Many in academia and the mainstream media roundly criticized NET. For instance, the "Columbia Journalism Review" observed in 1994 that it spurned "broadcast journalism's caveat against partisan news programming... One-third of the programs on NET are produced by 'associate broadcasters' -- organizations handpicked by Weyrich to share NET's airtime. Among the dozen associate broadcasters on NET are Accuracy in Media, the National Rifle Association, and the American Life League, an anti-abortion group. Though these programs can look like 'Discovery Channel' documentaries, they are in fact unrestrained, unfiltered, political infomercials."