Comment by UncleOxidant
21 hours ago
> PBS in the US could be so much better.
PBS Newshour is pretty much the best/balanced news programming on US TV at this point. They take deeper dives into issues than most of the other shows out there. And then there's Frontline which is excellent and goes even deeper with a documentary format. The rest of PBS - there are a few good parts like Nova, but a lot of what plays on PBS stations these days is UK crime dramas - man, there seems to be a lot of mayhem going on in merry old England these days.
>PBS Newshour
Haven't watched this since I was a kid. Just scrubbed through the latest episode. I was surprised, it's not bad. Left-leaning to my eye, but FAR less so than any other left-leaning mainstream TV media I can think of. And as you point out, more substantial and meaningful coverage than you typically get anywhere else. I would be happy to encourage anyone to watch more PBS Newshour based on that
Is there a specific example of the left-leaning bias you can mention?
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias"
.. Stephen Colbert
The show had six guests on- 2 left, 1 right, 2 neutral(?) and 1 CIA deep state mouthpiece. The show gave mostly balanced coverage of every issue covered, but declined to dig into the Epstein issue beyond "Trump+Epstein", gave the deep-stater seven minutes to defend the CIA without meaningfully pressing into any of the other questions raised by the latest declassifications (such as HRC & DNC involvement in orchestrating Russiagate), flashed a debunked/misleading statistic on screen about Russians influencing the the 2020 election via social media, and gave a one-sided take on redistricting in Texas ignoring the side that says redistricting after a Census is normal and routine.
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> PBS Newshour is pretty much the best/balanced news programming on US TV at this point.
Ah yes, the news show that has a weekly politics round table that brings in a balanced approach to see issues from both sides: The side of an anti-Trump Democrat and the side of an anti-Trump Republican.
Good riddance!
How many pro-Trump Republicans actually want to engage in a fair round-table style debate?
This administration makes a point that they only do interviews with sources favorable to them. They can't opt out of the media and then pretend to be victims.
> How many pro-Trump Republicans actually want to engage in a fair round-table style debate?
There's plenty to pick from. The problem is that having someone effective in that position would anger the one people that PBS actually cares about, their donor class. It doesn't matter that Trump won the popular vote in the most recent election, they'll still go out of their way to ensure that the token conservative voice is against him.
> This administration makes a point that they only do interviews with sources favorable to them. They can't opt out of the media and then pretend to be victims.
This is the most accessible and transparent administration in decades, if not longer. The POTUS has held more interviews, with just about every national media organization, and regularly holds open ended press conferences with pools of reporters.
What you're describing is the previous administration which not only hand selected the reporters, they even gave Biden a cheat sheet of reporters (with pictures!) so he would know exactly who to call on: https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-defends-bidens-cheat-sh...
Is that your paragon of media transparency?
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