Frontline is a so-called documentary series that appears from time to time on Public Broadcasting System (“PBS”) stations around the country, the most visible of which seems to be WGBH in Boston.
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PBS is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which is, in turn, funded entirely by federal tax money collected from the taxpayers in the form of an annual appropriation from Congress in the federal budget.
Some past Frontline pieces have been interesting, but some could easily be categorized as left wing propaganda.
A perfect example of the latter was first aired on October 20, just in time for the upcoming General Election. The piece was entitled “Whose Vote Counts,” and was supposedly written and narrated by “writer” Jelani Cobb, with acknowledged assistance from the Columbia University School of Journalism.
And as many people know, the Columbia University School of Journalism is generally credited with turning out many of the most vituperative left-wing so-called journalists who have ruined our mainstream media.
The entire focus of the “Whose Vote Counts” piece was efforts to debunk claims of voter fraud and to promote the idea that suppression of voters of color is endemic and part of the Republican Party’s playbook. The major focus was on the notion that requiring photographic proof of identity to register to vote and to vote constituted “voter suppression” engineered by Republicans.
The author did a long interview with Hans von Spakovsky, an attorney, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, the manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in Heritage’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. von Spakovsky is a widely respected authority on US election laws and voter fraud in the US. But the author of the Frontline piece tried hard to discredit anything von Spakovsky had to say, including airing a contrasting interview with the major election law litigator for the Democrat Party and interviews with a number of black “activists” in Wisconsin.
I have personally met and chatted with von Spakovsky at a Federalist Society forum shortly after the Citizens United decision came down from the SCOTUS. He was paired with a college professor on the board of the local ACLU, and much to the surprise of all in attendance, both of the participants agreed that the Citizens United decision was correctly decided, based on the First Amendment. von Spakovsky is no wild-eyed kook. He is a calm and experienced academic, a real gentleman, with many years of experience with US election laws and problems in our systems of voting.
If Frontline or any other such left-wing propaganda wants to be aired, let it be placed on MSNBC or CNN or their ilk. But Frontline/PBS/the Corporation for Public Broadcasting should not be funded and supported by tax money, using our own resources to advocate strongly for a left-wing point of view with which many of us definitely do not agree.
Congress should abolish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and, in any event, discontinue any funding of it with tax monies.
