MRC's Graham baselessly accused PBS' NewsHour of liberal bias, criticized unreleased methodology of CPB polls

Written by Josh Kalven

Published

In an effort to prove that “liberal bias” pervades public broadcasting, Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, inaccurately stated that the Public Broadcasting Service's (PBS) NewsHour with Jim Lehrer had not “touched” the controversy surrounding a Senate floor statement by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL). In addition, Graham baselessly attacked as “stacked” and “biased” a poll commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) on perceptions of public broadcasting.

During a June 22 segment on MSNBC's Connected Coast-to-Coast on the controversy surrounding public broadcasting, Graham, appearing with hosts Monica Crowley and Ron Reagan, and former CBS News correspondent Bernard Kalb, criticized what he claimed was a lack of coverage of Durbin's June 14 statement regarding the alleged abuse of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba:

GRAHAM: I think the important thing, to answer what Bernard's saying, the important thing here is he says, “Well, we're just looking for the facts.” They weren't looking for the facts on Sen. Durbin, what he said on the Senate floor. CBS hasn't touched that yet. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer hasn't touched that yet. So they have a very selective idea of what the news is.

But on the June 17 edition of NewsHour, senior correspondent Margaret Warner aired clips of both Durbin's statement and of the ensuing debate between Durbin and Sen. John Warner (R-VA) on the Senate floor. Margaret Warner then moderated a discussion of the topic between syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Later in the MSNBC segment, Kalb noted that a CPB-commissioned poll found that a plurality of Americans perceive no bias in public broadcasting. Graham responded by attacking the survey:

GRAHAM: That's a stacked poll, Bernard. I mean, you take a poll where you ask them six nice questions about “Don't you like the kids' programs? Don't you like the orchestra? Oh, and by the way, do you like PBS?” That's a biased, paid-for poll and nobody should buy it.

But Graham offered no evidence to support his claim that the poll was “stacked,” as CPB has made available only a memoPDF file that includes selected findings from the July 2003 poll. CPB chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson has claimed that he has made public the results of that poll and another from November 2002. In fact, CPB has yet to release the full results of the polls. Graham similarly offered no support for his characterization of the polling as “biased”; the polls were conducted jointly by a Democratic polling firm, Lake Snell Perry & Associates, and a Republican polling firm, The Tarrance Group.

Media Matters for America runs the Hands Off Public Broadcasting campaign, an effort to ensure that public broadcasting remains independent and free from political pressure and to highlight conservative misinformation in and about public broadcasting.