PBL: The Whole World is Watching, 1968

One of the issues that keeps returning frequently over the years is the question of media bias on television. I don't know precisely when this debate first started; certainly Spiro Agnew brought it to the fore during his vice presidency, but while accusations of a liberal bias had been around since the beginning of television, I think middle America may have first become conscious of it during the Vietnam War, particularly with the 1968 Democratic Convntion riots in Chicago. As protestors and police clashed, the crowd chanted over and over, "The whole world is watching."

Appropriately, NET's live Sunday night newsmagazine PBL takes that warning for the title of its in-depth look at the question of media bias and its implications. Thanks to the excellent YouTube channel btm0815ma, we can now see this rare documentary as it aired on December 22, 1968. The host is Robert MacNeil, formerly of NBC and later to be host of The MacNeil Report, which morphed into the long-running MacNeil/Lehrer Report. 

TV