Which television news program provides, more than any other, the most frequent media outlet for academics? If you reply, The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS, then your hunch agrees with mine. I admit this is unscientific speculation but nonetheless it could still be true. Five nights a week, leading academics from colleges and universities around the country, along with many other professionals, share their expertise with the public addressing complicated and timely issues on topics ranging from astronomy to Zimbabwe.
For over 30 years, in various incarnations — from the 1975 The Robert MacNeil Report to The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, to the present day The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, in-depth coverage has been this program’s trademark. In 1983, it became the first nightly newscast to expand from 30 minutes to an hour, allowing for the coverage of more subjects with greater concentration. Several years ago, a comprehensive Web site, with a dedicated area for schoolchildren and their teachers, was introduced to provide continuing education for adults and a reliable and informative resource for students of all ages.
It is not uncommon during any given week to watch academics, scholars, and other specialists joining around the table to discuss, debate, and expound upon the news of the day or analyze topics and trends in politics, history, economics, business, arts, science, technology, environment, natural disasters, literature, poetry, social issues, media, health, law, transportation, military, education, religion, and sports. If that lists sounds a bit like the roster of courses in a liberal-arts curriculum, that shouldn’t come as a surprise, for the goal of the NewsHour has always been to provide solid, reliable coverage of a broad range of topics, presented in a comprehensive and balanced fashion, so that viewers become more knowledgeable and better able to form their own views about the issues that are important to them and their communities. “Education is the true foundation of civil liberty,” as James Madison once said.
Underwriting for the The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer is scarce these days, and I believe that should be a concern for all. “Viewers Like You” and local public broadcasting stations help defray the annual cost of production with about 50 percent of the funds allocated to the show by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS. Additional funding comes from corporate underwriting and foundations. But for 14 years, Archer Daniels Midland was a major sponsor of the NewsHour, providing annually between $4-million and $7-million. Alas, they have gone on sabbatical. Two new underwriters, Chevron and Pacific Life, have generously stepped forward, but only part of ADM’s funding has been replaced.
Recently, The New York Times in a headline for a story about the program, said the “money woes are worst ever.” The story recounts funding difficulties for many of PBS’s programs. It goes on to report that a recent study undertaken by McKinsey found that corporations were no longer interested in long-term multiyear commitments to television programs but would consider shorter-term arrangements. Unsurprisingly, the effort to line up six different companies with four-month contracts takes far more initiative and energy than is needed to find one underwriter willing to commit to a two-year cycle. Those in the academy who routinely apply for and receive research grants can easily understand this problem.
Each night approximately 1.2 million viewers turn into The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. They come for the broad range of content, stability of format (Jim Lehrer has been on PBS since 1975), depth and reliability of information, and contrasting viewpoints. The show’s namesake and its many reporters and essayists, including Jeffrey Brown, Elizabeth Farnsworth, Kwame Holman, Gwen Ifill, Paul Solman, Ray Suarez, Margaret Warner, Judy Woodruff, and many others, represent a necessary respite in the days of news programs with crawling messages, shouting matches, and overblown punditry.
To some people, television — like newspapers and radio — seems to be an anachronism from an earlier age of communication. And, I will be the first to say that the NewsHour “reads” in a more traditional than breakthrough manner. Its insights, however, are often cutting edge even if its style is not. It is a staple of my household viewing, and I’d hate to see it fold. I hope you agree.
If you are a corporate executive or philanthropist, or you know a CEO or potential benefactor, please get this message out: Throw your support behind the NewsHour, and in doing so, you will help a nation maintain its roots, understand its politics, explain its social conscience, and unravel its mysteries. It is a complicated world out there, and for 60 minutes a night, five nights a week, this group patiently tries to tell the story.
