PBS's Pontificator
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
PBS's Pontificator Whatever happened to Bill Moyers's promise to disclose conflicts of interest? BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Just to declare my interest at the outset: Bill Moyers and I have a history. I...
...That claim came on the October 18, 2002, episode of Now...
...He has gotten rich at "the public trough," producing shows partially financed by taxpayers and lining his pockets with the royalties (profiteering...
...MOYERS: How do people find out about the Center for Public Integrity...
...In 1999, the Florence Fund gave just two grants...
...In fact, Moyers's foundation has dramatically increased its funding over the past decade...
...But then he went straight, and in 1989 he founded the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, which makes him the loneliest man in Washington...
...It's a bit more complicated than Moyers would have us believe, of course...
...Conflict of interest...
...The video in question was also "Trading Democracy...
...I don't see that it's a conflict, but I do believe in disclosure," he told Frazier Moore, the television writer for the Associated Press, shortly after these questions were first raised...
...As soft jazz music drifted from the speakers, Moyers welcomed Lewis to the cozy confines of the Now studio...
...Much of what happens in Washington is a collaboration of likeminded people who work together to promote ideas and causes they believe in—in this, Moyers is no more sinister than those he targets on his show...
...Imagine how Moyers would react if, say, Rush Lim-baugh gave $1 million to the Heritage Foundation and then repeatedly interviewed its experts for his nationwide audience, and did so over a taxpayer-funded medium, like NPR...
...The dollar amount represents the total given from 1991, his first year as president of the Schumann Foundation, to 2001, as well as grants from the affiliated Florence Fund...
...Five weeks later, on May 10, 2002, Moyers featured the town, and the fight, on a special edition of Now, called "Kids and Chemicals...
...Leave aside for the moment Moyers's assertion that his high-dollar advocacy constitutes journalism...
...Moyers installed his son, John, as the executive director of the Florence Fund...
...Consider this report from the November 1, 1999, issue of a weekly newspaper called Current, devoted to covering public broadcasting: When Bill Moyers interviewed three campaign-finance-reform advocates for a PBS documentary aired in June, he didn't think to disclose that they had received grants from a foundation he runs...
...In a story this January about anti-SUV legislation in California, Moyers identifies White as simply an "environmental consultant...
...And it's quite a story we report, from the American Revolution to the epic battle between Jack Welch and the people up and down the Hudson who fought him tooth and toenail over PCBs dumped in the river by GE...
...These decisions affect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat...
...And leave aside, too, the rather amusing claim that there is no conflict of interest in conducting interviews with subjects who have received millions of dollars that you control...
...But the evidence is coming in that things are improving...
...Or take John White...
...LEWIS: Well,you can go to publicintegrity.org, that's our website...
...All of that would be his own business were it not for the fact that his show, which is a collaborative effort with National Public Radio, takes taxpayer money...
...We need to know what these bastards are up to...
...Is Moyers clueless about who receives the millions of dollars his foundation dispenses in grant money...
...One Schumann-funded outfit, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, laments the "conservative bias" on PBS...
...In the middle of a discussion of civil liberties, Moyers offered his viewers a solid representation of his relationship to Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, saying, "the foundation that I serve on has been a big supporter of yours, and you've been a big supporter of our journalism...
...Still, Moyers was defiant...
...Those views were hard to find in Moyers's report, which, like so many of his David-and-Goliath plot lines, created the impression that the combatants in this fight were suffering citizens and public-spirited environmentalists on one side, with an evil, polluting Big Corporation on the other...
...Nothing to cavil at there...
...In its campaign to "Stop Fast Track" free trade agreements, the club advises "friends of the environment" on how to "take action...
...The Public Agenda Foundation was a recipient of a two-year, $300,000 grant from the Schumann Foundation in 2001...
...Seems like a one-sided deal, doesn't it...
...A review of his PBS program since that statement shows that Moyers regularly interviews or cites research from his grant recipients but rarely acknowledges a financial relationship...
...MOYERS: Openness...
...One of them, for $54,000, went to the ozarks chapter of the Sierra Club for unspecified purposes...
...Not that any of this was mentioned...
...I'm sorry, we do...
...To his credit, Moyers offered a disclosure on air, at the start of his interview...
...The Florence Fund appears to meet its objective...
...It's a frequent Moyers theme...
...Tough choice—the beautiful outdoors or a powerful CEO who wants to pollute...
...That comment came in an April 2, 2002, press release from the chapter, just as the fight intensified over health repercussions and potential punishments, including one that had the company buying up homes in the vicinity of its Herculaneum, Mo., plant...
...And journalism ethics classes can debate his practice of interviewing grantees...
...In fact, I want my audience to know that many years ago when you were starting this center, the Schumann Foundation, which I head, was one of your important funders...
...Bill Moyers has done a documentary on PBS entitled: 'Trading Democracy,'" which you can order from Public Citizen "for $29.95 (plus shipping...
...Given all that, it would probably be simpler for him just to add game-show boilerplate to the end of his broadcasts ("promotional considerations have been paid to some of the guests on this show...
...Continued Moyers: "According to the watchdog group Public Citizen, power companies pushing for the law's repeal gave more than $15 million to federal candidates...
...Tauzin has asked the General Accounting Office to look into government-funded broadcasting, indicating a particular interest in Moyers and his refusal to let taxpayers know what's happening with their money...
...Hardly paid lip service to it, or just lip service to it...
...But at the end of the show, more evasion...
...According to the most recent publicly available IRS documents, Moyers gave the Center for Public Integrity $500,000 in both 1999 and 2000...
...Screen these videos in your homes for friends and neighbors and help generate letters on fast track to your elected officials...
...Later, the report complains, "PBS underwriting guidelines, while friendly to corporations, ban support from organized labor and public interest groups...
...Lewis and his center, Moyers continued, are among "the country's most respected analysts of money and power...
...Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has oversight of PBS...
...The gist of the piece was simple: Bill Moyers flagrantly indulges in the same conflicts of interest, Washington logrolling, and mutual back-scratching that he finds deeply objectionable in, well, everyone other than Bill Moyers...
...The Enron-like lack of transparency at PBS has caught the attention of Rep...
...That's been some time now, but I've been following the work you do and I have to begin by saying we haven't been very effective, have we, in reducing the influence of money in politics...
...Public Citizen is a frequent recipient of Schumann grants: $42,000 in 1999 to "fund a full-time investigative reporter to research and write on the nexus between special interest political contributions and the outcome of major domestic policy debates...
...We know about some of the relationships cited above only because Moyers identified the institutional ties...
...Moyers has disclosed at least some of his conflicts...
...Schumann didn't just fund the Center for Public Integrity "many years ago," and it certainly hasn't "been some time now" since Lewis and Moy-ers collaborated...
...Another resident, John Stockton, added: "Don't misunderstand...
...Here is a partial list of the groups Moyers has funded and featured on his show without disclosure...
...Weakening auto emissions standards...
...Number one is transparency...
...White was also a top lobbyist for the Schumann-funded Sierra Club, a group that pushed strenuously for the new legislation...
...In fact, from 1991 to 2001, the last year for which IRS records are available, Moyers's Schumann Foundation gave Public Citizen a total of $411,000...
...According to a CIPB analysis, "U.S...
...And there's one detail that he left out: In 2001, the Florence Fund paid $104,397 to something called "Citizens to Clean Up GE," which organized those "people up and down the Hudson...
...The claim wasn't true when he made it...
...Inconvenient questions—that's one thing Lewis did not get from Moyers...
...Just a few of the giveaways under consideration as part of the Bush energy bill now being hammered out by a Senate and House conference committee on Capitol Hill...
...I wrote an article about him ("PBS's Televangelist," February 25, 2002) that made Moyers mad...
...Not to worry...
...The group's statement of purpose describes, succinctly and precisely, what Bill Moyers has tried to do by blurring the distinction between his non-profit and public broadcasting roles: "To invigorate public debate by helping public interest groups put their messages and work products before larger audiences or to penetrate target audiences more deeply...
...What happened on the Hudson can happen elsewhere if people love something enough to fight for it...
...You know, conflict of interest—it's been meaningless the last couple of years on Wall Street and other places...
...Public Citizen can scratch backs, too, noting on its website: "It is not often that we advertise for TV programs, but we'll make an exception this time...
...Moyers asked Yankelovich about a topic close to Moy-ers's heart, a subject that animates much of his work with the Schumann Foundation and his advocacy on public television...
...But, as Charles Lewis, head of the Schumann-funded Center for Public Integrity, pointed out on Now with Bill Moyers last year, things are not always as they seem...
...Annenberg School of Communication—$100,000 Aspen Institute—$218,000 Brennan Center for Justice, NYU—$425,000 Center for Investigative Reporting—$803,000 Democracy 21—$200,000 Environmental Working Group—$234,000 Friends of the Earth—$166,500 Media Access Project—$125,000 The Nation Magazine—$135,000 Natural Resources Defense Council—$105,000 New America Foundation—$750,000 Public Agenda Foundation—$150,000 Public Citizen—$411,000 Sierra aub—$584,000 Union of Concerned Scientists—$335,000 World Resources Institute—$75,000 That's $4,806,000 over the past decade to groups that have gotten free PR on Moyers's show just in the past 16 months...
...They're not for disclosure...
...As the segment wound down, Moyers warned that rivers throughout the country are in jeopardy...
...Everyone says they're for disclosure," he said...
...He said that he always disclosed the fact when a Schumann grantee appeared on one of his programs...
...Once upon a time," he said, "Chuck Lewis was a television journalist...
...Yankelovich: "Yeah, and you know not only lapdogs, but become sort of interested in—their own doggie pursuits...
...Even as PBS executives tolerate Moyers's advocacy, he is busy working to move public broadcasting further left...
...Moments later, Moyers wondered incredulously at his guest's persistence...
...His last job was producing for 60 Minutes...
...But on the rare occasion it happens, and I know it, I make that fact public...
...At least once, Moyers needed to look no further than his own board of directors for an expert...
...The sweater-wearing host began with a soft-spoken warning about what, for him, must have been a horrifying possibility: "President Bush is off on a marathon trip raising funds for Republican candidates...
...I'm not willing to give up on democracy...
...Some of that pressure came from the state government in Missouri...
...Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Foundation, which provided assistance to the Center for Public Integrity in its formative stages...
...Drilling for oil in Alaska's pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge...
...Public Broadcasting: Structure and Programming," "large numbers of small stations in conservative pockets of the country exercise great influence over the national schedule...
...Transparency, these days, is getting scarcer, Moyers and Lewis agreed, with those who control political money doing everything they can to hide its influence...
...Thanksfor research assistance on this article is owed to intern David Hackett and to the Media Research Center in Alexandria, Virginia, where we plodded through more than 50 hours of Now with Bill Moyers...
...In one instance, Moyers encouraged his viewers to buy the next issue of the Nation for more information...
...But some of it came from the Schumann-funded Sierra Club chapter...
...Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...And on it goes...
...So when the watchdogs become lapdogs there's nobody to bark for the people who have been exploited...
...There were piles of documents— from IRS filings to internal records from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—that supported this conclusion...
...LEWIS: Well, I don't think it's too late to save democracy...
...As Moyers himself likes to say, I'm not making this up...
...Over the last decade, Moyers's foundation gave the Center for Public Integrity a total of $3,305,000...
...LEWIS: Openness...
...Their goal is to close down the smelter...
...As Herculaneum resident Jim Kasten told the St...
...And we need to start tracking them, we need to hold them accountable and we need to ask them inconvenient questions...
...I mean, why would they say that...
...That chapter of the environmental group has been doing battle for years with the Doe Run Chemical Company, which it claims "has been releasing lead and other toxins into the environment and endangering citizens...
...The PR he does for his grant recipients, and the research they do for him, makes that at least an open question...
...As Lewis complained about the insincerity of those who advocate disclosure, the show's producers plugged his organization on the bottom of the screen: "More on the Center for Public Integrity—PBS.org...
...Moyers is of course free to broadcast and fund whatever he wants...
...Moyers is on the board of Public Agenda...
...When The Weekly Standard asked Moyers in February 2002 about his continued funding of sources, he bristled: Yes, sometimes—not often—a Schumann Foundation grantee shows up in one of my programs...
...As he finished this thought, the identifier at the bottom of the screen reminded viewers that these were the views of "Daniel Yankelovich, Founder 'Public Agenda.'" One wonders if the show's executive editor, Judith Davidson Moyers, planned it as a clever bit of irony...
...Item 2—"Request a free copy of a stunning new documentary by Bill Moy-ers on NAFTA's corporate lawsuit...
...It's just a line they use...
...Public Agenda, a Yankelovich nonprofit that does polling on policy and social issues, "has long been at the forefront of social research on national issues," Moyers said...
...Special interests include the role of money in politics, the environment and media criticism...
...But who will watch the watchdog...
...On April 19, 2002, Moy-ers ended his show with a pitch for his latest PBS documentary, America's First River...
...MOYERS: [Some people] even say it's too late to save democracy [pause, bite lip], but you keep trying...
...The interview, to use a broad understanding of the term, was what one might expect from an exchange between the head of a foundation generous to left-wing causes and someone who has received millions from that foundation in the past and, presumably, would like to go on receiving more millions in the future...
...We're not defending Doe Run...
...Moyers ladled on the praise, describing Yankelovich as "the grand old man of listening, recognized the world over for careful and credible research on American values and public opinion...
...And while he demands strict disclosure of others in the public sector, Moyers rarely tells his viewers when his interview subjects are the recipients of his foundation's grants or discloses details of his own financial relationship with public broadcasting...
...All is not yet lost...
...Over spectacular footage of New York wilderness, a gentle voice floats from television sets across the country: "It's quite a river, the Hudson, flowing from near the Canadian border down past New York harbor to the Atlantic...
...With grants to left-wing groups and the creation of Tom-Paine.com (a frequent advertiser in this magazine), the fund has provided another voice to those who believe the Democratic National Committee, the Wilderness Society, and Peter Jennings are too conservative...
...Maybe the center's still in its formative stages...
...Typical was an interview with pollster Daniel Yankelovich, which aired on June 14, 2002...
...And if their work together has not been very effective, it's not for a lack of resources...
...This isn't the first time, or even the second time, Moyers has been caught funding his own sources...
...We won't give our critics another chance to ignore the journalism for their own purposes...
...They've done a miserable job, and they need to clean up...
...Take Pamela Gilbert, who in a Now episode last February on campaign finance was identified only as a lawyer and former director of the Consumer Product Safety Commission...
...Bottom line is, that's a lot of hooey...
...He ended on an optimistic note...
...In several cases, he aired stories reported, or at least co-reported, by grant recipients like the Nation and the Center for Investigative Reporting...
...Coming up in three weeks is one of the most important midterm elections ever, with control of public policy and the public purse at stake...
...Call it a half-disclosure...
...If Republicans take the Senate and the House, they will control the federal government lock, stock, and barrel for the first time in 50 years...
...Next time, I'll be sure to do so...
...Last October 4, Moyers began a segment of his weekly PBS news series Now with Bill Moyers with this rant: Out of sight and out of mind big energy producers are getting the deluxe treatment...
...In the fusillade of insults that he sent my way, one claim stuck out as something that could later be verified...
...Billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies [footage of energy plant...
...All we're saying is that we need to rely on good science, not scare tactics...
...It's as if the concept didn't even exist...
...A sampling: MOYERS: Is there any way to break the grip of money on politics...
...the concerns of democracy that interest me as a citizen also interest me as a journalist (just as, say, a prominent conservative columnist may have a penchant for baseball and write about it even while serving on the board of a major league team...
...It has had another consequence—it's now more difficult to trace the funding Bill Moyers directs to his work in public broadcasting...
...It should have occurred to me to identify them," he told Current last week...
...But surely he has since mended his ways...
...It's as if the concept didn't even exist...
...The company has until August to make its emissions legal...
...But she was also the chief congressional lobbyist for Public Citizen throughout the early 1990s...
...Another $75,000 in 2000 for "the Public Citizen Congress Watch investigative research program...
...In his dual roles as head of the $75 million Florence and John Schumann Foundation and PBS Pontificator-in-Chief, Moyers regularly interviews the people he funds (conflict of interest...
...What is more difficult to determine is how often Moyers relies on experts from organizations he has funded without telling his viewers...
...A further $204,000 in 2001 for "general support of Public Citizen's educational efforts...
...Shortly before Moyers's financing of the guests on his show first came under scrutiny in 1999, his Florence and John Schumann Foundation gave birth, with an initial grant authorization of $6,250,000, to another grantmaking organization known as the Florence Fund...
...You and I have been kindred spirits and allies on this issue of money and politics for a long time now...
...Moyers came closest to providing the sort of disclosure he's always promised when Lewis appeared on his show on February 7, 2003...
...As he wrapped up the show, Moyers told his viewers that, "under pressure, Doe Run agreed to buy 160 homes...
...Louis Post-Dispatch on April 21, 2002: "our kids are being used as political pawns by the Coalition for the Environment and the Sierra Club...
...Bill Moyers isn't the victim of unfair attacks, as he would have us believe...
...I mean, we're still living, aren't we, we're still breathing...
...Well, not exactly...
...Not surprisingly, Moyers didn't like the scrutiny...
...The Sierra Club, another Schumann grantee, similarly shills for Moyers...
...We don't know how much because PBS doesn't reveal funding for individual programs...
...When America's First River ran a week after Moyers promoted it on Now, the special prominently featured environmental activist Bill McKibben, who earned $25,000 in 2000 and 2001 for his work on the Schumann Foundation...
...Any politician that's standing for office that has any entity that's secretly raising millions of dollars needs to be outed and they need to, they have a lot of explaining to do to the American people...
...He just refuses to practice what he preaches...
...Who said that...
...Courtesy of Moyers, Public Citizen gets a lot of money and, courtesy of PBS, it gets publicity for its work...
...LEWIS: I think the way to break—there are basic things that are, I think, rather common sense...
Vol. 8 • June 2003 • No. 38
