Activism Posing as Journalism: My Love-Hate Relationship with PBS
I have to apologize to you my dear audience for being missing in action for several months. Since I embarked on a second career as an author, blogger and podcaster, I have gained great respect for folks who write and talk for a living. It’s a lot harder than it looks to pump out new, fresh content daily, weekly and even on a monthly basis. First there is writer’s block which is a real thing. I only want to publish stuff when I have something meaningful to say and that can be hard when there is so much content out there. Then there is life that gets in the way as it has done for me, caring for elder family members, booting up a couple new ventures, playing music and just trying to be an attentive husband, father and friend. I hate excuses but those are mine, for what it’s worth.
The good news is that I am back and more committed then ever to publish more regularly because there is so much to talk about. The war in Ukraine rages on, getting more dangerous by the day. The U.S. is in the midst of de-coupling economically from China as it is becoming more belligerent under Emperor Xi. Inflation continues to rage, albeit at slowly declining levels as we slip into recession. The stock market surprisingly continues to hold steady, though investor sentiment suggests they are preparing for the eventual fallout from all of the above.
Then there is a narrowly averted default on our unsustainable federal debt as the GOP House and the Democrat President came together this week and negotiated a deal that at least does something to reduce our unsustainable federal deficit. It kicks the can down the road for a couple years past the 2024 election. Speaking of which, there is a growing cavalcade of entrants for the GOP presidential nominees including the one and only Trumpster and his main challenger popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. They join SC governor Niki Haley, former Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo, investor Vivik Ramaswamy, talk show host Larry Elder, Sen. Tim Scott, and former VP Mike Pence. It’s an interesting mix of white and black guys, an Indian woman, and an Indian guy. Pretty diverse and big tent if you ask me. They will all vie for the opportunity to challenge a couple white dudes: Robert F Kennedy Jr, or elderly and mentally challenged President Joe Biden, who has the distinction of the lowest approval ratings we have ever seen, even among his own party. We will certainly talk about the 2024 elections later as it is shaping up to be one of the most consequential elections ever.
But today I want to talk about the media generally, and PBS specifically. For many years, I supported PBS and NPR financially. I just loved their movies and documentaries and their news and opinion programs, that while left leaning, were conducted in a civil tone. Then there are the series like Downton Abbey, Ken Burns Documentaries and NOVA that I cannot get enough of. Early in my life, our local PBS station ran the Monty Python’s Flying Circus the British sitcom. It was brilliantly irreverent speaking truth to power and was influential to my world view. PBS in FL still runs old British content like The Vicar of Dibley, Coupling, and the Agatha Christie Mysteries.
I would also listen to PBS talk radio with people like Juan Williams, Mara Liasson and Christopher Lyden who had regular shows that often I called in to. We are talking about the early 1990’s which is when I started becoming politically aware. I would hear arguments being made that just didn’t make sense to me, so I called in to discuss the topics with the host. My sister Maria can attest to the heated on-air conversation in the office of the business we ran together in the Boston area. I knew NPR leaned left, but they at least made token attempts to cover both sides of an issue. Then about 10 years ago things started to really change. NPR started purging some of the personalities who didn’t fit with their increasingly leftward tilt. Juan Williams and Mara Liasson and other decidedly liberal voices were deemed not progressive enough and ended up at Fox News where they still present their liberal views on issues.
I still watch the classic content like British sitcoms and dramas and Nova for sure. Also, I still watch the PBS Newshour (or listen on my car radio) because I want to cast a wide net for my sources of information. Sadly however, an increasing amount of PBS news content is infected with the same crazy and divisive ideas that are being forced into every corner of our society by the powers that be. I no longer support them financially now because, hey, I already do that with my tax dollars.
And low and behold, Elon Musk and I are on the same page on this. Recently, he labeled NPR and PBS as “government-funded media” on Twitter, angering both organizations. And while it is well-known that they do receive taxpayer dollars, it is less known just how much of their total budget comes from the government and government-sponsored entities. NPR was incensed by Musk’s comments. It claimed it is fully independent of the government and practices “fact-based journalism.” “While federal money is important to the overall public media system, NPR gets less than 1% of its annual budget, on average, from federal sources,” NPR says on its website. Musk was unmoved. He maintained that the new label was justified and noted that “NPR literally says Federal funding is *essential* on their website right now.”
How About a Little Fact Checking?
So, just how much money does NPR get from government or government-affiliated sources?
As already noted, NPR says only 1 percent of its annual budget comes from federal sources. But according to its own numbers, the broadcaster gets a lot more from government sources than it lets on. For fiscal year 2020, for instance, the broadcaster’s affiliate stations received 8 percent of their revenue from federal appropriations via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They also got 10 percent from colleges and universities — which themselves are publicly funded — and another 5 percent from federal, state and local governments. That is 23 percent, not 1 percent.
For its part, PBS gets even more from government or government-affiliated sources. On its website, PBS says it gets 15 percent of its revenue from the federal government, 13 percent from state governments, 3 percent from local governments, and 8 percent from universities. That’s a total of 39 percent, not 1 percent.
The facts support Elon Musk and his Twitter label of NPR and PBS as “government funded media”. It is self-evident that their news content supports government policies when government is run by Democrats and then becomes staunch opposition when the GOP is in control. I have been watching and listening to their news content for decades, so I know their claim of being independent is simply false. I thought I would give you a fresh example of what I am talking about, with my local Florida NPR station, WQCS. As I was arguing out loud with the radio hosts, it occurred to me that I have a platform with a reasonably diverse audience so why not just make it a topic. So here we are.
The piece in question aired May 4, 2023, as I was driving to Publix Market. I came in more than halfway thru the broadcast, but I listened to the end in my car in the parking lot. In the old Boston days, I could just call in and have at least a chance of getting on-air even with conservative-leaning views. Now it’s not worth the effort because PBS systemically silences opposing viewpoints. CNN and The View do a better job of airing both sides of a debate.
When I returned home, I found the podcast online at KERA, a Texas’ PBS and NPR member station. Since its launch in November 2006, Think, with its host Krys Boyd, is among the most-downloaded podcasts in the public radio system. I listened to the podcast in its entirety and took notes and it can be found at this link if you are reading this, and for those of you listening, just go to think.kera.org and search for the title, “Pregnant People Deserve Better.” Now repeat the title to yourself for a moment. Pregnant People Deserve Better. Is PBS suggesting that anyone besides a female can give birth? One can only wonder. Anyway, here are my notes from the show.
Pregnant People Deserve Better
Host Krys Boyd and guest host Courtney Collins spoke with journalists about how pregnant women in the U.S. are facing a health crisis. They discuss the complications of navigating pregnancy as an immigrant or without health insurance, and how Covid-19 has caused even more challenges to maternal health care. According to the host, when compared to other “high income nations”, the US ranks highest in both infant mortality and maternal mortality. According to the CDC, in 2022 there were 1,204 women who died in childbirth, 40% more than 2020 and 60% more than in 2019.
Ms. Boyd specifically cited the danger of being uninsured in TX and that maternal care for illegal immigrants is different. Hospitals allegedly turned undocumented “pregnant persons” away because they can’t afford prenatal care. She lobbied for more bilingual healthcare providers to overcome the language barrier. She said there are 18 states that include coverage for “non-citizen immigrant persons” but they must be in the country at least 5 years and have legal documents showing their status. Another reason cited why undocumented immigrants don’t seek care is because they are afraid of Immigration Services. The host seemed perplexed why there are states choosing not to provide healthcare to illegal immigrants. She said the root of the problem is that our healthcare system doesn’t value immigrants the same as citizens. She said the government should provide money and resources to focus on marginalized communities with “culturally competent” pre-natal and post-partum care.
The next guest was Roni Rabin, a NY Times reporter who focuses on gender and race issues. She said “pregnant people” had worse outcomes in 2020-21 COVID with more maternal deaths. She said that the CDC should have considered pregnant women a vulnerable group. She reiterated that US has the highest rate of maternal death in the industrialized world, at 1,204 deaths in 2022 with lots of racial disparities. She believes there are important social determinants that make access to healthcare more difficult. Things like people are getting heavier, with more diseases like diabetes and women getting pregnant at older ages. Ms. Rabin cited the root cause of the problem being the lack of a national healthcare system as in other developed countries. She said that systemic racism exists in healthcare.
The conversation then moved to Medicaid which Ms. Rabin acknowledged is available for pregnancy care. Again, she cited Texas as having a higher amount of maternal healthcare issues and posited that TX wants to keep taxes low and didn’t take the Medicaid expansion, which has resulted in unpleasant budget surprises for many states that opted in. She said women can qualify for Medicaid pregnancy benefits at a generous 200% of federal poverty level but she lamented there wasn’t mandatory maternity leave for Medicaid recipients.
Ms. Rabin also had agita that Medicaid is much more complicated than the typical IRS tax form and the “system is designed to keep people out not pull them in.” She said more focus needs to be on poor women of color because they have more health complications. They talked about the low-reimbursement rates for doctors who take take Medicaid or cap the numbers because low-income folks are often more complicated health wise. She said it creates a real “snowball” effect.
Now for a more polished version of me debating with the car radio
Those are my raw notes of what the host and her guests said hopefully devoid of any of my opinions on the matter. Here come my opinions. Let’s start with the brazen wokeness in the PBS podcast with the first guest talking about “pregnant persons” as if someone other than a female can bear children. Shear madness.
How about a little fact checking? According to the CDC, infant mortality in the United States was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021. That’s down from 6.75 per 1000 in 2007, a pretty respectable 15% decline for any country I’d say.
According to the World Population Review, the US has the most illegal immigrants of any country on the planet, more than the next highest 4 countries combined. How many are there? Nobody knows because the U.S. open border policy for most of the last 20 years doesn’t track it and we are left to speculate. Some things we do know is that Census Bureau data shows that in 2022, there was a national record 46.6 million foreign-born people living in the U.S. That’s about 14% of our population and rising fast. We also know from US Customs and Border Protection, there was a record 2.7 million migrant border crossings in 2022 and over 1.8 million in 2023 year to date. That’s an annualized rate of 3.6 million which is a 33% increase over last year’s record.
PBS is indignant that in 2022 there were 1,204 women who died, 40% more than 2020 and 60% more than 2019? Really? Breast cancer caused 35 times more deaths in 2022 than women dying giving birth. And do you think a high percentage of those women who died in childbirth might be “non-citizens” given the staggering number of illegal immigrants flooding into our country? Even PBS acknowledges that the racial disparities of maternal deaths are often the result of comorbidities like obesity and high blood pressure and drug addiction. Is it the taxpayer’s job to get these poor women to eat better and exercise? While I am sorry for any mother that dies in childbirth, the fact remains that with over 3.6 million newborns in 2022, giving birth continues to be among the safest major medical procedure there is. Period.
The PBS podcast said that the root cause of all problems is that the United States doesn’t have a national healthcare system, like Great Britain. Really? The World Health Organization recently published a study titled, ”United Kingdom: Health System Review 2022.” Here’s what they had to say.
“United Kingdom residents enjoy access to a National Health Services (NHS) based on clinical need, and not ability to pay. In contrast, free access to social care services is means-tested, with different eligibility criteria across the nations of the United Kingdom. There are shortages of doctors, nurses and health care infrastructure. The UK has relatively lower levels of both doctors and nurses, as well as lower levels of hospital beds and of diagnostic equipment, than most other high-income countries. These shortages have left the country with little spare capacity and vulnerable to acute shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, they have led to growing waiting lists for elective care, with over 6 million people in England alone on a waiting list in 2022.”
Does that sound like the solution to our problems? Why is it that there is such a shortage of healthcare providers and such long waiting lists? Maybe the answer is that national healthcare systems have to ration care in order to be financially sustainable. UK citizens already pay some of the highest tax rates in the world, and increasing those rates to subsidize social programs, causes the most precious part of your government tax base, high-income earners, to flee to other countries. If you need any proof of this quite logical human behavior, just look at the great US migration of population from big government, high tax states like CA, IL, and NY to smaller government low tax states like TX, FL and TN. I can certainly attest that home prices have gone through the roof and that traffic has gotten much worse in the 8 years I’ve lived in Florida.
Let’s just say I am highly skeptical that a national healthcare system in the United States on top of already unstainable government debt and deficits, would improve women’s healthcare, at any level. The government would have to ration care and since government is the single provider, what it says goes. The political left screams for lower Medicare reimbursements to health care providers, from an already low level and yet expect that the number of doctors, hospitals, and drug companies accepting Medicare and Medicaid not to change? If you want a national health system, be prepared for much less choice, much higher taxes in exchange for equally crappy health care for all. No thanks.
It’s also interesting why PBS cares so much about protecting pregnancy when they are self-evidently pro-abortion. Don’t those views seem at odds with one another? Under this logic, a mother gets to choose whether her baby is life and needs to be protected, or it’s an inconvenient inanimate blob of cells that needs to go. Like with elective cosmetic surgery. PBS supports federally legal and taxpayer-funded abortions and yet decries the death penalty. Not to be outdone, many on the religious right have the same double standards and logical inconsistencies. They demand the opposite of what left wants. More death penalty, but no abortion. Either human life is precious and must be preserved at all costs or it isn’t.
It's also self-evident that the vast majority of illegal immigrants can’t speak English, and yes that might cause problems with their healthcare and just about everything in their lives. But is this a problem the American taxpayer must solve for a massive group of people who have broken our laws as their first act of setting foot in this country? PBS frets that Medicaid is a “system is designed to keep people out not pull them in?” Really? Medicaid already pays for about 40% of the 3.6 million live births. Should that number be 100%? My grandparents emigrated from Italy and got nothing from the government. They worked, paid their taxes, raised 11 kids (one of whom gave his life defending this country in WW2), ALL WITHOUT GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE.
Wherever you find yourself on the ideological spectrum, I hope we can agree that trees don’t grow to be miles high and that there are limits to how large government can grow before it collapses. There are limits in the financial laws of physics and with a federal debt to GDP ratio of 120% and growing, the United States is bumping up against them.
In Conclusion
Sadly, for PBS and many other media companies, their missions have deviated from providing the news in a free speech society, to becoming a dissent-suppressing tool for the concentration of political power. Activism posing as journalism is part of the toolkit. The currency for politicians is votes. Votes are bought with promises that can’t be kept, because if all promises were kept, the quality of life in the country would seriously degrade to the point that it would be obvious to all. We can’t have that. So, a media that works to distract citizens from the bad stuff that is really happening around them, can be quite useful indeed. So, enjoy your rationed healthcare, failing public schools, higher crime, higher inflation, higher unemployment, and higher taxes, because Uncle Sam knows what’s best for you.
If we cannot have these honest debates within our taxpayer-funded Public Broadcasting System, where can we have them? Activism posing as journalism, cannot and should not be tolerated anymore. I suggest that we either we stop taxpayer funding of PBS or create another publicly funded PBS that is run by conservatives. But they should both be required to run British comedy and drama, Ken Burns documentaries and Nova. 😊 It’s all about free speech and open debate because we already have massive challenges without adding more to them.
Let the best ideas rise to the top. Let the people decide.