Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 23, 1993                   TAG: 9308230026
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

POWER BROKERS RULE PBS TIME, GROUP SAYS

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting says an analysis of six months of PBS programming found political and corporate leaders overrepresented, while activists and ordinary citizens received scant attention.

The study, to be released today, concludes that, despite public television's stated mission to reflect the nation's diversity and serve as a forum for differing voices, PBS fare largely toes the Establishment line.

PBS is a private, nonprofit corporation serving 346 public television stations nationally.

In response to a summary of the report, PBS Vice President Jennifer Lawson said public TV often focuses on newsmakers, and "many of them are white males or from the administration or business leaders."

The New York-based FAIR has issued similar reports in the past criticizing National Public Radio, ABC's "Nightline" and PBS' "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour."

The current study disputes claims that public TV is liberally biased, concluding that:

On public affairs programming, the use of Republican Party sources outweighed Democratic Party sources 53 to 43 percent.

With the exception of "Washington Week in Review," public television's political talk-interview programs were the domain of conservatives William F. Buckley ("Firing Line") and John McLaughlin ("The McLaughlin Group" and "One on One").

Citizen activists overall accounted for only 6 percent of the sources heard from.

"We do air views of citizen activists when they are part of newsworthy events," Lawson said, "but it becomes an artifice to provide those views independent of what's going on in the world."