PBS' Pro-Corporate Stance Hurts Unions

by Chris Potter

Not surprisingly, "Struggles in Steel" is far from a piece of union propaganda. In fact, much of the film is a protest against the indifference -- and sometimes the open hostility -- the union and its members displayed to their black co-workers.

But when he was trying to get "Struggles in Steel" aired nationwide on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), Buba says, "I had to really document for PBS that there hadn't been any union money at all going into the production. I was told that if there had been union support, it would probably have been seen as a conflict of interest."

Luckily, the film had no union backing, and PBS aired the show in February. Still, Buba wonders if he would have encountered the same level of scrutiny if he'd been funded by USX (formerly U.S. Steel). "Every show I see is underwritten by corporations," he says. "But a union can't underwrite anything. No one else gets this kind of scrutiny. Are they saying that all the corporations are fair?"

PBS' response to questions about how they applied their rules about underwriting was to fax Pittsburgh City Paper a copy of those guidelines, explaining that "those rules apply to any underwriter, whether union or corporate." The standards insist that the network "must guard against the public perception that editorial control might have been exercised by program funders." So if money comes from an underwriter with too strong an interest in the content, PBS may kill the program -- even if PBS itself believes the program is responsible and balanced.

Given that many critics have complained that PBS has been compromised by corporate underwriting, the network's sensitivity on the matter is understandable. And its strict adherence to high standards might even be admirable -- if those standards were applied uniformly.

But in 1993, for example, PBS broadcast a documentary about the next generation of aircraft by Boeing ... a program funded by Boeing itself. In 1993 PBS broadcast a flattering biography of New York Times writer James Reston. That documentary was produced by none other than The New York Times. A 1992 documentary miniseries about computers called "The Machine That Changed the World" was subsidized with a $1.9 million grant from a computer maker. Even if these programs were completely balanced, fair and accurate portrayals of their subject matter, by PBS' own standards, they never should have been put on the air.

PBS has explanations for many of these seeming inconsistencies: in a letter to critics at the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), for example, the station explained that the James Reston documentary was acceptable because it was "not uncritical of Reston, and not a commercial" for the Times. But questions like Buba's are being asked by other filmmakers both locally and across the country.

In the January/February issue of Extra!, FAIR's bi-monthly magazine, Janine Jackson writes about another recent example of PBS' apparent double standard. Last year PBS refused to broadcast Out At Work, an independent film about workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians. PBS was concerned that close to one-quarter of the $65,000 the filmmakers raised for the project had come from unions and activist organizations.

The rejection letter PBS sent to the producers lauded the program as "compelling television responsibly done." Nevertheless, the letter explained that underwriting guidelines "prohibit funding that might lead to an assumption that individual underwriters might have exercised editorial control over program content -- even if, as is clear in this case, those underwriters did not." Rightly or wrongly, the letter argued, the contributions "could be fairly perceived to have a direct or immediate interest in the subject of the film."

For Domike, the lesson was clear enough, and was soon amplified by the stories of other independent film producers. "There is a perspective in the corporate world and on PBS that union money is inherently more politically tainted than corporate or foundation money," she contends.

PBS has aired some union-backed programming. Last November, the network broadcast a mini-series called "Livelyhood," even though the program got some underwriting from the United Auto Workers and even though it cast an occasionally critical eye at business practices in the global economy. The program also had the support of companies like Chrysler and United Airlines, but even ardent PBS critic Jackson concedes that Livelyhood "does seem to be an example of a show getting on the air with some union backing."

"I don't necessarily think there's a conspiracy to keep us off the air," says Gary Hubbard, a public affairs director for the United Steelworkers who once served on an advisory board for WQED. "But you'd think that with money for public broadcasting being so tight, if a bunch of us were willing to put up some cash for programming, PBS would leap at it. But they're not knocking at our door."

Even if PBS were to knock, Hubbard's cupboard might be bare. "We've done a lot more in the past than we do currently," he says, adding that with union membership shrinking, money and other resources are becoming as scarce as they've been at PBS. The result, labor leaders fear, is a downward spiral. Unions find it harder and harder to get their message heard on the airwaves, which makes it harder and harder to attract support and resources to get their message out. The irony is that unions are financially so hamstrung they'd be hard-pressed to wage the kind of PR campaign PBS seems to fear.

"The whole country's going anti-labor," says Tony Buba, "even though almost everyone in the country labors. It's kind of insane."