Nice Above Fold - Page 892
- Cuts to CPB funding proposed by House Republicans would force tough decisions at Nebraska ETV. “We would probably have to eliminate our local programming if we wanted PBS programming,” General Manager Rod Bates tells the Lincoln Journal-Star. “That’s the kind of choice we would have to make.” In June, all three of Nebraska’s Republican representatives voted against a House measure restoring $100 million in CPB funds.
Monkey trial still timely for tour of radio docudrama
Ed Asner takes the role of Bryan, not Darrow, in LATW’s drama based on the Scopes transcript. John de Lancie, at right, plays Darrow. Susan Loewenberg chose a radio play about the Scopes trial for L.A. Theatre Works’ 2005 national tour because it’s the one that teachers request most from the company’s catalog of more than 200 recorded plays. The teachers seemed to be saying the evolution/creation fight is an enduring topic in our national life and not just a quirky little philosophical eruption that excuses a quick revival of The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial. Indeed, as Ed Asner started off the tour last week as William Jennings Bryan, defender of creation, in Arcata, Calif.,- If you’re wondering what industry could become NPR’s big competitor in serious news coverage, the New York Times had a hint on Monday. In an article fretting about newspapers’ future, Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is quoted: “We will follow our readers where they take us. … If they want us on cellphones or downloaded so they can hear us in audio, we must be there.”
- “Finding the Future of Public Television” is the topic of a day-and-a-half workshop backed by CPB in Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14-15. Speakers include CPB programmers Michael Pack and John Prizer, leftie performer Harry Shearer, conservative producer Lionel Chetwynd, former studio chief Frank Price and other producers and writers. They’ll debate whether PBS can “fully represent America’s diverse culture.” Organizer of the workshop, the conservative American Cinema Foundation, will hold it on AFI’s Western Avenue campus.
- Josh Kornbluth, host of a quirky new local series and weblog for KQED-TV, dreamed of being an NBA point guard, but he never imagined having his own TV show. “You look at someone who belongs on television . . . they’re solid, like they belong there…. An animated character can be like me, ” he tells the San Francisco Chronicle. “Look at Jim Lehrer, and look at his hair. There’s no way I can compete with that.”
- “A lot of people probably don’t know me or haven’t heard about me and are not used to having this additional channel for challenge,” says Michael Getler, describing his new job as PBS ombudsman. Getler, a veteran newspaper reporter and editor who is ending a five-year term as Washington Post ombudsman, joins PBS on Nov. 15.
- Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the left-wing weekly The Nation, picked up on a senator’s jibe at Ken Tomlinson, suggesting that CPB put $5 million into a commentary program run by her magazine just as it did for the Wall Street Journal’s roundtable show. “We’re serious. With the departure of Bill Moyers from Now, PBS has no outspoken liberals at all offering commentary,” she wrote, concluding, “We eagerly await your response.”
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