There is a type of reporting I jokingly refer to as "search engine journalism." A reporter gets a tip from a source or maybe has a hot take they want to post and needs some semi-verification. So they plug several terms into a search engine, looking for links they can point to that suggest they have reported the consensus opinion.
Aside from the fact that the approach by its nature ignores any source that doesn't fit the reporter's pre-conceived beliefs, it also can lead the reporter down some truly dumb rabbit holes. They find a couple of out-of-context data points online and because they don't have the expertise to determine what they mean (or the lack of ego to ask someone who knows), they end up creating a story that on its face makes a lot of sense. But it is also a ludicrous take on the topic, if the reader has even the slightest bit of knowledge on the subject.
This brings me to yesterday's piece EXCLUSIVE: PBS Disappears DEI Department in Wake of Free Press Investigation, which was written by Josh Code for the outlet The Daily Press.
If you're not familiar with The Daily Press, it's a news outlet founded by journalist Bari Weiss. She worked at several publications - including the Wall Street Journal. But she came to national prominence during her 2017-2020 stint at The New York Times. She wrote a series of pieces that seemed designed to irritate the Left, including 2018's "We're All Fascists Now", in which she argued that members of the left-wing are increasingly intolerant of alternate views, presenting varied examples, which included a fake Antifata account on Twitter.
In 2020, she resigned from The New York Times, arguing the newspaper failed to support her from criticism on the Left. She also claimed the outlet had engaged in "unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge."
As is almost always the case with critics of the mainstream media, Weiss turned that high-profile exit into a moneymaking opportunity. In 2021, she started the Substack newsletter "Common Sense," which she later renamed The Free Press.
And now that you're caught up, let's go through parts of this story and see where it went horribly wrong:
Just before 5 p.m. on Monday afternoon, PBS CEO Paula Kerger sent a staff-wide email announcing the departure of the company’s two DEI executives: “To ensure that we are complying with the President’s Executive Order we have closed our DEI office, and Cecilia Loving and Gina Leow are leaving PBS. I know you join me in wishing them well in their future endeavors.”
The message announcing the departure of Loving, the senior VP of DEI, and Leow, the director of DEI, continued: “I know that this will raise many questions for people across the organization and look forward to discussing this in more depth at the upcoming All Staff meeting on Wednesday.”
But the timing of the announcement raised several eyebrows in our newsroom. That’s because earlier this morning, we wrote to PBS asking them about a tip we received from a high-ranking executive at the network. The tipster had told us that PBS was planning to move both Loving and Leow to the network’s station services department in order to skirt Trump’s executive order calling for the elimination of DEI-focused positions and grants from government-funded institutions.
If conservative media journalists have one thing in common, it's their belief that everyone else is scared of them. And they look for any indication their targets are frightened. Even if the proof is more wishcasting than anything else.
While Code is smart enough not to explicitly claim that PBS released the two women because executives learned the avenging Daily Press was on the case, that is certainly the implication.
But does that make any sense? I don't have any inside information on the decision-making process at PBS. But it's hard to imagine that the two women were slated to stay at the network until the email arrived from The Daily Press. Then within hours, the division was closed and the two women were moving on.
Honestly, it's much more likely (by perhaps a 98/2 probability) that the decision was already in the works and the email from The Daily Press just happened to hit on the same day the decision was to be announced. This seems to be the best scenario, especially given the fact that as much as I appreciate PBS, it is not known as a nimble, fast decision-making organization. The odds this was all done in 3-4 hours seems...unlikely.
Also, I'm perplexed by the allegation that PBS wanted to "hide" Loving and Leow in a different department. It's not as if the two were running a pirated movie website and moving them would allow them to continue to break the law in a different setting. They were in charge of the PBS DEI efforts. And unless you're trying to make the argument that working in DEI is by its nature a firing offense, what difference does it make if the two women are moved to a different department?
“The employee population at PBS loves DEI,” the high-ranking source told The Free Press. “They’re unwilling to change; they’re unwilling to adjust; they’re unwilling to make concessions in order to protect the sustainability of PBS. Instead, they were trying to play chicken and move things around and try different things to circumvent the executive order.”
This story seems to rely on a single source at PBS. Which is not the norm for most well-reported stories. And while we don't know who the source is, it's clear they REALLY hate DEI and diversity efforts at the network.
And let me just say the word "investigation" in the headline is doing a lot of work. Based on the published story, the "investigation" seems to be:
a) Unhappy anti-DEI employee contacts the Daily Press
b) The reporter sends out a few emails asking questions
c) Reporter looks up publicly-available data online
d) A takedown is born
During her tenure, Loving introduced weekly “meditation Mondays” and regular “Indigenous healing circles” for PBS employees to “resolve conflict” and “create a safe space for courageous conversations,” according to a 2023 internal PBS DEI presentation obtained by The Free Press. The presentation states that “the vulnerability, intimacy, and trust developed through the safe container of circles supports our endorphin system, which in turn stimulates more trust.”
The high-ranking source told The Free Press that Loving spoke “like she was at a pulpit,” using the language of spirituality to bring a moral heft to her DEI sessions. Slide decks from Loving’s presentations encouraged leaders to “anoint” employees, which would help other team members “view them as worthy.”
As Loving’s second-in-command at PBS, Leow was responsible for “coordination of the DEI Council and related committees, employee resource groups, DEI messaging and events, employee training and education, and restorative justice practices,” according to the podcast Leadership Story Talks. Loving and Loew coauthored the 2024 book Connecting Through Circles, and also worked together at the DEI office for the New York City Fire Department before joining PBS.
Honestly, a lot of this sounds a little silly. Which I suspect is the point. I have a feeling that if I was able to speak with Loving or Leow, their take on this would be quite different. But let's be clear, none of this was illegal and there are no allegations that the two women were scamming anyone. A critic can make a pretty good case that their salaries might have been out of line with what they may have contributed to the success of PBS. But that's a judgment that can't be made by listening to podcasts and looking up bios on the Internet.
Meanwhile, there is another question hanging in the air for the network: By hiring and promoting staffers based on race, did it break the law? In 2023, PBS boasted that 68 percent of its programming was BIPOC or “diversity-related,” and that BIPOC employees comprised 48 percent of new hires, while women accounted for 75 percent of new hires. “Race is a major determining factor in decision-making,” the high-ranking source said. In 2024, when a round of layoffs led to the dismissal of 24 employees and the closure of seven vacant positions, “the DEI budget was untouched,” the source said.
Ah, that magical source. I don't think there is a question hanging in the air at all. From what I can tell, the hiring was done according to the guidelines and laws in place at the time. Unless Code is suggesting the government should retroactively punish companies who hired employees in a way that conflicts with the new Trump Administration policy.
PBS CEO Kerger has been summoned to appear before the House’s DOGE committee in March. In a letter to Kerger, committee chair Marjorie Taylor Greene complained of the organization’s “blatantly ideological and partisan coverage” and described the hearing as an “opportunity for you to explain to Congress and the American people why federal funds should be used for public television—particularly the sort of content produced by PBS.”
Let me just say that it's a good thing Marjorie Taylor Greene is not asking me to testify at her hearing. I'd love to hear what PBS programming Greene thinks is "partisan." If she was forced to cite specific programs, I suspect there would be a lot of focus on animated PBS Kids programming that has diverse characters. And I am eager to discuss whether or not that's a great idea.
Meanwhile, some of PBS’s diversity-focused programming—paid for by the National Science Foundation (NSF)—will also likely take a hit under Trump’s executive order. The NSF is currently braced for the possibility that the president, with Congress’s permission, will cut its 1,600-member staff in half and its budget by two-thirds. In 2024, the NSF awarded the following grants to PBS:
- $2.9 million for a children’s TV show aiming to “improve boys’ and girls’ perceptions of female scientists”—$1 million of which has already been disbursed.
- $1.3 million to “allow Indigenous journalists to challenge existing narratives about climate change”—$416,000 of which has already been disbursed.
- $1.3 million for a documentary about deaf NASA engineers aiming to “open the public’s eyes to how diverse peoples contribute to science in unique and extraordinary ways,” which has not yet been disbursed.
First of all, these three grants were not "grants to PBS." They were grants awarded to organizations that were planning to produce programs slated to appear on some or all of the country's PBS stations.
The first grant was awarded to the University of Rhode Island and among other things, it would be used to produce eight 11-minute episodes of the animated series Elinor Wonders Why.
Grant number two was awarded to PBS's DC outlet WETA and was slated to be used to produce programming under the collaboration of the PBS News Hour and ICT (formerly known as Indian Country Today). Among other things, it would create the nation's first climate news desk that focused on Native American issues.
Grant number three was awarded to Gallaudet University, which is a leader in education for the deaf. So once again, despite what the story claims, the money is not "going to PBS."
It's true that if the current cutbacks across the federal government hold, there will be a very noticeable impact on PBS programming. It's not just the money that is directly contributed to PBS, its stations, or its programming partners. The cuts will also impact many of the organizations that are providing some of the underwriting for PBS programming. If an organization finds its federal funding will be cut by 40%, one of the first things that go away is underwriting for TV and digital programming, because that money will now be required just to keep the organization solvent.
An internal memo from PBS CEO Kerger obtained by The Free Press confirmed that Trump’s recent executive action would impact NSF grant-funded programming at the network, though she did not specify which programs were at risk of losing funds. Loving and Leow did not respond to emails requesting comment from The Free Press. As of press time, Kerger had not responded to a request for comment through Jason Phelps, PBS’s senior director of external communications.
As I said, the "exclusive" is basically one disgruntled source and a bunch of unanswered emails. Which happens to every journalist. But touting that as some "exclusive" that made PBS back down in fear borders in idiocy. On the other hand, when the main point of your journalism is to score some political points, you take what you can get.
