05
May
PBS and Our “Need To Know” the Truth
Alison Stewart is one of the anchors of Need To Know, a new public television public affairs offering that began stirring controversy long before its launch. Billed as part of an effort to “revitalize public media,” the program was first attacked simply because it will replace Bill Moyers Journal and Now, two hard-hitting, independent PBS mainstays that just ended long runs. Next, after news leaked that Newsweek editor Jon Meacham was slated to become Stewart’s co-anchor, the media watchdog group FAIR issued an “action alert.”
In it, Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and omnipresent chatting head on broadcast and cable, was slammed as “a consummate purveyor of middle-of-the-road conventional wisdom with a conservative slant.” FAIR said his prominent role on Need To Know “sends a clear and troubling message about PBS’s priorities,” and his “approach to journalism seems to be antithetical to the hard-hitting approach of Moyers and Now.”
The FAIR broadside, which resulted in thousands of emails to PBS ombudsman Michael Getler, was clearly in part a cri du coeur from progressives angry at the simultaneous loss of both Now and the ever-iconic Moyers. As Getler wrote, “I can understand the anxiety of those viewers who feel, rightly in my view, that both Moyers, especially in his interviews, and NOW through its choice of subjects, frequently go after issues and personalities that simply don’t get aired elsewhere…” Getler also raised an interesting side issue, noting, “I would think that being the editor of Newsweek is a full-time job, as is the co-host, and driving force, behind a public affairs television program that millions of people will want to depend on.”
I planned to ask Meacham to respond, but he was an inexplicable no-show for our interview, so we’ll have to leave his future PBS work to speak for itself. Co-host Stewart, however, did provide thoughtful, revealing answers to the questions raised by FAIR, Getler and this reporter, which would seem to bode well for “viewers like you,” as PBS likes to put it.
Described as “a multi-platform current affairs news magazine, uniting broadcast and web in an innovative approach to newsgathering and reporting,” the Need To Know hybrid effort premieres nationwide this week on PBS — and on line at PBS.org/NeedTo Know.
I spoke with Stewart just after the web site launched and just before the first broadcast taped, and asked what exactly it is she thought we “need to know.”
“We need to know… the truth, I guess, is the answer,” she replied, after just a moment’s bemused hesitation. “And all I can add is that I will do my very best to get it to you!”
Stewart’s heartfelt tone elevated her response beyond cliché to something approaching archetype, as the late, great Marshall McLuhan might put it, and the Peabody Award-winning broadcast journalist and veteran of both pubcasting and more ‘mainstream” media like CBS and NBC, seems more likely than most to deliver on that promise.
“Look, we’re not ‘replacing’ Bill Moyers,” she added. “You can’t do that – it’s impossible! Nor do we want to…but we would love to inhabit some of the same space that his show did, and to be of similar service.
“I understand the emotional reaction of people who watched Now and Bill’s show,” Stewart continued. “That’s one of the things I love most about public broadcasting—that people care intensely about it, that they feel real ownership, and that it is important to them and valued in their lives… As a journalist, you just don’t get that reaction anywhere else. So if we can follow in that vein that will be great – but it puts a lot of responsibility on us, and that trust is something we’ll have to earn.
Stewart, who like Meacham is forty-something (“on the youngish side for public broadcasting,” as she cheerfully admits,) says Need To Know will not be “your father’s PBS” and that she has no intention of trying to be “edgy or groovy.” Instead, she believes in tradition – “but not convention!” – and would rather make the show “post-modern, something really classic in design but updated and more modern.”
Need To Know and its vaunted “multi-platform” hybrid template sure sounds modern – but the proof will be, as ever, in the execution. Stewart, who once worked on NPR’s short-lived Bryant Park Project, is thus familiar with the form, and thinks one key to successfully integrating web and broadcast operations is to have just one editorial team, working on both sides of the newsroom. “We can begin things on the web, add to it and let it grow all week, then have a chance to sit back a little and go more in-depth in the weekly broadcast,” she told me. “Then hopefully they will feed each off each other – content and context, perspective and analysis…”
And opinion?
“I don’t plan to offer my opinions,” Stewart stated forthrightly. “I’d much rather offer people a lot of information instead, and try to help them understand what’s going on.
“Look, it’s totally understandable that people were attached to what came before us,” she concludes. “It was something unique and valuable, and they wonder if what comes next will live up to those standards. So we have to focus on offering high quality and rigorous journalism – that’s what will carry us forward, rather than trying to ‘replace Bill Moyers.’”
As for Jon Meacham, Stewart chose to let him – and his absence – speak for themselves, other than to note that “the poor guy has fifteen jobs, he’s knee-deep in the news and maximizes every working hour – but for me, Need To Know is my primary focus and full-time job.”
I for one am glad to hear it — and willing to give Stewart and her new show the benefit of the doubt, and enough time to work out the kinks that inevitably come with the launch of anything news – especially television programs… But like a lot of people:
“I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics. I’ve had enough of reading things by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians, and no short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me with just a pocketful of hope.”
So I’m counting on you, Alison, and expecting you to live up to that promise. Please — just gimme some truth!
You are right on the money with those lyrics!!!! I have absolutely no faith that PBS (to whom I sent money when I briefly and finally became middle class - before lay-off and medical problems) understands the beauty of either NOW or Bill Moyers. I happen to watch almost all PBS TV (being fortunate to be in an area where non cable TV brings in 4 PBS channels). I sit and squirm as I see the PBS fund raisers which use elitist tactics (seen in banking ads) to try to elicite funding from the same thieves who have bankrupted our public coffers. I understand their desperation but mourn their terror of offending the hand which MIGHT feed them. Frontline, POV and Independent Lens are probably the most worthwhile shows on public TV aside from NOW and Moyers. Insight (umm excuse me for wanting a partisan view from brilliant people rather than the watered down crap on commercial media) is important to me. Why else do people flock to wise men, philosophers or great doctors. I love Jim Lehrer but sometimes watching his show I just want one of his staff to jump up and say “you are just a moron sorry you are so stupid and we are required to give you a fair share of viewing time!!!!”
Obama has lost me with his desperate love for bipartisanship. I’d like to ask all those religious right people if they’d like to get bipartisan with the devil. You cannot always find a meeting of the minds and sometimes it’s an honest clash that becomes the most interesting and educational. (Im not talking about that horror FOX and anything Murdoch touches). PBS is in danger of losing both its elitist viewers and its liberal (sorry progressive) watchers. I dread the fact that PBS now does not want something “edgy,” since, in my 66 years I have always found the truth to be universally edgy, and the blunting of the edges to gut its worth.
May 5th, 2010 at 8:44 amRory,
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis, one of the few I’ve read on “Need To Know”. I’ll forego the “a priori” angst and judge the show on its content, not on the alleged character of its hosts and producers.
As a retired longtime staffer at a major-market PBS station, I’m aware that PBS consists of its Arlington, Virginia headquarters AND 355 locally owned and managed non-profit stations–very few of which can be pejoratively described as “elitist”.
For example, my station operates one of its digital channels as a 24/7 statewide service that co-produces public-affairs, educational, historical, cultural, science, nature, health, family, ethnic and other programming with nearly 200 regional or local non-profits and transmits it via a fiber-optic network to our public TV stations. The service also provides full real-time coverage of state legislative sessions and other government affairs. That’s
“populist”.
Those who are concerned about the alleged influence of corporate “thieves” can join with the public broadcasters and citizen activists who for decades have fostered federal legislation for an independent well-financed trust fund that will generate adult and child programming that meets our nation’s needs.
In my state, citizens have approved a constitutional amendment that provides annual, untouchable arts and cultural funding for public stations and many other organizations. The amendment also funds a wide range of land and water preservation projects.
“Now on PBS” primarily ended because it didn’t have viable funding. So if we want much more than “Need To Know” and endless pledge drives, like other nations we should enact laws that deliver the “dough”.
May 5th, 2010 at 2:56 pmVery interesting breakdown on the replacement show. Let me first admit to a bias. Nothing can replace Bill Moyers.
However, PBS MUST do its level best to provide a reasonable successor to the Journal. Certainly, we must judge it by the content produced, once it is there. The proof, indeed, is in the pudding. However, all evidence suggests it will fall far short of that standard.
Meacham’s lack of credentials for such a venture are quite clear. When I read that Alison Stewart will be its other anchor, I became nearly certain that “need to know”s fate is sealed.
The Bryant Park Project on NPR was one of the most miserable failures I ever heard on Public Radio. A popcorn program, it was a mish-mosh of happy talk and lively-voiced anchors examining a series of trivial topics unworthy of the people’s airwaves. I was so incensed I called twice to NPR’s comment line insisting they remove it from the air.
NPR’s financial crisis and dropping of programs meant the end of Bryant Park, and for once, I was happy the network’s financial difficulties had led to a sensible decision.
To have these two foisted upon us now, as a substitute for Moyers, is beyond insult.
That said, I dare Stewart and Meacham to prove me wrong!
May 5th, 2010 at 7:22 pmMany salient points in the previous comments. Moyers was/is a national broadcasting treasure, but surely there is more than one smart and fearless progressive in our land capable of presenting us with unvarnished truth each week. How about a Greg Palast or a Thom Hartmann or a Chris Hedges just to name a few? Let’s hope Need to Know exceeds our expectations, but let’s let PBS know what we think and base our donations–or lack thereof–accordingly.
May 7th, 2010 at 7:08 amActually, Jon Meacham may have a lot of time on his hands. The Post has put Newseek up for sale, and that may mean the end of the magazine.
May 7th, 2010 at 4:50 pmAs a follow-up to my May 5 comments, I should note that “Need To Know” is produced by WNET-New York, not by PBS which cannot produce programming; and like
May 9th, 2010 at 9:56 pm“Frontline” and other PBS-distributed shows, “Need To Know” has no corporate, commercial underwriting. The “Journal” and “Now” were produced in association with WNET and also had no underwriting.