Bush bashes PBS (again), and The New York Times helps

by Eric Boehlert | March 19, 2008 - 10:51am
SmirkingChimp

What a strange coincidence that the Bush administration recently submitted the largest funding cut ever proposed for public broadcasting, and next week, PBS' distinguished Frontline series will mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion by airing Bush's War, which PBS describes as television's definitive documentary analysis of the war. The program reportedly draws from 40 separate war-related Frontline reports aired over the last five years. I have not previewed the television event, but I doubt that Bush aides, not to mention most Americans, will draw much comfort from what they see.

So, yes, the timing between the Frontline airing and the massive budget cuts is curious, but also accidental, since the Bush administration has been attacking PBS' funding for years, and in 2005 actually helped plot a public -- and bogus -- campaign to rid public broadcasting of its alleged liberal bias. And to be accurate, Bush now proposes to curb the funding set aside for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government-created umbrella organization that doles out tens of millions of dollars annually for public television and radio programming. Frontline, in fact, does not receive direct CPB funding.

Still, the juxtaposition of the White House's draconian cuts penciled in for PBS, just when the award-winning Frontline program aims its painstaking reporting at the Iraq war, remains a telling one. And it helps to remind us, as Bush prepares his final exit, just how contemptuous this president has been of journalism in general, and especially of the thoughtful, independent brand practiced at PBS.

(Continued here.)