Recent quotes:
WNET officials also once again refused to address questions about why they did not explicitly disclose Arnold’s funding of the pension programming. Pando previously reported that PBS only mentioned Arnold in a long list of funders at the beginning of a few PBS shows, but did not mention that Arnold was explicitly funding PBS’s pension series. In its new response, WNET pointed to just three generalized mentions as alleged proof that it disclosed their Arnold relationship. However, those officials had no comment about why they did not explicitly disclose to viewers the direct funding of the pension programming. They also did not address why they omitted any reference of Arnold in its promotional materials announcing the series.
PBS rules prohibit corporate, political or ideological interests from financing programming that directly involves those interests’ agendas. According to PBS’s website, the rules do this to prevent the entire frame of said programming from “pre-ordaining” conclusions and systemically skewing coverage in an ideological direction.
The “Pension Peril” series, funded by the anti-pension billionaire John Arnold, is a good example of how such skewing works to bias news coverage and suppress contextualizing facts.