Current (https://current.org/2004/05/page/3/)
San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman marks the 50th anniversary of KQED with a column excoriating PBS and its local member station: “Rarely has a media outlet lost pace with the needs and wants of its audience and been more in denial about it than PBS.”
A teacher in Utah was suspended after showing Frontline’s “Merchants of Cool” to middle school students. A school official told the Associated Press that the documentary, which examines marketing strategies used to target teenagers, is “clearly inappropriate.”
Ira Glass’s girlfriend tells the Houston Chronicle that Glass is “not the master storyteller he’s made out to be” and thinks too much about work. “But at the same time I want everyone to know that he’s taken, and you really don’t have a chance with him because you couldn’t possibly measure up to me.”
Film critic Elvis Mitchell, who recently left The New York Times, tells Journal-isms that he might not continue his weekly chats on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. (Via Romenesko.)
NPR’s decision to reassign Bob Edwards followed sound corporate strategy–and that’s a good thing, writes Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post. “If you don’t find a way to disrupt your own success, the theory goes, someone else will.” (Pearlstein discusses his column.)
Last week’s Frontline doc on President Bush’s born-again faith “appears to be a balanced look at the impact of faith on politics,” cautiously admits a writer for the conservative Focus on the Famiily website.
Louis Rukeyser, longtime host of Wall Street programs on public TV, has taken leave from TV for health reasons, the Baltimore Sun reported. Doctors said he needs treatment for a low-grade malignancy, CNBC said. Since October, guests have hosted Rukeyser’s CNBC program, carried on many public TV stations. Rukeyser promised to return, according to news reports.
Philadelphia’s WRTI-FM will use digital radio technology to offer two channels–full-time jazz and classical streams–on its one frequency. (PDF of a Philadelphia Inquirer article.)