Quick Takes

PBS responds to criticism over Schultz bio “Turmoil and Triumph”

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Several hundred e-mails landed in PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler’s in-box regarding the three-part doc “Turmoil and Triumph: The George Schultz Years,” running this month on PBS (image, PBS). Viewers raised many of the same issues that media watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) did regarding the laudatory tone of the film as well as funding closely linked to the former Secretary of State — particularly by the Bechtel Foundation, where Schultz was president for seven years.In response, PBS told Gelter in part: “No PBS funder is permitted to exercise editorial control over content. This is the most important consideration in our underwriting policies. . .

Quick Takes

Jesse Thorn bans himself on principle

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Jesse Thorn, host and creator of The Sound of Young America, speaks up for humor on public radio by announcing that Mississippi Public Broadcasting can’t air his program unless and until it resumes broadcasts of Fresh Air, the NPR talk show that MPB Radio dumped because of “gratuitous discussions on issues of an explicit sexual nature.” Fresh Air is “one of the best radio shows in the world,” Thorn writes, and its editorial standards have been acknowledged with Peabody and Murrow awards. “This incident is of particular concern to us here at The Sound of Young America not just because we create a show with a format similar to Fresh Air’s, or because Terry Gross is a personal hero of mine, but also because much of our show is focused on humor, and that seems to be the real target of the ban,” Thorn writes. Comedian Louis CK, whose recent appearance on Fresh Air reportedly spurred MPB’s cancellation, “is, in my professional opinion, the single most insightful, ‘meaningful’ comic working today, and he is no less insightful and ‘meaningful’ in an interview context.” By dissing Louis CK, MPB perpetuates the “age-old falsehood that the work of a comedian, because it’s funny, doesn’t ‘contribute to or meaningfully enhance serious-minded public discourse.'” The Sound of Young America, a weekly interview-based radio series distributed by Public Radio International, airs on about 25 public radio stations, and MPB Radio isn’t among them.

Quick Takes

Alcoa files request for docs from UNC-TV

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Citing North Carolina’s Open Records laws, Alcoa Aluminum Inc. wants UNC-TV — licensed to the University of North Carolina — to turn over all reporting documents relating to its North Carolina Now segments titled, “Alcoa and the Yadkin River.” UNC-TV spokesman Steve Volstad told Current that station attorneys will “abide by the letter of the law,” and are still researching the request. There’s a great deal of information at stake, including anything related to reporter Eszter Vajda’s research into Alcoa’s request for a new 50-year lease of four hydroelectric dams in the state.UNC-TV earlier this month (July 6) provided that information to its state legislature as part of its investigation into the dam lease renewal. UNC-TV attorneys decided that state law required public agencies to turn over information sought by any legislative committee, and they didn’t think the request fell under the state’s 1999 press shield law that protects journalists from having to disclose information not yet disseminated.In a July 9 press release, Alcoa President Rick Bowen said, “We don’t have any desire to enter into the editorial process or challenge the freedom of the press, but UNC-TV has openly acknowledged that it is a state agency. Given the story’s inherent bias, the inclusion of undocumented claims against Alcoa, the fact that the segment aired with a disclaimer at the beginning and end acknowledging that for the first time ever the station abandoned its customary editorial review process, along with UNC-TV’s decision to permit Sen. Fletcher Hartsell to use its unpublished video as a blatant political tool, we want to learn more about how this story was developed and who influenced the content.”The release says the request covers “all video footage as well as all unedited, edited and final versions, photographs, compilations, and related materials as well as all communications and/or correspondence sent or received by Eszter Vajda or any other employee or representative of UNC-TV since January 1, 2008.”

Quick Takes

“Tenth Inning” debuts today at Dartmouth

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Documentarian and baseball fan Ken Burns will premiere his latest film, “The Tenth Inning,” today (July 16) at Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center for the Arts, reports The Dartmouth newspaper. The original 1994 “Baseball” series ran nine episodes and covered the history of the sport from the Civil War to 1992. The sequel, produced with filmmaker Lynn Novick (both above), focuses on recent developments in the sport. It’ll have its broadcast premiere Sept. 28 on PBS.

Programs/Content

MPB listeners, blogosphere want to know: What’s inappropriate about ‘Fresh Air’?

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Why did Mississippi Public Broadcasting drop Fresh Air from its radio schedule? The blog “A Unitarian Universalist Minister in the South” set off a blogosphere chain reaction yesterday by speculating that the “recurring inappropriate content” cited by MPB Radio Director Kevin Farrell must be the show’s willingness to treat homosexuals as normal people, not the “evil incarnate bent on destroying the American dream, baseball and apple pie, too.” MPB Executive Director Dr. Judith Lewis didn’t get into the details in a statement issued late yesterday, after Gawker and the Huffington Post had picked up on the story. “Too often Fresh Air’s interviews include gratuitous discussions on issues of an explicit sexual nature. We believe that most of these discussions do not contribute to or meaningfully enhance serious-minded public discourse on sexual issues,” she said.

Quick Takes

PBS once again tops News and Documentary Emmy nominations

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The Los Angeles Times said that PBS “flexed its usual strength” when the News and Documentary Emmy nods were announced today (July 15) and the network received 37. Frontline scored four and Frontline/World, three; Nova and P.O.V. each had four; and Bill Moyers Journal, which ended this year, received three. “Mosque at Morgantown,” one of the “America at a Crossroads” series funded by CPB, also is in the running. The 2010 lifetime achievement award goes to noted documentarian Frederick Wiseman, perhaps best known for his groundbreaking 1967 cinema verite “Titicut Follies.” Several of his 30 films ran on PBS, including “Domestic Violence” and “High School.”

Quick Takes

Online nonprofit donations are up

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Online donations to nonprofs are up 23 percent this March, April and May over the same time last year, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving keeps tabs on nearly 1,800 nonprofit organizations with combined donations of $400 million annually. It found that groups with annual budgets of more than $10 million saw Internet donations grow 28 percent during that period compared to last year; those with budgets of $1 million to $10 million rose 21.3 percent; and those with budgets of less than $1 million grew 13.1 percent.

Quick Takes

National Press Club Awards for pubcasters

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NPR’s David Folkenflik, State of the Re:Union creator Al Letson, and PBS’s Frontline are public broadcasting’s winners in this year’s National Press Club Awards. The Press Club honored Folkenflik for press criticism in “Why GQ Doesn’t Want Russians to Read its Story”; Letson for “Brooklyn: Change Happens,” an episode of the series spawned by via CPB’s Public Radio Talent Quest initiative; and Frontline for consumer journalism in The Card Game, a documentary reported by Lowell Bergman and coproduced with the New York Times.

Quick Takes

“Prison Valley” documentary starts on innovative website

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A unique nonfiction film that its producers call “a road movie on the web” is getting attention within the indie production world, according to the Independent, a news site for media makers. Viewers interested in “Prison Valley” sign into Twitter, Facebook, or create an account on the film’s site. Then the movie, from French producers David Dufresne and Philippe Brault, begins in a car driving along Skyline Drive in Cañon City, Colo., heading toward an area that’s home to 13 prisons. There are opportunities to take detours into additional interactive content, and visitors see the names of others who are watching. Some 1,000 people tuned in its first day online.

Quick Takes

FCC spectrum inventory now under way

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An inventory of “existing spectrum allocation, assignment and utilization” is already under way, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a letter to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). Broadcasting & Cable reports that a bill mandating the inventory by the FCC and National Telecommunications and Information Administration has passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate. The FCC soon will vote on a proposal to free spectrum in the mobile satellite services band for terrestrial broadband. Then, probably sometime during the next few months, will begin reclaiming 120 MHz of broadcast spectrum for that broadband.

Quick Takes

BBC ramps up online news service for American audiences

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BBC Worldwide is about to launch a news website for American audiences, BBC.com, according to Advertising Age. The site, produced by a staff of ten journalists based in Washington, D.C., will cover politics and general news, and is expected to go live today. “[T]his latest effort is part of the company’s ambitions to nab more U.S. online media dollars, and the inception of BBC.com underscores the importance of original content to that strategy,” Ad Age reports.

Quick Takes

Noncom and com media should join for international service, author says

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America needs one news service to broadcast internationally, drawing on the strengths of both public and commercial media, writes Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University, in today’s (July 14) Wall Street Journal. America’s broadcast news industry was designed to have private owners operating within public regulations. Currently, “American journalism is not just the product of the free market, but of a hybrid system of private enterprise and public support,” he writes. In today’s globalized world, other countries have strong national media: The BBC in Britain, China’s CCTV and Xinhua news, and Qatar’s Al Jazeera. But news broadcast internationally from the United States originates from Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — developed during war “as tools of our anticommunist foreign policy,” Bollinger said.

Quick Takes

WNET online game brings Revolutionary Boston to teens

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WNET/Thirteen will launch on Sept. 21 “Mission U.S.,” the first in a series of educational online games targeting “teens and tweens” nationwide, according to a press release. It’s part of CPB’s $20 million American History and Civics initiative, which was announced in 2005 and funded seven grantees in 2007 (Current, July 9, 2007). The first of 10 “missions” is “For Crown or Colony?,” which takes place just before the American Revolution in Boston. Players follow Nathaniel Wheeler, a 14-year-old printer’s apprentice.

Quick Takes

McCartney disses President Bush during taping of “In Performance” concert

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The Washington Post’s Reliable Sources columnists are reporting that a cutting remark rocker Paul McCartney made during the taping of a PBS “In Performance at the White House” concert was omitted from the program. His comment came near the end of the June 2 performance, after he received his Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from President Obama (above, PBS image). After one more song, McCartney told the crowd, “After the last eight years, it’s good to have a president that knows what a library is.” The Huffington Post said a rep for producing station WETA explained that McCartney’s comment came after the program had officially concluded. “Celebrating the Music of Paul McCartney” airs July 28.

Quick Takes

Former CPB president joins InterMedia

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Robert Coonrod, CPB president from 1997 to 2004, has been chosen CEO of media and communications company InterMedia, the firm said in a press release. The appointment was announced by Richard Carlson, chairman of the InterMedia Board, who served as president of CPB from 1992 to 1997; Coonrod had worked under him there for many years. InterMedia provides cloud communications services to small- and mid-sized businesses. He joins InterMedia from his post as COO of the nonprofit Meridian International Center.

Quick Takes

Rhode Island PBS president dies

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Robert Fish, president of Rhode Island PBS, died July 9 at his home in Snug Harbor, Rhode Island. He was 65.He was a member of the Rhode Island Telecommunications Authority, and president of the Rhode Island Broadcasters Association since 2008.Michael Isaacs, chairman of the telecom authority, said Fish could “turn adversity into advantage. He brought that kind of thinking and leadership to the public television station here in Rhode Island. It was a new perspective from someone who had broadcasting experience in a different arena. Bob knew a lot of people and touched a lot of lives.”His career included serving as g.m. of WRKO talk radio in Boston; chairman of the U.S. Broadcast Group, overseeing seven TV stations; president of G&C Broadcasting, which operated radio stations in Phoenix, Ariz.; and CEO of Federal Communications Corp., which owned and operated stations including Rhode Island’s talk radio WHJJ and rock station WHJY.Fish was a 1968 graduate of what is now Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I.He is survived by wife, Jane Fish; two brothers, Kenneth Fish of Warwick, R.I., and Larry Fish of South Kingstown, R.I.; two sons, Brett and Blair Fish; and five grandchildren.

Quick Takes

CPB selects NFCB affiliate as its liaison with black pubradio

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CPB is backing the National Federation of Community Broadcasters as its service provider for African American public radio stations. The decision, announced after a meeting of African American station reps at NFCB’s Community Radio Conference last month, adds a third ethnic radio group to NFCB’s roster — African American Public Radio Stations (AAPRS).This is a new group — not the preexisting, similarly named African American Public Radio Consortium led by Loretta Rucker, which applied unsuccessfully for the grant.NFCB already provides an organizational umbrella for Native Public Media and Latino Public Radio. “We have experience and a track record of dealing with the diversity of our industry,” said new NFCB President Maxie Jackson, who forged strong relationships with many African American station execs during his previous jobs as a station programmer and consultant.The federation will hire a project manager and assemble a group of station advisors to help the stations with fundraising, programming, professional development, institutional positioning and community engagement. Development Exchange Inc., the National Center for Media Engagement, public TV’s National Black Programming Consortium, and Public Radio Exchange have signed on as partners with the project, Jackson said.As the group develops, NFCB will study the feasibility of creating fundraising hubs for African American stations. “The African American stations need to do a much better job in aggregating financial resources,” Jackson said.

Quick Takes

Was George Schultz doc funding too closely linked to former Secretary of State?

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The funding of a documentary on former Secretary of State George Schultz is coming under scrutiny by The New York Times as well as FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). It’s a three-part series titled “Turmoil and Triumph” that began on PBS Monday (July 12) and runs the next two Mondays, produced by Free to Choose Media.Sources for financial backing for what the Times dubs “this tribute” include the Stephen Bechtel Fund (where Schultz was president for seven years, as well as a board member), and Charles Schwab (Schultz was a board member on the Charles Schwab Corp.). FAIR points out that this means the doc was “partially sponsored by corporations linked to Shultz’s corporate career.” And it cites several reviewers who commented that they thought the doc was overwhelmingly positive.John Wilson, PBS programming chief, told the Times that PBS evaluates programs on their merits. “PBS has a vivid track record of covering this administration’s key players.

Quick Takes

Maryland candidate protests MPT online interview vs. broadcast

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When Maryland Public Television invited candidates to do interviews for its website, one literally replied, “Go to hell” — because he feels that public broadcasting is on television, not on the Web.Larry Unger, MPT’s chief operating officer, said the station has done televised debates for some statewide offices in the past. This year, it is conducting short interviews with statewide and Congressional candidates to be posted on its website. “People don’t want to sit through a program and watch interviews with all of the candidates,” Unger said. “That would take a really long time. This way, they can do what they want, and all of the interviews will be available to them.”Invitations to participate went out to 48 candidates last week; seven or eight candidates have already made appointments for their interviews, Unger said.