PBS pushes left-wing film but shelves film produced by conservative

An educational channel is no longer educational ... or ... An educational channel turns to Communistic propaganda would be a better headline for this.

A media watchdog organization is blasting the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for airing a liberal documentary but refusing to air one produced by a conservative -- Frank Gaffney's film, Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center.

Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, says the Public Broadcasting Service is showing a blatant double-standard by pushing a liberal film, but shelving one produced by a conservative. He says he believes PBS officials have pulled Gaffney's documentary because they no longer fears reprisals from Republicans now that the Democrats control Congress.

"What you have with Frank's film is something that was funded when there was still a conservative or two inside the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," Graham contends. "And now that the liberals have taken over again, they're throwing [the film] overboard," he says.

But at the same time, the media analyst asserts, PBS feels emboldened to air Bill Moyers' documentary titled Buying the War. He says Moyers' latest documentary "is trying to say that our news media is hopelessly conservative, and that it led the country into war. And it's really part of what Moyers usually does -- that is, trying to drag the liberal media further to the left than they already are."

"It's really outrageous and scandalous," Graham says, "that Frank Gaffney makes a film about the Muslim center and PBS says, 'You can't put that on because Frank Gaffney's a conservative; he has a conservative day job. We can't tolerate that here at PBS.'" However, the MRC spokesman points out, "Bill Moyers has sort of a day job too; he's president of something called the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which is a left-wing foundation."

While PBS seems to have a problem with Gaffney running a conservative think tank, the public broadcasting group would seem to have no problem with Moyers' affiliation with a liberal foundation, Graham observes. Apparently, he says, "PBS sees absolutely no conflict of interest there."