McGhee: ‘It would be fatal to lose belief’
Originally published in Current, July 8, 2002
By Karen EverhartCPB presented its 2001 Ralph Lowell Award to WGBH's Peter McGhee, whose contributions to the field include developing Frontline, The American Experience and other major PBS series.
McGhee, who has managed national programming at WGBH since the mid-1970s, recently announced plans to retire in September
The Lowell award, considered public television's highest honor, recognizes individuals who made indelible marks on the field. The award is named for the Boston banker and philanthropist who established WGBH.
Earlier article: A Briton, John Willis, will succeed McGhee at WGBH
McGhee, who always defers to WGBH's star producers to introduce new programs coming out of Boston, made a rare speech June 24 [2002] at the podium of the PBS Annual Meeting when he accepted the award.
As television has evolved into a largely unregulated, for-profit business and the networks have become minor subsidiaries of big corporations, he said, it's no surprise that "most of what emerges from those huge for-profit entities carries little sustenance for the soul and little enrichment for the political discourse of the nation."
"We should not be surprised that most of television enters our people and our body politic, not as food for thought, but as an embalming fluid--a relaxing and displacing system of entertainment for those too exhausted, inert or numb to want more.
"But our place, your place, my place, the place of public television is to offer an alternative to that--to serve the actual young and the forever young, the open and curious and those who still want to learn, and that's what I take the Ralph Lowell Award to recognize: approval of my work, and of your work, of all our work.
"Public television today may seem to be in danger, but it would be fatal if we were to lose belief in ourselves, or of what we do or why we are here. It would be fatal if we were to measure relevance as a number we reach rather than what we reached the number with."
During a luncheon celebrating Frontline's 20th anniversary season, Executive Producer David Fanning compared McGhee to a good cabinetmaker. "He thinks in 3-D and looks at ideas very hard from a lot of different angles."
"He always told us to take chances on people as well as ideas.... He set an editorial baseline that we knew we'd have to meet, and he was very rigid about it."
Colleagues applaud McGhee, the WGBH production chief who received this year's Lowell Award at the PBS meeting. (Photo: Adam Traum, courtesy of PBS.)
To Current's home page Earlier news: WGBH announces McGhee's retirement and successor, John Willis. Outside link: CPB's press release about McGhee and the Lowell award.
Web page posted July 9, 2002
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