found some more info.
source
Bring up public television, and many people probably think first of Barney, Big Bird, earnest professors contemplating hummingbird mating and heavy doses of culture. But these days, controversy is swirling around the once-staid manse of Alistair Cooke and Julia Child.
The last time we assembled here, I unaccountably referred to Bill Moyers' PBS series as "More" instead of its actual name, "Now."
Chiding me, reader Becky Evans, wrote: "I wish I could see 'more' of 'Now.' " She noted the irony that, starting at 8 p.m. Friday, we'll see less. The network is cutting the magazine's erstwhile hour in half when it rejoins the schedule, minus Moyers.
New show
Replacing the missing 30 minutes, we'll get the brash, bow-tied Tucker Carlson, noted for his high-pitched view from the right on CNN's "Crossfire," at 8:30 p.m. in "Tucker Carlson Unfiltered."
Evans and others fret that PBS is succumbing to conservative pressure. The worriers cite the reduction in "Now," which has regularly criticized the Bush administration, and the arrival of Carlson and "The Journal Editorial Report." "Report," which airs Fridays at midnight with two repeats, offers a panel, chaired by conservative Paul Gigot, from his right-of-center Wall Street Journal.
Critics on the left also note that "Now" and other worthwhile but prickly PBS public affairs shows are routinely benched during pledge drives.
When PBS pleads for money, why does it dredge up dusty syndicated shows with faded rock, pop and country stars? Need you ask? They bring in non-PBS viewers and more money than exposes of corruption.
Some worried liberals note that long-circulating e-mail chain letters urge PBS and NPR fans to fight alleged pressure in Congress to de-fund public broadcasting.
Lea Sloan, PBS vice president of media relations, told me in a long phone interview that she knows of no such movement. An NPR official said essentially the same thing.
In fact, Sloan said, Congress - which regularly threatened PBS during the Nixon presidency and again when Newt Gingrich led House Republicans - is quite supportive.
Unlike commercial broadcasters, PBS needn't worry much about ratings. But public television can't consistently offend its audience, underwriters (sponsors) or the feds. The latter provides about 10% of PBS funding and controls those precious licenses.
The network and its local affiliates get regular viewer complaints from left and right, but mostly from conservatives.
Sloan said, however, that PBS received several hundred letters and calls from the left grousing about the arrival of Carlson and the "Journal Editorial Report." She denied the shows mark a cave-in to conservatives.
"Moyers' decision to retire was his, and we begged him to stay," she said. " 'Now's' cutback to half an hour was based on costs. (Moyers did his own fund-raising.) We were founded to be a marketplace of ideas, and we prefer intelligent debate to screaming."
So Carlson's presence on PBS is a surprise.
Confronting confrontation
On a celebrated "Crossfire" visit last year, media favorite Jon Stewart trashed him and Paul Begala for their confrontational style. So far, "Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered" has been pretty non-contentious and livelier than the ponderous Wall Street Journal show.
At the moment, PBS doesn't seem to be quaking over any criticism.
Ellis Bromberg, general manager of Channels 10/36, said his grouse mail rarely exceeds "a handful," though grumbling picked up during the presidential campaign.
Conflict is built into public affairs coverage.
The journalists on such admirable programs as "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and "Frontline" keep digging for governmental boondoggles.
Layer onto that the right's suspicions that media are liberal, especially if, like PBS and NPR, they're Eastern-based. Blend in Congress' control of some funding and the party in power's ability to pick, and pack, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (It was created in 1967 to insulate PBS and NPR from political influence.)
Calling recent CPB Republican appointees "ideological warriors," Moyers charged that "for the first time in my 32 years of public broadcasting, the CPB is ordering programs for ideological, not journalistic, reasons."
PBS remains an American treasure, for its probing journalism and also for its children's shows, unmatched historical documentaries and its delivery of culture, from lowbrow to highbrow. Unlike costly cable, it goes into every American living room. The price to each of us for all of that? Peanuts.
There is one hidden cost: continued vigilance to assure that the government doesn't turn PBS into another arm of the powerful. Such as, for example, talk radio.
too bad. i liked now. it was bad enough when moyers left, let alone being cut down to 30 minutes and having the other half be tucker carlson.
