Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 2, 1994 TAG: 9409020043
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
``Rights & Wrongs'' is made by Globalvision, the New York-based team of Rory O'Connor and Danny Schechter, producers who won 1990 Emmy and Polk awards for their series ``South Africa Now'' - which PBS also declined to air.
PBS' top programmer, Jennifer Lawson, repeatedly has said human rights is an ``insufficient organizing principle'' for a PBS series beamed to its 346 affiliates. (She's on vacation this week, and not available for comment, PBS said.)
``The argument has gone beyond us, beyond the program,'' said O'Connor, a former ``48 Hours'' producer for CBS. ``It's really about whether human rights should be on PBS on a regular basis, and they say no.''
Nonetheless, ``Rights & Wrongs'' airs on 85 public TV stations (including 18 of the Top 25 markets) and reaches 60 percent of the nation via the alternative American Program Service satellite feed.
PBS' critics cite ``Rights & Wrongs'' as further evidence that PBS has lost its nerve and avoids controversy because of conservatives' hammering at PBS' alleged ``liberal bias.''
O'Connor fears that ideologues want to make his show part of the so-called ``culture war'' of liberals and conservatives.
``PBS is caught in between the right and the left, and they're acting out of fear,'' O'Connor said. ``Their greatest success is at angering everyone, left, right and center, who comes in contact with the system.''
The left's strongest criticism comes from The Coalition vs. PBS Censorship, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based organization of ``filmmakers, viewers and concerned citizens dedicated to ending content-based censorship at PBS.''
The coalition grew out of its campaign - ultimately successful - to reverse PBS' refusal to air the 1990 Oscar-nominated documentary ``Building Bombs.''
The coalition has taken up the cudgels in the latest salvo at PBS, fired by ``Rights & Wrongs'' anchor Charlayne Hunter-Gault, national correspondent for ``The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour.'' She complained, in a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, about PBS' aversion to her series.
A pair of letters from Congress ensued. The first was endorsed by seven members of the Human Rights Caucus, which complained that ``Rights & Wrongs'' was not available on WETA, PBS' big affiliate in Washington, ``where key human rights decisions are being made every day.''
A second letter from 32 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who wrote PBS President Ervin S. Duggan on Aug. 17, asking him to ``reconsider the funding and distribution options for this program.''
Duggan, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission, sent his five-page response Aug. 5. He cited several PBS specials and series' episodic coverage of human rights stories.
He noted that D.C.-area UHF station WHHM airs ``Right & Wrongs'' and insisted the series simply lost the competition for PBS air.
``It is preposterous to use the word `censorship' in connection with editorial issues of this kind, and it is particularly egregious when used in reference to PBS, given public television's singular tradition of courageous programming.''
Duggan's schedule Monday did not allow him time to comment, PBS publicists said. But John Grant, PBS' second-ranking programmer, reiterated that ``Rights & Wrongs'' simply failed to make the cut.
``The reality is that `Rights & Wrongs' is available to the vast majority of our stations, which have already made a decision whether to air it,'' he said.
``Censorship in the United States is not one guy sitting in a room in Washington cutting out words,'' said O'Connor's partner, Danny Schechter, a former producer at CNN and ABC's ``20-20.''
``It's a process where some topics are marginalized and ignored. Is that censorship? I think people have to decide that for themselves,'' he said.
``PBS was set up in part with a mandate to become a forum for a wide range of perspectives, controversial programs that wouldn't air on commercial channels,'' Schechter said. ``I think they've moved away from their mandate.''
by CNB