Outright Corruption at PBS Frontline Exposed: NPR Bias Just Tip of Establishment Media Iceberg

Caption: PBS Frontline editor Steve Audette admitting to outright corruption at Frontline. He tells his audience, “I’ll make you look good, just keep paying me.”

During the past two weeks, a story about the extreme anti-Trump bias of taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) has captured headlines and generated media buzz. On April 9, Uri Berliner, a business editor at NPR, published a detailed exposé in The Free Press titled, “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.”

In the piece, Berliner, who writes that he “eagerly voted against Trump twice,” nevertheless admits that because of its extreme bias, NPR doesn’t “have an audience that reflects America,” and that this is “devastating for [NPR’s] journalism and its business model.”

Berliner writes that the “rise of advocacy [at NPR] took off with Donald Trump.” He adds, “As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair.”

He also notes that coverage of President Trump at NPR “veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency,” and that NPR, during the establishment media’s yearslong fueling of the discredited “Russia collusion” hoax, “hitched [its] wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff,” interviewing Schiff more than two dozen times.

Berliner also writes that NPR’s leadership pointedly avoided reporting on the story broken by the New York Post in October 2020 regarding Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell,” adding that one NPR journalist “said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump” in the then-imminent 2020 presidential election.

Shortly after publishing the exposé, Berliner was hit with a five-day suspension without pay by NPR. He then resigned from NPR on April 17.

While the new piece by Berliner – which details why NPR garners “sorry levels of trust” among the American public – has received widespread media coverage, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to extreme bias and wrongdoing at establishment and taxpayer-funded media outlets.

I’ve recently published deeply reported pieces that expose explicit, outright corruption at PBS Frontline, in addition to extreme anti-Trump bias. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is, of course, the taxpayer-funded television counterpart to NPR, and Frontline is a long-running documentary series produced by PBS.

My pieces also detail the ongoing direct and vocal support of PBS Frontline by senior leadership at Columbia Journalism School (CJS), my alma mater.

PBS Frontline Editor: “I’ll Make You Look Good, Just Keep Paying Me.”

In my piece, “Anti-Trump, Columbia-Backed PBS Frontline Is Explicitly Corrupt, ‘Completely for Sale’,” I show how a longtime editor at PBS Frontline named Steve Audette explicitly admits to and demonstrates outright corruption in Frontline’s journalistic practices.

In a presentation to members of a Boston filmmaking and editing club, Audette – whose credits as an editor at Frontline go back to 1993 – shows the crowd how he shortens a video clip and covers up (in editing) an apparent factual error made by political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz in an interview for the 2017 Frontline documentary “Trump’s Road to the White House.”

Audette tells the crowd:

“As an editor, your job is to fix this stuff and to make them [certain interviewees, in this case, Luntz] look great, because if they look great, they hire you back. Right? It’s only financially, that’s my only motivation here. It’s like, you know, look, I’ll make you look good, just keep paying me. That’s easy.”

Caption (for preceding two screenshots): PBS Frontline editor Steve Audette explicitly admits to outright corrupt journalistic practices at taxpayer-funded Frontline. The logo of Boston’s WGBH, where Frontline’s senior editorial team and newsroom are headquartered, is seen on the presentation stage’s podium.

Later in the presentation, Audette shows how he uses shocking footage of a shirtless, tattooed, and shouting man in the street as a stand-in for what Audette falsely claimed that Trump represents. The same ugly footage of this man in the street, who presumably was not given an opportunity to pay Audette to make him “look good,” has been used in multiple Frontline documentaries, apparently for the purpose of painting Trump supporters with a negative brush.

Caption: Shocking footage used by PBS Frontline to smear Trump supporters.

The Spoils of Corruption at PBS Frontline

Audette – who is credited in productions that include “Trump’s American Carnage” and “American Insurrection,” among other Frontline documentaries that attempt to smear President Trump and his supporters – is now recently retired after decades as an editor at Frontline, and has been sailing up and down the East Coast on his yacht, the SV Angelfish.

For Audette, corruption has paid well, so far.

Caption: Steve Audette’s Twitter/X profile.

Caption (for preceding two screenshots): Screenshots from a video tour of Steve Audette’s yacht. A mug with PBS Frontline’s logo is seen in the galley.

No Accountability from PBS Frontline or Columbia Journalism School

In the presentation to the Boston filmmaking and editing club, Audette confirms the chain of command at PBS Frontline, stating: “We show it to the executive producer, Raney [Aronson-Rath] and Andrew Metz, the executive editor. Right? Then it becomes their film. Right? And we’re making whatever they want, we do.”

Deans and faculty members at my alma mater, Columbia Journalism School (CJS) – long considered a standard-setter in the field of journalism – have been direct and vocal supporters of PBS Frontline executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath (a CJS alumnus) and her outfit, despite Frontline’s explicit corruption under Aronson-Rath’s leadership as executive producer.

As just one example, among many, of support from CJS, Steve Coll, a CJS professor who was dean of Columbia Journalism School from 2013 to 2022, presented a once-in-a-decade duPont-Columbia “Gold Baton” award to Aronson-Rath for Frontline documentaries that specifically include, among others, “Putin’s Revenge” (Parts I and II), which attack President Trump while running cover for establishment Democrats. In an official CJS press release, Coll called Frontline – its explicit corruption notwithstanding – “a beacon for the values Columbia Journalism holds highest.”

Caption (for preceding two screenshots): Steve Coll, then dean of Columbia Journalism School, announcing a once-in-a-decade duPont Columbia “Gold Baton” award to PBS Frontline, which he presents to Frontline executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath, in 2019. Coll and Aronson-Rath are seen shaking hands.

Caption: Columbia Journalism School professor Steve Coll appearing as an interviewee in a 2023 PBS Frontline documentary.

Notably, Aronson-Rath has a pet phrase that she repeatedly recites during media appearances: “Corruption doesn’t show its face.”

For example, in a 2020 interview with the Baltimore Sun, Aronson-Rath repeated, “I always like to say at Frontline that corruption doesn’t show its face. So, corruption can run wild if there aren’t journalists on the case.”

Ironically, PBS Frontline under Aronson-Rath has explicitly shown its face as outright corrupt, yet there has been no accountability.

Caption (for preceding two screenshots): PBS Frontline executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath in a trailer for the 2021 Frontline documentary “American Insurrection.”

When I brought outright corruption at PBS Frontline to the attention of Jeff Clark, U.S. Assistant Attorney General from 2018 to 2021, he responded, “Thanks for highlighting that PBS’s Frontline is completely for sale.”

In January, Dr. Navarro posted my piece in American Thinker, “PBS Frontline ‘Completely for Sale,’” to Twitter/X, writing that it is indeed “the truth about @frontlinepbs.”

And following the publication of my pieces, which show how Frontline commandeers Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars for partisan bias and corruption, senior leaders at both Frontline and Columbia Journalism School effectively went into hiding, in an apparent attempt to avoid accountability. I show this in my piece, “CALL TO ACTION: ‘Completely for Sale’ PBS Frontline, Columbia Journalism School Are Fleeing Accountability. It’s Time to Stop Their Outright Corruption and Extreme Bias.”

Call to Action

We cannot rest. Accountability for explicit corruption and extreme bias at Frontline and Columbia Journalism School will not come without a fierce campaign.

To bring overdue reform and restore journalistic integrity, we need to proactively and relentlessly call out this corruption and bias. And we must demand full accountability from Frontline and Columbia Journalism School until it is delivered.

Compelling accountability from Frontline and Columbia Journalism School would be a righteous and monumental victory for journalism in the United States. It would be a game-changer that would make great strides toward leveling the media playing field.

If you would like to help compel accountability from PBS Frontline and Columbia Journalism School, please do the following:

·      Share this story with others via Substack, Twitter/X, Truth Social, Gettr, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

·      Bring this story to the attention of media outlets, including national publications, local newspapers, television stations, and others for wider coverage.

·      Contact your elected representatives who vote on government appropriations for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), through which Frontline receives taxpayer money.

In addition to this piece, the following is a consolidated list of my articles up to this time detailing outright corruption and extreme bias at PBS Frontline and Columbia Journalism School:

·      A short summary, “PBS Frontline ‘Completely for Sale’” in American Thinker.

·      A detailed, in-depth report, “Anti-Trump, Columbia-Backed PBS Frontline Is Explicitly Corrupt, ‘Completely for Sale’” in NewSentry, my Substack publication.

·      A follow-up piece, ““CALL TO ACTION: ‘Completely for Sale’ PBS Frontline, Columbia Journalism School Are Fleeing Accountability. It’s Time to Stop Their Outright Corruption and Extreme Bias,” in NewSentry.

Bonus: Dr. Navarro Calls Out PBS Frontline’s “Political B.S.”

Watch how Dr. Navarro successfully calls out hostile, unfair treatment during a PBS Frontline interview in August 2020, while serving as Defense Production Act policy coordinator in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Frontline interviewer attempts to ambush Dr. Navarro with a cheap shot regarding alleged ventilator delivery delays at one company. When Dr. Navarro indicates that what the interviewer is referencing is unclear, the interviewer attempts to have Dr. Navarro review, on the spot, what she says is a related invoice that she brought to the interview and did not provide to Dr. Navarro beforehand.

During the exchange, Dr. Navarro tells the interviewer:

“To me, that’s just garbage stuff. That’s just typical Democratic B.S. They’re playing politics with the lives of the American people. Stop that. Stop that…You’re just sitting there with papers saying, ‘Philips, Philips, Philips,’ and that’s not fair to me…Next time you want to do an interview with me, have the courtesy of giving me the material to study beforehand, because that’s just a cheap shot…That’s just pure political B.S., okay? That’s all you’re doing here. If you want to play that game and put it on the air, fine. But put this on the air: That’s just B.S.”

Adam Molon is a guest columnist for Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America and author of NewSentry, a Substack publication. Dr. Navarro has called Adam “a rising Young Gun in journalism.” Adam is on Twitter/X and Gettr @admolon and on Truth Social @NewSentry.

Peter Navarro’s Substack account, including all individual article posts, are temporarily being handled and managed independently of him.

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