{"id":140464,"date":"2014-10-07T21:12:27","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T21:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=140464"},"modified":"2014-10-07T21:20:32","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T21:20:32","slug":"rules-public-tv-corporate-sector-overwhelmingly-dominates-public-tv-governing-boards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/rules-public-tv-corporate-sector-overwhelmingly-dominates-public-tv-governing-boards\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Rules Public TV? Corporate sector overwhelmingly dominates public TV governing boards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aldo Guerrero<\/em><\/p>\n

The corporate and financial sectors<\/strong> have an overwhelming presence on the governing boards of major public television stations, a new FAIR study finds.<\/p>\n

The study looked at the occupations of the current trustees of WNET<\/strong> (New York City\/Newark), WGBH<\/strong> (Boston), WETA<\/strong>(Washington, DC), WTTW<\/strong> (Chicago) and KCET<\/strong> (Los Angeles).<\/p>\n

Out of these boards\u2019 182 total members, 152\u2013or 84 percent\u2013have corporate backgrounds, including 138 who are executives at elite businesses. Another 14 members appear to be on the board because of their families\u2019 corporate-derived wealth, often with a primary affiliation as an officer of a family charitable foundation.<\/p>\n

Many board members are affiliated with major corporations like Boeing, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. Seventy-five board members, nearly half of all those with corporate ties, are financial industry executives. Another 24 are corporate lawyers.<\/p>\n

Public TV board members<\/strong> without corporate ties were few and far between. Of these, nine are categorized as academics, while six are affiliated with nonprofit groups (not counting family grant-making foundations). There are three former government officials, two non-corporate lawyers, two journalists, one religious educator and a former principal of a magnet school. Six board members are station insiders.<\/p>\n

WNET<\/strong>, WGBH<\/strong> and WETA<\/strong> are considered to be the \u201cbig three\u201d PBS<\/strong>affiliates, producing a large share of programming for PBS<\/strong> nationally. WTTW<\/strong>and KCET<\/strong> were included because they serve two of the largest US metropolitan areas. Four of these stations are affiliated with PBS<\/strong>; KCET<\/strong> disaffiliated in 2010, but remains a prominent regional public television station.<\/p>\n

The boards range in size from WTTW<\/strong>\u2019s 63 members to KCET<\/strong>\u2019s 20. WTTW<\/strong>and WNET<\/strong> have the most corporate representation on their boards, each at 92 percent. KCET<\/strong>\u2019s board is 80 percent corporate-affiliated, while DC\u2019s WETA<\/strong> is at 73 percent. Corporate-tied board members were least common at WGBH,<\/strong>where they still made up two-thirds of the board.<\/p>\n

One hundred sixteen members (64 percent) are male. It was not possible to do a breakdown of board members\u2019 ethnicities.<\/p>\n

\"Layout<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year<\/strong>, the issue of corporate influence over public television was thrust into the spotlight when the film Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream<\/em> was broadcast by PBS<\/strong> affiliate WNET<\/strong> (New Yorker<\/strong>, 5\/27\/13<\/a>; FAIR Blog<\/strong>, 5\/21\/13<\/a>). The film examined the concentration of wealth and power in the United States by looking at the super-rich residents of 740 Park Avenue\u2013who included then-WNET<\/strong> board member and major station donor David Koch, a billionaire industrialist well known for his donations to right-wing causes.<\/p>\n

WNET<\/strong> president Neil Shapiro was said to be \u201cconcerned\u201d about a film critical of one of his biggest funders. WNET<\/strong> ended up not receiving a large donation from Koch\u2013potentially in the seven-figure range\u2013becausePark Avenue<\/em> was broadcast, the New Yorker<\/strong>\u2019s Jane Mayer reported.<\/p>\n

PBS<\/strong> then preemptively pulled the plug on Citizen Koch<\/em>, another film that examined the Koch family\u2019s political influence\u2013apparently practicing self-censorship in an attempt to placate a wealthy donor. Koch would eventually resign from the WNET<\/strong> board of trustees. Since then, acampaign<\/a>\u00a0has been launched demanding that Koch also resign from the board of Boston\u2019s WGBH<\/strong>, where he is still a trustee.<\/p>\n

Public television stations<\/strong> depend on underwriting from the corporate sector, which is undoubtedly why executives and their families so dominate public TV\u2019s boards. Over the years, FAIR has found public TV displaying bias and favoritism towards corporations (Press Release, 10\/19\/10<\/a>; Action Alert,4\/23\/12<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Some individuals within public TV acknowledge the problem of such influence. In a leaked farewell address, former PBS<\/strong> producer Sam Topperoff (Gawker<\/strong>,5\/24\/10<\/a>) was scathing about the state of New York public television, includingWNET<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

I see our general programming for the wider public as elitist and offensive in the extreme…. But, of course, when stations run on very rich people\u2019s and corporate money, how could it be otherwise? And when the corporation is directed by those very clever and very ambitious fellows whose careers will float them to good places no matter what, what else could we reasonably expect?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Controlling the board means wielding ultimate power over the direction and character of a public television station. Boards have the power to elect top executives (presidents, CEOs, CFOs, etc.), manage the station\u2019s finances and, of course, oversee the programming that their stations produce.<\/p>\n

To join a public television board, an individual must be elected by existing board members. What sort of people are these business-dominated boards likely to select? They will likely perpetuate the corporate culture, rendering the \u201cpublic\u201d in Public Broadcasting Service<\/strong> an ironic anachronism.<\/p>\n

This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aldo Guerrero The corporate and financial sectors have an overwhelming presence on the governing boards of major public television stations, a new FAIR study finds. The study looked at the occupations of the current trustees of WNET (New York City\/Newark), WGBH (Boston), WETA(Washington, DC), WTTW (Chicago) and KCET (Los Angeles). Out of these boards\u2019 182 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-140464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-media-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}