Anyone who wonders about the charge of liberal bias freezing out conservative viewpoints on PBS should look at the Lehrer NewsHour’s Media Unit. Once again, in a segment featuring departing New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent and Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler, the topic quickly goes from the usual self-protective media blather about an “animus” against journalists (as opposed to the “animus” OF journalists) to how all the media’s failings are about being too soft on George W. Bush. Smith didn’t ask about conservative complaints against the Post or the Times. Typical. Conservative media criticism isn’t allowed, but criticizing the liberal media from the left is acceptable (a panel including Michael Massing can be found just by clicking the links on the Okrent-Getler transcript.)

How many times has Lehrer’s Media Unit allowed another point of view, that a liberal-dominated media is biased against President Bush and other conservatives? Since they began in 1998, a little research shows two mentions of the term “liberal bias” — a 2002 debate between Bernard Goldberg and Marvin Kalb (both former colleagues of Terence Smith at CBS) and a question to an all-liberal panel just after the vote in 2000: Marvin Kalb, Bill Powers, and Tom Rosenstiel. Has the Media Research Center ever been featured, interviewed, even mentioned? No. Accuracy in Media? No. The Media Institute? No. David Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture? No. They are deaf, dumb, and blind about conservative media criticism.

Ken Tomlinson is wrong to highlight the Lehrer show as the role model of fairness on PBS: until it allows someone to speak out about liberal media bias, they’re just another liberal media program comfortably talking amongst themselves in an insular bubble.