PBS: Behind the Screen

National Review, Feb 10, 1997 by Neal B. Freeman

Jarvik is on shakier ground when he turns to The Advocates and Buckley. He seems to see the former -- a weekly, live debate that aired during the Seventies -- as no more than a short-term concession to new Republican influence in Washington. Perhaps that was the plan back at Liberal Master Control. But in the event, something of much greater consequence occurred. When conservatives were given half the airtime before a national television audience, a funny thing happened: conservative viewers watched, thundered their approval, and began to demand access to a hundred other electronic platforms. It was quite simply the first time in the television age that a conservative voice had been institutionalized in the elite media. (Jarvik notes that I was a consultant to the program. My only useful contribution was to nominate as the conservative advocate the incandescent William A. Rusher.)

Jarvik strays even further afield when recounting the history of Firing Line. He states flatly that Buckley was, is, and will be a PBS token. Further, he seems to believe that Buckley was in some way duped or paid off to provide cover for the ongoing liberal plot. I have it on good authority that Buckley harbored suspicions early on about the prevailing ideological drift at PBS. And after the more than 25 years that Firing Line has been on the air, the file is now bulging with evidence of who used whom for what. Bill Buckley's conservative views reached more people on Firing Line than through his speeches, his columns, or the pages of NATIONAL REVIEW. The program became an important voice in the national conversation and a critical component in the revival of conservative political fortunes.

Van Gordon Sauter, the former head of CBS News, writes in the introduction to PBS: Behind the Screen: "Journalists tend to treat PBS with a sufferance that borders on the devotional." That's quite true in most cases, but not at all true of Mr. Jarvik. In this quietly outraged book, he asks all the tough questions and answers many of them.