Inside PBS Blog

Insights into PBS programming and personalities

Belo's Music of Haitian Hope

FRONTLINE/World's recent Rough Cut online video report "Haiti: Belo's Song of Peace" follows Belo, the Haitian reggae-roots musician whose socially conscious lyrics inspire others to hope for a more peaceful future for Haiti. Below, the first two minutes of the report. more

December 19, 2007 | Read Comments (1) | Add a New Comment

Battle of the Outsiders: Ralph Nader vs. Ron Paul

Ding, ding, ding!
In this corner, we have Ralph Nader: Consumer rights activist (seatbelts, anyone?) and controversial figure in the 2000 election.

And in the opposite corner, this year's Internet man of the hour, Ron Paul: Congressman from Texas, running on the Republican primary ticket, whose libertarian, anti-Iraq war views have spurred $6M in donations this week alone.more

December 18, 2007 | Add a New Comment

Many Happy Returns of the Day to Jane Austen

Jane Austen, author of the enduring, beloved novels of manners Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma was born on this day in 1775.more

December 16, 2007 | Read Comments (2) | Add a New Comment

The Wings of Twitterers

J.D. Lasica, president of Social Media Group, blogged about an idea for Twitter (the popular micro-blogging service) posses yesterday on MediaShift's Idea Lab: reporters could use Twitter to begin a "mobile dialogue" with a few dozen interested readers as they researched and prepared articles.more

December 13, 2007 | Read Comments (1) | Add a New Comment

What makes a candidate legit?

If you watched the Republican debate from Iowa Public TV yesterday afternoon, you may have noticed a candidate who hasn't been so visible in the campaign so far.more

December 13, 2007 | Add a New Comment

Speech Acts

Tonight, P.O.V. airs the documentary Wrestling With Angels about activist and playwright Tony Kushner, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America.more

December 12, 2007 | Read Comments (2) | Add a New Comment

Blimp His Campaign

"The only station that allows Paul significant airtime would be axed under a Paul administration."

The above comment by chocki, part of an interesting public media and government funding comment stream started yesterday on social bookmarking site Reddit, was sparked by this YouTube preview clip of Friday's NOW show on Ron Paul.more

December 11, 2007 | Read Comments (1) | Add a New Comment

The Costume Dramas Are Out There

Masterpiece Theatre announced today that Gillian Anderson is the new host of Masterpiece Classic, one of three new Masterpiece brands (or flavors as Elizabeth Jensen of the New York Times put it this morning) debuting this January.

As host, Ms. Anderson will introduce The Complete Jane Austen showcase (all six Austen novels), "Cranford" with Judi Dench, and "My Boy Jack" with Daniel Radcliffe and a very costumed Kim Cattrall.

In her introductions, Ms. Anderson will appear with red hair in a similar shade to the new Masterpiece site launching in January.

Coincidence?

December 10, 2007 | Add a New Comment

Remembering the Veterans

In remembrance of the Veteran's Day holiday, PBS Engage would like to thank the individuals and member stations who continue to participate in the Ken Burns' "The War" StoryShare project. Since our last post, 81 stations from 34 states collected World War II stories from U.S. Veterans. To date, 2,578 stories have been gathered, which include 586 locally produced video clips.

We encourage you to continue contributing your stories by visiting your local station's StoryShare page. Click here to watch and listen to the stories in remembrance of the Veteran's Day holiday. Thanks for participating.

November 13, 2007 | Add a New Comment

When Bees Stop Buzzing

Last week, the premiere of Nature's Silence of the Bees was a reminder of the delicacy of our planet's food chain and the impact it has on the environment, our diets, and the world's economy.

The film, Silence of the Bees, recounts the strange phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which fell upon honeybee hives across the country in the winter of 2006/2007. More than a quarter or 2.4 million bee colonies were lost, leaving billions of dollars of crops at risk and threatening our own food supply.

Although many associate the role of honeybees to the production of honey, few are aware that they pollinate nearly 1/3 of crop species in the United States-from fruits, nuts, vegetables to even animal-feed crops, such as clover that is fed to dairy cows. The overstressed honeybee population is needed to pollinate all flowering plants and must compensate for our growing demand of fruits and vegetables all-year round.more

November 8, 2007 | Read Comments (10) | Add a New Comment