PBS: America's "Most Trusted Institution" and its Coverage of Islam

by Denis MacEoin • February 12, 2015 at 5:00 am

PBS may also be charged with having broadcast religious propaganda in place of balanced educational, instructional, and public information material, despite elaborate claims to the contrary.

The Muslim Brotherhood, in a 1991 memoir, spoke of its "work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."

The role played by radical individuals in a PBS broadcast and website raises many serious questions, not just for the trustees of PBS, but for national agencies responsible for accuracy in the U.S. media.

If PBS does not publicly correct this confusion and revoke its association with the project, may we not ask just how trusted -- and publicly financed -- this outlet should really be?

Karen Armstrong, who provides the strongest voice in the film Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, comes across as a starry-eyed ingénue and the most devoted to Muhammad as a great man and a prophet. Her incompetence as a historian and her naivety in uncritical defense of her idol make her dangerous. (Image source: Video screenshot from Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet)

For more than ten years, the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut has singled out America's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as the country's most trusted public institution. A 2012 poll for PBS, carried out by independent survey consultants Harris Interactive and ORC Online Caravan found that public trust in PBS (at 26%) was far higher than in any other U.S. institution, such as the courts of law (13%), newspapers (6%), the Federal government (5%) or Congress (4%). That these figures have been consistent for so many years, would seem a strong indicator of PBS's publicly funded role at the heart of America's democracy. Almost 90% of US households with televisions watch PBS.

This resembles the situation in Great Britain, where the BBC also tops a poll on public trust: (31%) compared to the commercial channels (17%) and the upmarket press (15%), who come in second and third place, and well above politicians.

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