The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is the parent organization of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) received $525 million in taxpayer dollars for fiscal 2024. The Corporation has been the subject of a lot of well-deserved criticism over the years, for reliably taking a leftist slant in their programming while soaking up taxpayer money. Now, in the latest example of the rampant leftism on the part of PBS, they are promoting a "news" network founded by a "scrappy group of women and LGBTQ+ activists." I'm sure they are reporting impartially, right?
“Breaking the News,” the latest entry in PBS’s documentary series “Independent Lens,” celebrated the 2020 launch of leftist journalism start-up The 19th* (asterisk included), which became a popular source for the most woke of PBS NewsHour journalistic guests.
The doc’s creators are clearly on the same wavelength with the feminist, LGBTQ-oriented site. From the “About” page:
Who decides which stories get told? A scrappy group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists buck the white male-dominated status quo, banding together to launch The 19th*, a digital news startup aiming to combat misinformation….
"Misinformation," as defined by the left, is "any information we don't agree with," of course. This is touted as a "news startup," in which the people starting this network have, at the outset, abandoned any pretense of impartiality.
This is not a news network; this is a propaganda outlet.
It opened with Emily Ramshaw, former Texas Tribune editor and co-founder of The 19th* at home with her husband David -- wincingly identified as “He/Him” on screen. Stuck at home in March 2020 during COVID, she's talking to a white male potential funder about how women are underrepresented in the industry.
As for that pretentious asterisk? Let editor-at-large Errin Haines explain(?).
Haines: I work in a newsroom that's named for the 19th Amendment but with an asterisk in our logo for the omission of the black women, who were, frankly, sacrificed so that white women could get their access to the ballot. What have they done with it? You know, used that access largely to uphold systems of patriarchy and oppression, right? So, you know, that is a dynamic that persists, and it's a dynamic that we have to confront.
Notice all the woke buzzwords; if this was woke bingo, this would nail the bingo call in one go. In one paragraph they nail all the talking points: the sacrifice of "people of color," patriarchy, oppression, and all of the woke shibboleths.
See Related: Texas College Forced to Backpedal After Firing Biology Professor for Teaching Truth About Men and Women
Putin's Russia Tackles the 'My Little Pony' Threat
Note that the First Amendment, of course, allows this and protects the rights of the founders and commentators of "The 19th*" to spew whatever nonsense they choose. But the promotion of this network by a PBS program is another story.
The Public Broadcasting System has no business promoting propaganda, left, right, or anything else. If there is to be any media outlet that is funded, even in part, by taxpayer dollars, it should be impartial, and devoted only to reporting facts. PBS and NPR have been none of those things, not now, not ever.
"The 19th*" is giggle-inducing; never has woke been so... woke. The Babylon Bee couldn't even parody these people; they are already beyond the bounds where anyone could make them look any more ridiculous than they do themselves. But PBS is wrong in celebrating this network.
The answer? Defund PBS. Defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They are products of another time, and with today's wealth of alternative media taking every viewpoint imaginable, there's no reason for the American taxpayer's money to fund a leftist propaganda outlet.
