The stations already have the data and are required by law to make it public to anyone who asks. But you can get only it by going to the station and asking for the actual paper documents – what’s known as “the public file.” Stations don’t want to put it online because — you guessed it — that would make it too easy for you to find out who’s putting up the cash for all those ads polluting your hometown airwaves.

If approved, the new rule would require the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates in the top 50 markets to make their files on political advertising available online immediately. Other stations would have a two-year grace period.

Continue Reading...

Yet it also was a time of innovation and creativity. As the system evolved we saw bold experiments like "PBL -- the Public Broadcasting Laboratory" and Al Perlmutter’s "The Great American Dream Machine," each a predecessor to the commercial TV magazine shows "60 Minutes" and "20/20."  The TV Lab, jointly run by David Loxton at WNET in New York and Fred Barzyk at WGBH in Boston, nurtured and encouraged the first generation of video artists — Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and William Wegman among others — and the early documentary work of such video pioneers as Jon Alpert and Keiko Tsuno of the Downtown Community Television Center, Alan and Susan Raymond, and the wild and woolly, guerrilla camera crews of TVTV.

Continue Reading...

In the case of the Amish, many take bus tours through their compounds, buy their goods, take snapshots of their kids from afar and make a weekend trip out of watching their spiritual direction.

There are 250,000 Amish in America in hundreds of different communities, the beautifully made and instructive film “The Amish” points out, in its Tuesday premiere on PBS’ “American Experience.” But they are visited by nearly 20 million Americans annually.

Some of the Amish wonder if this is particularly good idea, since they have to rub shoulders so much with “the English” --  as they call the outside world -- with their excess weight, leisure time and unusual questions.

Surrounded by the supercharged evils of modern America, they live in rural settings of hard work and simplicity that must not be so different from life 200 years ago. But it's different enough to make some striking images: Bands of one-room school-bound kids in bonnets and straw hats but carrying matching new red mini-coolers lunchboxes; a scene of potato pickers at dawn that seems right out of a Corot painting; kids playing outdoors in their old-fashioned clothes but on a new-fangled trampoline.

Continue Reading...

In the one-hour prime-time special "Growing Hope Against Hunger," viewers accustomed to Sesame Street's usual adventures involving the letter K or the number 6 will learn a different kind of lesson from Lily, a young Muppet who talks about living in a home where a meal on the table's not always a sure thing. Along with Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams Paisley, Lily will help Elmo and his friends plan a food drive. They also visit a community garden to see how nutritious produce can be grown locally.

Continue Reading...

The show's tenure as a children's-television fixture (and Emmy Award magnet) has, of course, ended, but last year, former host LeVar Burton revealed on Twitter that a new iteration ("Reading Rainbow 2.0") was in the works. Now, he says he's "actively plotting" a "Reading Rainbow flash mob" -- an event calculated to raise "literary awareness" (and also, no doubt, stir up the show's old fan base). He's seeking celebrity help, not to mention more modest volunteers.

Continue Reading...

PBS confirmed Monday that the website had been hacked. The phony story had been taken down as of Monday morning. It had been posted on the site of the "PBS NewsHour" program, which is produced by WETA-TV in Arlington, Va.

Anne Bentley, PBS' vice president of corporate communications, said in an email that erroneous information posted on the website has been corrected. The hackers also posted login information for two internal PBS sites: one that media use to access the PBS press room and an internal communications website for stations, she said. She said all affected parties were being notified.

David Fanning, executive producer of "Frontline," said he was learning of the hacking early Monday, nearly a week after the program aired its "WikiSecrets" documentary about the leak of U.S. diplomatic cables to the WikiLeaks website. The documentary, produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, generated criticism and debate on the program's website in recent days from those sympathetic to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and from those who thought the program was fair, Fanning said.

Continue Reading...

After 52 years in journalism, Lehrer said Thursday that "there comes a time to step aside from the daily process, and that day has arrived." His exit will take place the week of June 6.

Lehrer's 77th birthday is next week. He said he will still appear many Fridays to moderate a weekly analysis feature with columnists Mark Shields and David Brooks.

The "NewsHour" has prepared for his retirement by setting up a two-person anchor team with rotating personalities. Lehrer has generally taken Mondays and Tuesdays off the past year.

------

Online:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/

Continue Reading...

BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world, takes in $7.5 billion in income a year. If Americans were right, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would have a bigger budget than every military on Earth besides our own. NPR would beat China in an arms race.

What would the Corporation for Public Broadcasting even do with that kind of money, besides continue to have a liberal bias and support the establishment of sharia law? We have some guesses:

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

Just weeks ago, it looked like the preschool set's most diverse, desirable zip code may have lost its cool. In a surprise outburst of Not-In-My-Backyard-ism, the Street deemed friend of Elmo Katy Perry's playtime version of "Hot N Cold" a little too much of the former and not enough of the latter for the Cheerios set. After releasing a sneak peek of Perry's visit online, the show pulled modestly back, with producers declaring, "In light of the feedback we’ve received on the Katy Perry music video which was released on YouTube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of 'Sesame Street,' which is aimed at preschoolers." Translation: Katy Perry's cleavage was getting some of the dads a little too riled up. This, by the way, from the people who are this Halloween peddling a "sassy" women's Elmo costume replete with mini dress and red knee-highs.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

Bob Steele, who teaches ethics at the  Poynter Institute, an independent and wholly nonpartisan journalism school in St. Petersburg, Fla.,, told Strupp:

"Fred Barnes is unwise in his criticism of other journalists given his own actions. It is disingenuous for him to chastise journalists he characterizes as members of a liberal team, thereby questioning their professional integrity, when he, himself, has been paid for speaking to partisan political groups, Barnes is, in essence, wearing the jersey of those Republican teams. That alone raises questions about his journalistic independence. It certainly undermines his credibility as a critic of other journalists."

Continue Reading...

Then we remember the crowds of mourners slowly moving through the streets of Atlanta on a hot sunny day, surrounding King's casket as it was carried on a mule-drawn farm wagon; and the riots that burned across the nation in the wake of his death; a stinging, misbegotten rebuke to his gospel of nonviolence.

We sanctify his memory now, name streets and schools after him, made his birthday a national holiday. But in April 1968, as King walked out on that motel balcony, his reputation was under assault. The glory days of the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott and the 1963 March on Washington were behind him, his Nobel Peace Prize already in the past.

Continue Reading...

Others would argue that there's nothing worse than being robbed of your money. Not being able to purchase things for your wife or children, becoming a ghost who haunts your family with your empty pockets? Some of us can't imagine anything worse. "I can always live in a tent in your backyard," my mom often tells me when she reviews her decimated retirement savings, in a tone that suggests she might actually enjoy it, particularly compared to living in my house with me and my (screaming) baby and (magical fairy princess) toddler and two (barking, stinky) dogs.

Continue Reading...

All new ideas encounter challenge and opposition. As Einstein astutely noted, "Great spirits often encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds." Paradigms don't shift quietly in the night. A true scientist seeks to understand and inquire into the nature of phenomena. Unfortunately, Dr. Burton seeks to discredit and destroy without an attempt to understand.

Continue Reading...

Unfortunately, nearly a year has passed and nothing has changed. Last week, I turned to my local PBS station, KQED, and ran headlong into yet another program of medical self-promotion. Mark Hyman, M.D., a family physician, was talking about "brain fog" and "broken minds" and how such "conditions" could be cured or prevented by using "The UltraMind Solution" -- a combination of books, DVDs and home questionnaires.

Continue Reading...

 Bear Stearns' near demise began with rumors. The venerable investment bank had massive stakes in subprime mortgages, sure, but it also had $18 billion in cash reserves -- or at least it did before the dark talk began. Then its stock was sliced in half, and fearing bankruptcy, investors rushed to withdraw their cash. By the end of the week, cash reserves were down to $3.5 billion.

 As unthinkable as it was to imagine a panic of Great Depression proportions, that's exactly what Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were facing in March of 2008, when Bear Stearns' books revealed huge amounts of toxic debt and an interdependence on other banks that threatened to bring down the entire financial system. As Obama's new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner presents the country with a $2 trillion bank rescue plan this week, PBS's "Frontline" series looks back on the high-level meetings and panicked maneuvers that took place in the early days of our financial crisis in "Inside the Meltdown" (9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17, on PBS, check local listings). From the near collapse of teetering giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG, to the eventual downfall of Lehman Brothers, this investigative play-by-play of the start of the financial crash unveils how the nation's banks, unregulated for so many decades, revealed themselves to be a disturbingly shaky house of cards.

Continue Reading...

To those who were made to slog through Charles Dickens' works in school, PBS's upcoming two-part "Masterpiece Classic" (9 p.m. Feb. 15 and 22, check local listings) on "Oliver Twist" will feel like a fast-forward, CliffsNotes version of the original. All of the pivotal scenes from this tale of greed and depravity are included, of course: Here's Oliver as a baby, calm and sweet in his dying mother's arms, flanked by unsympathetic wretches. Here's Oliver, asking buffoonish workhouse tyrant Mr. Bumble, "Can I have some more?" to a raucous, climactic score (is that an electric guitar I hear?), a notable departure from the more subdued strings that typically make up the "Masterpiece" soundtrack. Here's Oliver charmed by the Artful Dodger, only to grow steadily more suspicious of Fagin and Bill Sikes and their ruthless entourage. Here's Oliver, unexpectedly taken in by Mr. Brownlow and Rose Maylie, bathed and fed solid meals and treated with pure kindness for the first time in his life. Hundreds of pages of Dickens, unfolding before your eyes within a head-spinning 30-minute stretch of storytelling!

Continue Reading...

After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August of 2005, all 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge could think about was returning home again. He watched the devastation from the safety of his daughter Cheryl's house in Madison, Wis., straining his eyes for a glimpse of his own house all the while.

"He was outta his mind, worried about when he was gonna be able to get back to the house,"  Cheryl told the filmmakers behind Frontline's "The Old Man and the Storm" (premieres at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 6, on PBS; check local listings). At first glance, the documentary looks like another uplifting, ultimately hopeful story about how Hurricane Katrina laid bare one man's will to persevere against all odds.

Sadly, though, Gettridge's experience is anything but positive. First there's the heart-wrenching discovery that his house has been all but destroyed by floodwaters. Even so, Gettridge gets to work, living without electricity, drinkable water or a bed. His wife is still in Wisconsin and longs to be home with him, but the house isn't ready for her yet, and since she's in poor health, it makes more sense for her to stay with her daughter.

Continue Reading...

 Not surprisingly, the creative team that set out to turn "Grey Gardens" into a Broadway musical were faced with a daunting task. "This had to be challenging, because the people who really are avid fans of this movie know every frame of it," says Michael Musto, a longtime columnist for the Village Voice, who's interviewed in the upcoming Independent Lens documentary "Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway " (10 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 23). "It's like a 'Rocky Horror' caliber of viewer-actor relationship."

Continue Reading...