Current (https://current.org/2003/03/)
NPR’s round-the-clock war coverage has some listeners restless. “You’re neither Fox nor CNN, and shouldn’t pretend or aspire to be,” writes one. But NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin writes that NPR’s “normal” coverage may not resume for some time–and may really have ended Sept. 11, 2001.
“When real drama is going on in the world, people are less interested in watching the drama created in reality television shows.” The New York Times reports on how the Iraq war is affecting the reality genre.
“I got writers’ block. I had no ideas whatever. It was like a mild depression.” The Los Angeles Times profiles British television dramatist Andrew Davies. The conclusion of his latest adaptation, George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, airs on Masterpiece Theatre tonight.
War coverage on NPR calls for sensitive music selection and a possible cutback on April 1 hijinks, reports the L.A. Times.
Satirist Barry Crimmins details his square-peg encounter with public radio’s On Point: “That’s right; NPR was soliciting me to satirize democracy for showing signs of vibrancy.”
Does it make sense to stop advertising during war? Two pubcasters weigh in on the question posed by an AdAge.com opinion poll.
Radio-Television News Directors Association announced regional winners of its 2003 Edward R. Murrow Awards.
The “cover-all-sides style” of the BBC’s war coverage has brought “a steady fusillade of criticism,” reports Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post. Nearly 230 public TV stations carry BBC World, a global news broadcast.
War led organizers to postpone nationwide protests of NPR’s Middle East coverage. Scheduled for tomorrow, the protests were to take place at NPR member stations.
Laura Rothenberg, 22, died last week after her body rejected a new pair of lungs. Rothenberg recorded an audio diary of her struggle with cystic fibrosis and the resulting piece aired on NPR’s All Things Considered. Producer Joe Richman remembered her, as did The New York Times.
Northern Michigan University is cutting its budget in response to state financial woes–and its public TV and radio stations are on the chopping block.
Bill Moyers’ Becoming American: The Chinese Experience is a “model documentary that gets almost everything right,” says a New York Times reviewer. “It crams nearly two centuries of tangled Chinese-American history into a few engrossing hours while remaining surprisingly light on its feet.”
An anti-war activist believes he was dismissed by NPR’s Scott Simon in a recent on-air interview.
Pacifica continues to land coverage with its antiwar slant, an oddity on any radio dial, this time with a write-up in the Wall Street Journal.
Two public radio news directors are among the journalists who tell the Poynter Institute’s Jill Geisler how they’re covering the war. And MJ Bear, former v.p. of online at NPR, is reviewing war coverage on her site.
The NewsHour performs “a quadruple double correction with three half-twists” for Fox News Sunday With Tony Snow, reports the Washington Post. (Scroll down.) Online NewsHour posted the correction with transcripts and real audio of Terence Smith’s original report.
A Mighty Wind, the latest improv comedy from Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best of Show), culminates with a spoof of a public television special. Harry Shearer, host of public radio’s Le Show, also stars.
Following in the footsteps of This American Life, To the Best Of Our Knowledge goes Hollywood. Listen to the trailer for TTBOOK: The Movie. (RealAudio required.)
For now, at least, NPR is keeping correspondent Anne Garrels in Baghdad, reports The Washington Post.
On the Media’s Bob Garfield had a little run-in with Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson–over a bagel.