Weekend Update was first! 
Great. Now we’ll have two women “reporting” the safe, conventional wisdom PBS’s corporate sponsors/our neoliberal overlords wish us to hear.
That was only once per week. Plus in my mind there is only one Weekend Update host: Norm MacDonald.
As an outsider (I watch PBS Newshour syndicated on Australian TV channel SBS) I can tell you that PBS Newshour is the most informative, non-partisan television news media in America. When they get two experts to debate a topic they are actually people qualified to talk on the matters at hand and they typically aren’t interested in showing each other up and scoring points, but instead their focus is to give a robust explanation of the topic to the public.
Look at their funders page… doesn’t look to me like they’re selling out in any way: The links are merely text without even a logo! The thing with being a supporter of public broadcasting is that you get no say on editorial matters. My guess is you’re just pissy because they tend to not report news with the slant you prefer.
You think liberals are interested in conventional wisdom?
Neoliberals. As in the Koch brothers.
As an outsider, I think you don’t have enough knowledge of US politics and society to actually judge the extent to which PBS news is promoting propaganda or not. PBS takes safe positions on every topic it covers. It uses the left v. right paradigm to discuss problems that do not fit within it, just like the rest of the US news media. I understand why you think PBS is informative and non-partisan: they take an informed tone, seem to only discuss “the facts” and present “opposing” viewpoints. US media propaganda is the best in the world. The sad fact is PBS, like other mainstream media, pretends the wholesale purchase of our government by finance and international corporations hasn’t occurred, and frames every issue within the safe parameters established by the plutocracy. You are vastly under-informed if you get your news from PBS. Even Frontline, a vastly superior show to the Newshour, generally pulls its punches when it comes to the corruption and criminality at the core of US corporate culture.
I’m not sure what you are implying, but using a term like “liberals” without defining who you are specifically discussing is telling. There are Obama liberals, and then there are real liberals. They are not the same. There are economic liberals and social liberals. They are not the same.
As someone who doesn’t know me whatsoever, I don’t think you’re in a position to make such a judgement. I also think it’s worth pointing out that being a citizen of an English-speaking western democracy means that US politics and society aren’t terribly hard to understand or follow.
You may disagree, but I don’t see you listing any alternatives for the position of “most informative, non-partisan television news media in America”. Frontline is good, but it’s not a comparable program whatsoever. Can you give me any specific examples of stories that PBS Newshour ignored or omitted because of political/supporter pressure that you allege colours their journalism? From memory they covered the Occupy Movement far better than any of the other mainstream newsmedia outlets which would directly contradict your allegations.
When a society has become overwhelmed by corporate interests as ours now is, and all reporting on the events of the day ignores this fundamental reality, then reporting itself becomes an exercise meaninglessness. If we were to believe PBS’s newshour, one would think the housing bust, NSA warrantless wiretapping, bank drug money laundering, vicious prosecution of whistleblowers, the drug war, mass imprisonment, constant war, the outlawing of protest and violent attacks on protesters and mass bribery and control of government by private corporate interests are all isolated events that just happen to coincide with each other. Issues get “reported” but nothing is ever tied together; no lie is ever called a lie, torture is called “enhanced interrogation”; and the appearance of moderation, which of course only serves the status quo and hence the dominant power factions, is placed above all else. Maintaining a moderate tone, reporting what this one says versus what that one says, without digging behind why they are saying what they are saying, without even attempting to understand the larger forces at work, is the primary job of US media. I imagine its similar in Australia. I’m not sure. But you thinking that watching PBS and reading a few other US mainstream rags will tell you what’s going on in this country is about as useful as me reading Pravda and pretending to understand what was happening in the USSR.
If you would like some REAL news from the US, check out these actual sources of honest information and news:
And here’s a nice one that analyzes one aspect of the mainstream press’s blindness and disavowal of basic reality:
Get back to me when you can admit that mainstream news exists to promote the status quo, not to inform.
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