations of PBS News Hour-related studies from the Media Research Center.
Kerger: Yeah, you know, when I looked at there -- there is a press release that has a sort of a fact sheet of, of the, the evidence of bias, the -- and there isn't a lot there to really talk about. I mean, in terms of the, you know, the COVID origins, we actually did fair fairly extensive coverage of, you know, the various theories including the Wuhan lab theory so, I, it's that I don't, I don't understand the criticism and always when people say we see bias in your program, programs, and by the way we get that on both sides, you know, I get as many calls from people on, the more progressive side as on the conservative side that have issues every night, with every night's broadcast, you know, I see this or I see that sometimes I wonder if they're even watching the same program as [indecipherable].
After that ramble, Kerger finally unveiled her phony excuse for not taking complaints of liberal bias seriously.
But I do think that, you know, I always want specifics and examples. So give me an example, so you've given two, you know, I just think that, we're in a, we're in a difficult time right now in our country around news coverage where people forget that news is news and it is not about hearing information that is reaffirming what you think you know and I think that's part of the challenge that we're in right now that people are gravitating towards news and again I see this on both sides of the political spectrum where people want to have their opinions reaffirmed rather than their ideas challenged….
“Give me an example.” What? The Media Research Center has spent decades providing myriad examples of bias from public television (PBS) and public radio (NPR), just a click away. Kerger used the same "I haven't seen any examples" tactic in the March 26 congressional hearing.
Your move, PBS.
