PBS Ombudsman Knocks Network For Skipping Tucson Shooting Story Until Monday Night

by Mark Joyella | 1:31 pm, January 14th, 2011

» 3 comments

How big does a story have to be for PBS to cover it on a weekend? Apparently bigger than the shooting spree in Tucson that killed six and left a member of Congress critically wounded. As PBS’s ombudsman, Michael Getler writes, ” if you are a devoted follower of the news and of PBS, when horrific stories such as the one that unfolded in Tucson last Saturday, Jan. 8, you must go to the big three broadcast networks or cable for coverage. The PBS NewsHour will get around to it on Monday evening.”

As Getler notes, news does break out on weekends from time to time, and when it does, “PBS is nowhere to be found.” Getler says while the no-news-on-weekends approach is nothing new, it continues to irritate loyal PBS news viewers, who write in every time they want information, but have to go elsewhere to get it:

There are no doubt impressive-sounding reasons, financial or otherwise, why there is no PBS NewsHour, or something similar, on Saturday and Sunday evenings. But it has always seemed to me like an abdication of duty that also has the side effect of sending regular PBS viewers to other networks. The weekday evening NewsHour is one of PBS’s flagship programs and Jim Lehrer is among journalism’s most respected figures. So it just seems inconsistent with a commitment to news and public affairs, and to promoting the NewsHour and Lehrer as something special and unique — as PBS officials do publicly to emphasize the importance of public broadcasting — that some new formula can’t, or won’t, be found to serve the public on Saturday and Sunday as well.

It’s not just PBS, of course. MSNBC has been criticized for years over its dedication to taped programming on weekends, though the network did cut in to cover the Arizona shooting. MSNBC didn’t stay on the story for the duration, returning to taped shows, and viewers flocked to Fox and CNN, both of whom went with the story wall-to-wall. That audience pattern held into the week, when MSNBC’s coverage of the Tucson memorial placed third in ratings, after first-placed Fox News and second-placed CNN.

Arizona shooting, michael getler, no news on weekends, Ombudsman, PBS NewsHour

TeaPartyPatriot

“PBS Ombudsman Knocks Network For Skipping Tucson Shooting Story Until Monday Night”

well, you really can’t blame them – their entire staff was out looking for that palin-loving, right-wing nut-job, anti-obozo extremist who did the actually shooting, but all they could find was that “left-wing pothead”. They Certain would NEVER admit to that bit of truth.
Alz

This ombudsman must some busy person at NPR.
jrcmi

How many of the people who criticize PBS actually contribute to them? If PBS weren’t so pathetically underfunded maybe they could AFFORD to cover breaking news.

News coverage is expensive. For every ‘talking head” you see on-air, there may be a half-dozen or more people putting him/her there – camera operators, producers, editors, engineers and technicians. Satellite uplink vehicles cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; merely renting one can be expensive. Satellite links cost several hundred dollars per hour. Commercial networks recoup their costs through advertising sales – an option unavailable to PBS.

We are one of the few advanced societies in the world that fails to provide adequate funding for public broadcasting. PBS receives only about six percent of its funding from the federal government. States provide varying amounts to their respective public broadcasters – funding that has been imperiled by budget-cutting.

TeaPottyPatriot is, frankly, ridiculous. His assertions typify the ignorance of the extremist, hate-filled right.