PBS Announces Revision of Editorial Policies, Will Hire Ombudsperson

In its first revision of editorial policies since 1987, PBS will incorporate a position for an ombudsperson to make certain that programming is not skewed toward a particular view or party. PBS’s updated editorial policy is available at its website here.

The document seems overall to try to strike notes of neutrality and conciliation.

“In reviewing the PBS Program Policies adopted in 1987 (the “Policies”), the Editorial Standards Review Committee convened by PBS found the document was well conceived and remarkably contemporary, and further concluded PBS should continue to operate according to the overall principles it articulates. What was needed, generally, was to make the Policies less exclusively concerned with television programming and more platform neutral. It was essential to recognize the ways in which new delivery systems, such as the Web, have affected and will continue to affect the production, distribution, and consumption of content, and the editorial implications of these changes. In that regard, the Committee believed that a hallmark for PBS in its approach and its content going forward should be transparency.”

While reaction is still coming in, some observers are suggesting that PBS may be attempting to fend off possible attacks from CPB management, which hired two ombudspeople to study PBS programming earlier this year, and by the Bush administration. Some Bush officials have targeted PBS programming (see Suzanne Ryan’s Boston Globe article here discussing Margaret Spelling’s complaints about “Postcards from Buster”). Meanwhile, the AP is reporting that the head of CPB apparently wanted information about the political views of some of the guests on the PBS show Now with BIll Moyers. Payments to the individual who provided the information are now being investigated. See the story here.

The new document clearly tries to respond to objections to program content and questions about local station control.

“As a licensee of the Federal Communications Commission, each public television licensee bears a non-delegable duty to assure that its broadcast program services fulfill its statutory obligations as a broadcaster. While other entities, including PBS, may assist the local station in fulfilling those obligations, final responsibility for the quality and integrity of its broadcast services rests with each individual station. Thus, even though PBS has accepted Program Content and made it available to the local station, that station has sole discretion to decide whether and when to broadcast it.

“In addition to broadcasting PBS Program Content, public television stations produce their own programs and obtain programs – including some rejected by PBS – from suppliers other than PBS. Thus, denying PBS distribution to a program does not prevent the program from being broadcast on local public television stations. There are many alternative means of distributing programs to public television stations, including the statutorily mandated alternative of distribution over the public television satellite interconnection system. PBS, however, makes no judgment as to the suitability for broadcast of programs distributed by parties other than PBS.

“Program Content distributed by PBS carries the PBS logo at the conclusion of each program, identifying the program as one accepted and distributed by PBS as distinct from other program distributors. As the symbol of acceptance by PBS, the PBS logo conveys important information to viewers, and a station may not remove the PBS logo from the end of a program without PBS’s consent. By contrast, use of the PBS logo in conjunction with the station’s own logo (e.g., use of an on-screen identifier or a print logo that includes both logos) serves only to identify the station as a PBS member station and does not signify PBS approval of the underlying content.

“Although PBS strives to provide balanced program services, member stations often choose not to carry the Program Content offered by PBS in its entirety, and each station makes different decisions about how best to supplement PBS’s programs. Therefore, each station is ultimately responsible for assuring an appropriate balance of subjects and viewpoints across its broadcast schedule and for complying with all applicable federal statutes and regulations.”

But PBS has obviously taken a stand on the question of online content, which it does produce on its own, and here technology helps out.

“While PBS distributes Program Content through its member stations (which retain discretion to broadcast such Program Content or not), PBS distributes Online Content directly to the public, at all times and on a worldwide basis, through its Web site, www.pbs.org. Although pbs.org includes functionality that allows stations to associate their local brands with Online Content, a station cannot choose to limit its association to some but not all of the Online Content available on pbs.org. Pbs.org also provides access to local station information. PBS member stations make their own online content available to the public through their own independently operated Web sites.”

The public is obviously free to obtain access to PBS’s website independent of what a local station may approve.

CPB will now review the new policy.