The Promise and the Product: A Textual-Critical Analysis of Public Television's NewsHour

Abstract

The rhetoric surrounding the creation of American public television promised a new system that would provide the American people with an excellence and freedom never before offered on television. This study critiques public television's primary news program, the NewsHour, in light of the rhetorical promise and sociopolitical limitations surrounding American public television. It concludes that the NewsHour has rejected the ideal of freedom for one of excellence, an excellence that implicitly supports the assumptions of broadcasting's corporate liberal heritage.