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New York Times Article Questions PBS's Relevancy

February 28, 2008

On Sunday, Feb. 17, The New York Times published an article entitled "Is PBS Still Necessary?" The piece touched off debate within the Times community, and when the paper's Web site closed its comments section Monday evening, they had received more than 800 responses. The NewsHour has received more than 6,600 responses.

You can read the comments on the Times site, or join the debate by posting your comments here.

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Posted: 03/ 4/08 at 01:25 PM	Rosamond Robbert, Kalamazoo MI : How else can we get news on cable? PBS and the News Hour are essential. The News Hour is the only source of reasoned, non-hyper news available to us. The reporters are incredibly professional and guests are well chosen. I cannot imagine what we would do without the News Hour. Recently our cable company (Charter) in their wisdom took away WTTW a PBS station in Chicago. This despite pleas and letters from viewers. I do not get the sense that PBS is a high priority channel for these companies. We live in dread that our only access to the News Hour through WVGU will also be removed.

Posted: 03/ 4/08 at 12:56 AM	George Miller : The PBS News Hour is objectve, comprehensive and thorough. The new york times is politically and $$ motivated like all the other Goliath mainstream 10 second "media" malls.

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 11:35 PM	Renee & David : What we cannot understand is the assertion that there is no longer a need for PBS since WE have so many "options". Whoever makes a comment like this is not a very discriminating viewer. To mention cable stations like the History Channel and Discovery Channel are great for people who like commericals, further the level of expertise is not in the league of the PBS programs. Where on ANY station are programs of the quality of FRONTLINE, American Experience, Moyers Journal, Nature, Now, Charlie Rose or other PBS / NPR public affairs & news programs. The expertise and intelligence of their contributors/writers/producers/particpants are vital for our democracy. As for our cultural life, where else are we to find programs of the quality of American Masters or Great Performances? There are many more programs of excellence to call attention to that are NOWHERE else to be found on our PUBLIC AIRWAYS. PLEASE don't take PBS or NPR away when we need it even more than ever.

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 08:47 PM	Skati : I record the newshour on tivo so I can watch it when I get home, or later at night. I find I do not have time or interest to watch every segment, but unlike network news broadcasts, I do not have to frequently fast-forward through air-headed drivel about some celebrity's mental and papparazzi problems, which I find depressing to be reminded of, not so much for the plight of the poor victims subjected to the media harrassment, as the reminder that there must be millions of viewers that have so little life of their own that they waste it away watching such trash. CNN used to be good until it decided to go 'soft' (in the head). The PBS newshour is one of the few benchmarks left out there in an avalanche of infotainment where the boundary between fantasy and reality has become so blurred that it is clear that many news organizations feel it is no longer important to make clear where that boundary is.

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 06:24 PM	DonIrene : PBS gives us the most interesting, informative programs, particularly TheNewsHour, and the suggestion that its time to eliminate PBS is shocking. The depth, clarity, intelligence and humanity of TheNewsHour team is strikingly superior to any other TV news source. WE NEED PBS

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 04:24 PM	Robert Graves : News Hour is the ONLY daily news show (as opposed to a feature news program such as Frontline) that I trust...that's a sad commentary on the state of television news, but doesn't diminish the quality of the News Hour in any way. It's the only show that has interviewers who have any depth of knowledge about the subject they're reporting on. Compare that to a John King on CNN who recently conducted an interview with the opening remark to his subject that he doesn't really understand the subject. So, is PBS still necessary...you're damned right it is!!!

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 01:27 PM	Marilyn O'Leary : My husband and I watch the News Hour every day to keep up with important news and to receive a more in depth and fair treatment of issues than we can get anywhere else on tv. It is critical to keep the News Hour on not only because it is fair, but because it is free. We don't have cable tv, and so most of our tv fare comes from PBS. The News Hour is at the top of our list for viewing. We also read our local daily newspaper and the NY Times, but we still need the commentary and focus of the News Hour to give us the up to the minute news. One of the main reasons we contribute to PBS is for the News Hour.

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 10:32 AM	Denise : PBS is an absolute necessity. The NewsHour and Washington Week are by far the best in news reporting and roundtable discussion. I don't have cable, by choice, and would be very disappointed if PBS was not there for me on a daily basis. Network TV is horrible.

Posted: 03/ 3/08 at 04:06 AM	Nick Lento : As flawed as PBS is, and as compromised as it has become by corporate money and the associated pressures that entails; it is ABSOLUTELY "still" necessary!!! In fact, we need MORE publicly funded mass media, not less!!!

Posted: 03/ 2/08 at 11:16 AM	martha : I believe PBS is the only concern that would produce and broadcast a program series like the upcoming Unnatural Causes about health disparities in the US.( a program what is geared to inform and engage citizens to address a major ill in our society). There is No comparison between The News Hour and network nightly news coverage for example the depth of coverage of a topic. And what kind of an argument against The News Hour is it that some of the original viewers are now in assisted living?????

Posted: 03/ 2/08 at 02:18 AM	K. Bousfield : For TV news there is no fairer, than the NewsHour, with Jim Lehrer. Where is news found on TV ? Surely not on Fox, CNN or ABC. From them bombings, fires, crashes, and riots; vacuous starlets, pro sports and new fad diets; Oh, heavens, just for once please spare us from more stories of that hotel heiress. Celeb worship and limpid reportage do not explain a NINJA mortgage. A cooking planet ? Rising China ? America’s decline? For things like this they have no time; Unless jammed in jolting 15 second stimulations between babes selling beer, and cars, and cheap vacations. They follow one true route to succeed “If it bleeds, it leads”, - a singularly simple creed. No, when the working day is done, for America’s news, there is but one, (Alright, the BBC makes two, depending on your point of view, And both are found on PBS, and much else as well, but I digress;) Some believe that freedom can only be defended, with guns and guts as (in their view) God intended. But freedom of speech is what matters most, And there, like Horatio, stand the NewsHour and its host. Ignorance and extremism are by gentle truth beaten back; teased out with the grin, the wit and balance they lack. News for adults ? True enough, indeed. This is news for those who like to think and read, But for former Wishbone watchers, too. They might one day succeed to positions in which they just might lead. Or for those who simply wish to make the chances less remote in November of casting an informed vote. Daily summary, then fair analysis of breadth and depth and scope; and rational discussion of conflicting views gives hope. That reason may prevail, that those who seek to understand, may find in this show a promised land. On Friday, Shields and Brooks review the week (where Shields and Gurgen used to speak) Finally, at the end, in silence, one by one; Those humbling photos, full of youth and promise, and belief Each one a heartbreaking reminder of a wife, or a child, or a parent’s grief. This program stands out far beyond the rest The New York Times must surely speak in jest For TV news there is no fairer, than the NewsHour, with Jim Lehrer. Notes: (1) Is Jim Lehrer really 73 ? It must be love of his work that keeps him so young. (2) Margaret Warner is a very, very good journalist. (3) Ray Suarez' recent piece on Spanish speakers in the US was quite something. But then again, it is work like that the sets the NewsHour apart from all other US news shows. A good thing, too, because there is no comparable alternative program in the US. (3) If you miss the NewsHour, in essence you can't get hard news on the TV in the US. Similarly, most hotels deliver only USA Today (suitable for lining birdcages, trees died for this ?) Americans may be accustomed to it, but if you are visiting from outside the US, it can be quite frustrating.

Posted: 03/ 1/08 at 09:26 PM	Bullwinkle : PBS is one of the few media/information outlets that is helping people to keep thinking and learning, instead of "trying to dumb them up." Shades of 1984, anyone? One comment: please get NOW back to one hour, love Bill Moyers Journal, keep the News Hour and Washington Week on the air and get History Detectives back on our local channels, instead of just one channel that's not even in the area.

Posted: 03/ 1/08 at 05:31 PM	Dominique : Dear PBS Team: You might want to send a simple little 'thank you' note to the Times for the additional $12 bucks a month that I am rerouting to PBS instead of my $3.00 weekly cost for the Sunday Times. Really it is the thought that counts:) I plan my viewing schedule one week in advance, PBS is the first planned, as all others pale by comparison.

Posted: 02/29/08 at 11:17 PM	Huang : Hey i am Chinese and have been learning English for more than ten years and i chanced upon PBS six or seven years ago and i've kept coming back to check on this website ever since and recommend it to folks around me. you give ideal material for English learners with all these audio/video clips and scripts and on top of that you open a window to the world. i really appreciate that and i want to say: thank you!

Posted: 02/29/08 at 07:24 PM	Samuel Bartmess : I am 24 years old and have supported KUNM and the NewsHour since I was 20. I feel their programming and coverage is a insightful contribution to our collective dialogue here in the states.

Posted: 02/29/08 at 04:38 PM	Kevin Hutchcroft : There simply is no comparison; the News Hour is the only source for daily news without obsessively "marketing" its anchors and reporters. It is the only broadcast that delivers objective and in-depth coverage without the sensational, without flashy graphics. It best maintains fidelity to basic journalistic principles.

Posted: 02/29/08 at 11:28 AM	Reese's : I've been a loyal fan of PBS for years now. Ever since I was a little kid up til now and I will remain so for the rest of my life. How dare the New York Times even say that PBS isn't "relevant". It's still as relevant (even MORE so now) as it was in the first place and needed more than ever these days. God bless Jim Lehrer and everyone else who has a show on PBS, especially Bill Moyers, David Brachaccio (sp?), and Gwen Effiel. Keep on fighting the good fight you guys!

Posted: 02/29/08 at 08:50 AM	Mary Blythe : The NY Times negative article on the necessity of PBS was a frivolous attempt to show how 'modern'the NY Times has become. One of the most perfect traits of America, is our Publiic Broadcasting System!

Posted: 02/29/08 at 04:31 AM	libbyliberal : PBS BASHING? WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? When the pre-emptive strike on Iraq was being spun and promoted to an incredulous public by all the talking governmental and media heads, I recall an articulate, intelligent and dignified woman from some kind of peace organization as a guest on PBS .... was it a Newshour segment, or a Charlie Rose round table panel? This self-possessed woman quietly explained the colossal damage to Iraq’s INFRASTRUCTURE such a military campaign would begat. I think that was the first time I had heard the term “infrastructure.” I got the scope of it. She went on to paint detailed and informed images of the sustained nightmare of this collapsed infrastructure for the citizens of Iraq, our own troops and our country. Finally, she warned of the gargantuan task of re-building said infrastructure. I believed her. That serious, sane voice in 2003 has haunted me as her depiction has come to pass. If anyone in America has a right to say “I told you so,” she does. I often thought of writing the Newshour or Charlie Rose to see if they recalled that particular segment and could rerun it. MY POINT BEING.... THAT VOICE OF SANITY AND INSIGHT WAS ON PBS!!! I am late on reading and commenting on the Times article. I skimmed it and my jaw dropped. Why yes. With all that is wrong with the world at the moment, our collective trip to hell in the proverbial hand-basket, this NYT writer chooses to ATTACK PBS? Charles McGrath, how dare you? But as Rachel Maddow says, in this ethical freakshow of a universe... there you are. Have you ever seen the movie of Fahrenheit 451? PBS is like the bastion for the “book people.” Bradbury envisioned them as the hope of civilization. The seekers of the truth and of expansion of body, mind and spirit. Those on the vanguard. Those who are disenfranchised and sabotaged by the narrow, smug focus of the media mouthpieces and governmental demigods. How stifling it would be without a PBS or CSpan. To only have access to most of corporate mainstream media’s kool-aid night after night. The rants of the ego-driven, short sighted, opportunistic and glib. These pundits using their incredibly potent voices to signal their vast audience what to think and feel. No critical thinking required. In our reality show type-titillated culture (or anti-culture) these commentators are becoming more and more reckless and destructive. Eroding our identities and our vitality as proactive and thinking citizens of the world home. I now eagerly seek out CSpan and PBS to keep me grounded. To acquire some perspective. To be reassured there are thoughtful and intelligent people in this world. Asserting truth to me, my fellow enlightened (and desirous of being enlightened) viewers ... and also, importantly, asserting TRUTH TO POWER! Perhaps the vast majority of the American tv viewership want to enjoy gossip about class, glamour, the sexiness of wealth and power. They prefer watching Paris, Brittany, Simon Cowell. Or they prefer listening to strident-voiced political commentators using the histrionic, black and white language of gamesmanship. Stirring it up for the audience and themselves. Clever, outrageous, bombastic. Suppliers of short-term titillation. This country is fighting for its immortal soul. And most of the media is missing the battle. So are you, Mr. McGrath. Your attack I consider “friendly fire.” Give me Jim, Ray, Gwen, Judy, Margaret, Mark and the rest of the team. Give me Charlie R. Give me Bill Moyers. Give me Ken Burns. Give me Frontline. And give me Judy Dench as Jean Pargetter. Patricia Rutledge as Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced, “Bouquet” to you, Mr. McGrath). Ever think that hers is such a respected and sought out show because of her satiric GENIUS, and not from tiresome scheduling for a boring (in your eyes) viewing audience. Give me Helen Mirren as Jane Tennyson. Give me Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. (Please, please give me Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy???) Give me Rupert Everett as the wonderful new Sherlock Holmes. Aw, too many to list, of course. Just give me great literature. Give me great drama. Give me great music. Give me great comedy. And why are you knocking Jane Austen? Will your next column be anti-Shakespeare? Your presumptuous discounting of quality, done-its-homework, educational commentary, and brilliantly prepared and beloved cultural programming is even more ridiculous than it is insulting. PBS deserved some kudos and you, Mr. McGrath, were a catalyst in inspiring them. But I hope your toxic message does not make PBS more vulnerable to the kool-aid makers and its drinkers out there. For the sake of my very soul, leave PBS alone!

Posted: 02/29/08 at 12:49 AM	David &Gienia : don't let them take you down we only get a hour here in Australia. We try very hard not miss it: that is Jim Lehrers hour balanced informative one of the best.

Posted: 02/29/08 at 12:27 AM	Lois Adams : As long as can be remembered, even with O'Neil, The News Hour has been a ritual with our family. It is by far the most outstanding broadcast of its kind and the idea that it is obsolete or irrelevant is obsurd. Its importance is shared by four adult children and is part of each of their family's evening with their kids. The contents of the program is outstanding and is much more than "just a news program". Those are a dime a dozen. We contribute to the station locally and inthe SF area primarily to assure that we can have The News Hour, Nova, and Bill Moyers. Without those three, this family would be devastated.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 11:30 PM	Omid : PBS is a gift that keeps on giving, the complete opposite of The New York Times.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 09:56 PM	Richard & Lorena : Sorry for being way-late. we're not avid podsters. But we are so very grateful to PBS. It is TV we believe in. The NewsHour tells us honestly the real news and the real debate going on. We could go on just this week with shows we watched on PBS that educated us and reeducated us to our expected level of happiness. Thanks for being there and Let Us at the guys who would dare say Public TV ain't relevant.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 09:23 PM	WOLFGANG MOLLER : Like my blood PBS is indispensible to intelligent life and my body. It is the oxygen which feeds my brain. It is the food which gives my body life. Is therenything more important ? Wolfgag Moller

Posted: 02/28/08 at 07:46 PM	Pursang : Seems the New York Times walks in lockstep with other entity's like Faux News which is just a "little" slanted in so far as "Fair and balanced". If I want to view the news it's gonna be The News Hour hands down.Very neutral in their reporting. I appreciate that.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 05:44 PM	Peter Kahn : My comment here is restricted to the issue of the decline in the PBS audience. I have not had access to the discussion, so my comment may be repeating what others have already said. Twenty years ago, PBS, as well as the other major national networks had few competitors. That has changed dramatically, so that now, there are hundreds of nationally available TV outlets, certainly a few dozen of which provide some programming that is competitive with what is presented by PBS. For statistical reasons, one would expect a spreading out of audience distribution. Further, although the national viewing audience has probably grown in the last twenty years, it is unlikely to have grown at nearly the rate of proliferation of the new stations. Thus, again for statistical reasons, one would expect an overall decrease in the market share per station or per network. Indeed, as far as I have been able to learn, all the major networks have experienced a decrease in audience. What would be interesting would be to compare the decrease of the PBS audience with those of the other national networks. One clue as to the possible result is given by the fact that the NPR audience has increased. This could indicate that the PBS audience decline is relatively smaller when compared with the decline of audience o other networks. Incidentally, the fact that NPR audiences have increased while PBS audiences have decreased can also be explained by the above observations. NPR uses FM broadcasting, which by its nature is essentially local and not amenable to rapid or great proliferation. Each town has its few FM stations (cities have many, of course), but the number has not grown in the same way that TV stations have...at least this is my conjecture. So, NPR has not had to face a vastly larger group of competitors. My guess is that the increase in NPR audience indicates that that portion of our citizenry interested in what public broadcasting has to offer is alive and well. and, on the TV side of things, is resisting the leveling out trend in the medium rather better than the commercial networks. What can or should be done to improve the PBS product and really turn things around? Well, I have ideas about that too. But that's a more complicated story.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 05:05 PM	Lucille Alan : We never miss the News Hour.It is irreplaceable. The news is presented thoughtfully, intelligently and clearly by excellent anchors. We record it every night for the times when we get home late.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 04:20 PM	Lulu : I am 77 years old. I do not have cable or satellite, just very good antenna reception from three different stations. I seriously doubt that I would bother to have a televeision set if it were not for PBS.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 03:57 PM	janet : To Whom it may concern, I am a 77 year old who has been watching,since its beginning[PBS},it with my grandchildren and my own children. I watch every night that I am home.I know that many of the programs have had a good infuence on the sudents that I taught in my twenty years of teaching children. You can see some of the influence the programs have had when you go into the homes and see the books games,and dolls that are there. I watch many of the news and drama progams and enjoy them for three reason: first they are entertaining, present more than one side of the issue and I do not have to change station when the many ads come on the other outfits.Please do not even consider leaving us in the dark of the many other stations that are left. Thanking you

Posted: 02/28/08 at 01:43 PM	Ray See : Given the apparent collapse of the New York Times pursuit of quality journalism insofar as how the McCain story was written, it is even more obvious to me that we need more News Hour, Charlie Rose, and other fine programs if we are to remain informed. While I do not like everything that appears on PBS, I understand that this is truly the American TV network and all Americans do not agree with me on all subjects. Good. Finally, I would have the federal government triple or quadruple the PBS budget so we can be rid of corporate sponsors.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 01:40 PM	Karen M. Kohlmann : I watch PBS nightly. I especially enjoy Jim Leher and the newshour. We would be lost without it! It is by far the best thing on T.V.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 01:22 PM	Nana : Nana: How could someone question the relevancy of PBS where informative and intersting programs such as Frontline, American Masters, Nova, Now, Bill Moyers Journal, Great Performances, NewsHour, Washington Week, and the best children programs are only found on PBS, and no where else. I believe supporting PBS is one of the best use of our tax money and this support, in fact should be increased.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 11:21 AM	Helley : For the writer of the NYT to say that PBS adds a 'note of grace' to our viewing is like saying that clothing adds to personal modesty. How ridiculous to even question the value of programs that make TV viewing tolerable. The programs on Frontline, American Masters, Nova, Now, Bill Moyers Journal, Great Performances, NewsHour, Washington Week, not to mention Sesame Street, Barney, etc. are ones that we can find nowhere else on commercial TV. For this writer to question the use of tax money being spent on PBS, when many of us believe it is one of the best use of our taxes, is ludicrous.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 09:02 AM	Larry Lunt : PBS is definitely necessary, especially the Lehrer news hour. It is the only in-depth analysis of the issue of our times. By comparison, the network stations news shows are more focused on entertainment rather than news.

Posted: 02/28/08 at 01:44 AM	Christopher Armstrong-Stevenson : Not just "relvant" but essential. I live in Portland, Oregon and am only able to receive two stations, the NBC affiliate and PBS. NBC's chief client is the local Basketball team...the losers called the TrailBlazers. News always give way to a game. Obviously much more important to the station's owners. I've lived on PBS for many years...back when the NewsHour was still called "McNeill-Lehrer". I live for the Friday evening news wrap, although I'm disappointed at how Foreign Exchange has deteiorated inder the new presenter. I also dislike the addition of Judy Woodruff...that left-over from commercial TV where she couldn't hold down a job. Her "interview" with Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, Februay 27 was travesty of "news-interview"...she was unable or unwilling to press Clinton on any of her weak responses. Give her job to someone more capable. And why does Woodruff have a continual scowl or frown...is it because of those "bangs" she has to continuously swish away while on camera? Take her off the show, please. Anyway, yes, PBS is a "MUST" in my life...not only because of the news but for many other programs also. The only thing I regret is the ghastly, constantly repeated shows saved up for Pledge Months every quarter. Why do self-help and vintage performers (and some are REALLY vintage!) get trotted out in an attempt to get us to open our wallets? The regular shows should do that...because of their intrinsic value and worth.I try to get out of the house, or just switch off, when they all come around. I hope to see PBS continue for my lifetime...after which I hope to help ensure its continuation from wherever I "end-up". Hopefully "Above" not "Under" .

Posted: 02/28/08 at 01:39 AM	Pudding please : ************************************************** The Proof is in the pudding: The Nightly Business Report can run circles around The Newshour. NBR is more technologically relevant and more likely to catch fire with the mobile internet devices than the The Newshour. Why do you pay for an inefficient, unimaginative, close-boxed production staff in the Newshour? ***************************************************

Posted: 02/28/08 at 01:00 AM	sk8asd123 : I first discovered the Newshour by accident because it was the clearest station on my tv. After watching Newshour for the first time, I knew right then that it was my new favorite tv news program. Even my experimentation w/ cable didn't change my mind. It's the in-depth news stories that help strike up conversations with strangers or the thought-provoking questions that you spend days mulling over - I love it all.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 11:04 PM	Rebekah E. Adams : I strongly support the continuaton of the News Hour and it is the only station that my husband and I watch for the news. The News Hour provides a provacative, insightful account of the news and is one of the few programs that does so. We no longer watch CNN as that channel has become too "entertainment" oriented, and no longer provides an objective presentation of the news. In today's climate of appealing to the largest audiences possible, programs like the News Hour are even more important! Keeping the News Hour is critical if we are to maintain an indepth understanding of world events. The staff of the News Hour does an excellent job of presenting the issues in a knowledgeable, understandable manner. Thank you!

Posted: 02/27/08 at 09:01 PM	B. Matthew, Charlottesville, Va : Dear Madam or Sir: I am writing to support PBS television. My nights would be incomplete without the Jim Lehrer News Hour. Moreover, I recall my ill-placed cynicism (similarly expressed by the NY Times article) when I was an undergraduate. I scoffed at the father of one of my colleagues, also a Professor in our Department, who watched the then McNeill-Lehrer News Hour each evening. Now, fifteen years later, I find myself serving the same role. So, the same, with other programs. As my children, nephews, nieces, God-daughters and others mature to television observing age, I find myself looking for, and finding ONLY on PBS-TV, shows worthy of their viewing. I disagree with the NY times author who wrote "Indeed, public broadcasting came into being out of collective despair over what had become of the airwaves. Cable has changed all that." Cable has not served as an interchangeable replacement. The shows I survey on Discovery or the History channel are dumbed down, sexed up versions of what science and history truly are. The viewer is duped into a shallower version of what PBS offers, and the viewer (I among them) feel cheated. That is why I return to PBS. Long live NOVA, Ken Burns' specials, and, yes, Mr. Lehrer on the Jim Lehrer news hour. For those not concerned enough (or bright enough) to enjoy the phenomenal coverage the PBS-TV programs provide, week in and week out, may they get out of the way of the more mature, learned, patient viewers, and let us lead the country.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 08:54 PM	C.Lou : I have never subscribed to cable because the only media I enjoy are PBS, especially Lehrer, NPR, and Netflix. In hotel rooms, when I catch cable, I wonder why folks pay for it.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 08:37 PM	Pamela Koslyn : Yes, of course we still need PBS. Now more than ever, as the celebrity culture saturates our media like it never has before. Unfortunately the networks that get free license from we, the people, to use the airwaves, don't take their responsibility to serve the public very seriously. Or perhaps, sadly - they give us what we seem to want, and what gets them lots of eyeballs and quick money - Paris, Natalee Holloway, Britney -- instead of the quality news we truly need --in depth political and sociological stories, international concerns, etc. For all who champion education for kids, why isn't the same stress put on education for adults? We're all much better off with PBS and we shouldn't even think of de-funding it.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 08:33 PM	Sarah O. : If the NewsHour or Charlie Rose went away that would be a tragedy indeed. The NewsHour is head and shoulders above any of the other news programs both on cable and network television. I would be distressed to have to get my news from CNN. On the bright side, it is good to hear that NPR has increased its listener base.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 08:13 PM	Lin Rimple : I just found out the Jim Leher and Robert MacNeil are both members of the Council of Foreign Affairs. DANG!! For 20 years I have been a supported of PBS and thankful for it's unbiased reports. Now it is clear that PBS has been bought out just like every other station. I feel betrayed and lied to, yet I shouldn't be all that surprized. I will still watch some of the programing, because like most educated and concerned Americans, I don't need the mindless shows and commercials attacking my thoughts. However, Jim and Robert, I've lost all respect for both of you. America was founded on freedom, sovereignty, and peace. The Council of Foreign Affairs and the Trilateral Commission are founded on Tyranny, bad company. Just as a side note, I do smile, knowing my favorite anchor, the late Peter Jennings, didn't sell out. May God rest his soul. Shame on you PBS, Shame on you. Lin Rimple, a free woman.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 07:47 PM	Cameo Joe : PBS is the most dependable source of reliable unbiased news. Their only self-interest is to continue to function as they do. No other media source could provide the same caliber of objectivity, or quality information and entertainment. Most commercial television and radio is noise and advertising. Without access to PBS media I would be lost.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 07:14 PM	mfost : I am a young and idealistic adult and I find that the News Hour offers the most unfiltered, unbiased, and unencumbered news on the market. The reporters are thorough, the stories are exciting, and the commentators are necessary. This news brings the world to my doorstep. Thank you and please keep it up.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 06:36 PM	baby jane : Duh Mr. McGrath .... cable requires a paid subscription and if like where I live that is paid to a monopolistic cable service provider company for non-competitive high prices. I guess Mr. McGrath has not considered the millions of people who can not afford to subscribe to those select channels or the people like myself who have very limited funds available, if any. Consider a child growing up in a household where cable is not affordable or subscribed to. The PBS children's shows and other creative and or educational shows would be their ONLY resource of quality programming outside of the plethora of sex and violence programming prevalent on network televion. Yes, occasionally there is a quality program or movie shown on network; from my experience it is the exception rather than the usual. The day to day effect is large amounts of sex, violence, game shows etc. I am speaking from personal experience here. I have recently been without cable service for many months. perhaps even a year or two. The effect is brain deadening, and worse for me as an adult. I am mortified to consider the effect on children. I have in the past week or so been able to re-connect cable service. However I would not be able to afford to do so on my income which for now is a monthly Social Security check. I am planning to pay the cable bill with some of the funds I now have available from the recent sale of a 2007 customized Chevy Tahoe that I won last July in an online sweepstakes. Otherwise I would not have the cable service. The odds were 50,000 to 1 in winning so having it on is a rarity here. Does Mr McGrath think these alternative programs flow int people's homes like tap water? Is he on the New York Times payroll as a journalist or columist? If so he seems to be lacking in understanding experiences outside his own realm of life. Perhaps I should be on the New York Times payroll instead as I understand that there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamed of in many peoples philosophy. I chose a path of following my inspiration as a creative original non commercial visual artist many years ago ... Have had several jobs over the past 3 decades or so, such as library assistant at a University Law School, "governess", nanny, babysitter and many others. During those times I sometimes had cable service, sometimes did not. PBS was about all I could watch when cable not on. Cable service is a luxury, Mr. McGrath that many people can not afford. Excuse me, but Duh ... It is in the public interest that quality programming is available to all citizens and ridiculous to think that this can be left to monopolistic companies charging high prices.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 06:25 PM	Josef Tucker : TV without PBS (and Radio without NPR) would be a bleak broadcasting landscape indeed. I cannot image surviving a day stuck in a world without our collective refuge from the deluge of ads and hype that commercial stations blind us with. The thoughtful and thorough programming on PBS and NPR, news and entertainment alike, is a national treasure and should be defended as such.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 05:17 PM	PHILIP ZIMMERMAN : MY WIFE AND I WATCH THE NEWSHOUR EVERY DAY. WE HAVE A CABLE SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS US TO REACH THE NEWS ON ANY NETWORK OR THE THREE LEADING ALL DAY NEWS STATIONS BUT PREFER THE NEWS IN MORE DEPTH AND PRESENTED IN AN UNBIASED WAY. WE FIND THE CORRESPONDENTS AND MARK SHIELDS AND DAVID BROOD ON THE NEWSHOUR TO BE PROFESSIONAL AND UNDERSTANDABLE. WE WOULD BE VERY UNHAPPY IF THE NEWSHOUR LEFT PBS.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 04:51 PM	Del J. : News Hour is my favorite news.. Never miss it. The big picture segments are the very best I've seen anywhere. I specially like Brooks and Shields on Fridays or anytime I know they are on. The reporters I would name them but I may miss one, Ifle. Warner. Brown and Suarez they are the best in their field. I feel like we're all first cousins or something. just family. I like that you cover the subject fair and not bias not just 30 second spot to imply one thing or another. Thank you for all you do and do so well.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 03:26 PM	ruth : Broadcast and commercial TV ignores the unpopular demographic (over 49). The government should support programs catering to this age group. In a democratic society all groups should be served. This is why PBS is so critical.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 03:15 PM	maria bittinger : News Hours gives a unique and refreshing look at what is happening in the USA and the world. There is true journalism on display and viewers are rewarded with an unbiased report and one that does not pander to the scandal du jour. PBS offers programing no one else does in the arts, education, science, commentary and history. The cable channels that at one time carried good cultural fare have turned to reality TV and no where else do you get an in depth look at current issues facing us.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 03:01 PM	Judy Harrison : PBS is still necessary in today's United States- perhaps more than ever. An elementary requisite of democracy is an educated electorate. As ordinary citizens are bedraggled by the demands of family and career, radio, television and the Internet are the main sources of news for most. Many of these venues have been corrupted by a particular political point of view or by a need to elevate profit over substance. PBS is my available, reliable, and truthful source of information. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Posted: 02/27/08 at 03:00 PM	CHARLES F GOTTER : Is PBS necessary? How about NPR? It is what the national networks can only dream of and we watch & listen. PBS gives you another view without dollar signs attached. I also listen to Talk Radio for their views and often agree but Talk Radio would take away the Federal CPB pittance & give the savings to George Soros and Bill Gates as tax rebates. I like the comment of having a check off box on our taxes. I might actually check one!

Posted: 02/27/08 at 02:56 PM	Marianne Lane : PBS is Vital if one desires QUALITY programs. My favorites are Jim Lehrer News, Masterpiece Theatre, Cahrlie Rose, Brit.News, Musical specials etc etc and I faithfully financially supportPBS.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 12:40 PM	Robert E Crysler : In my view PBS and CSPAN are national media treasures. Any sincere debate as to their value is welcome as it is probable to brighten the already and well earned favorable light. Keep up the great work all. Robert E. Crysler

Posted: 02/27/08 at 11:31 AM	Judith Abate : The only news program on TV that isn't biased and makes an attempt to give information on both sides of issues is the Newshour. Also it provides background information and not sound bites about whatever topic is being discussed. Not to mention the quality artistic programs like Masterpiece. I often watch them several times because the network stations and other cable stations are filled with mediocre programing and reruns of same. Thank God for PBS.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 11:05 AM	Donald B. Christie : If you are still counting, I'd like to add my voice to those supporting Jim Lehrer and the Newshour. There is no other newscast on TV that compares to the depth and breadth of its reporting. The time of day when it is broadcast in perfect. I am in the older generation, but for those younger who don't watch it, that is their loss.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 10:26 AM	Jim Barker : My wife and I cannot imagine not having The News Hour and other PBS programs, including those on NPR. We start the day with Morning Edition, then All Things Considered, and finally The News Hour. Frontline and The American Experience frequemtly entertain and offer insights which leave lasting impressions. On Friday, we put aside other engagements to be able to watch Washington Week in Review and the rest of the programs broadcast that evening via WETA in Washington. We can only repeat what so many have already said, that the professionalism and in-depth reporting provides us with invaluable input as we try to understand issues. It is so good that The News Hour assembles experts who can calmly and thoughtfully present their opposing view points. I have often thought that those representing the adminstration's position on The News Hour were far superior to the president himself. He detracts from those in his administration who can express a more reasoned position than his simplistic, and frequently wishful, statements. Finally, we especially look forward to the discussions between David Brooks and Mark Shields and the occasional analysis by the panel of historians. It is essential that PBS and NPR should continue to receive federal support to augment contributions from its audience. Thanks to all that work so hard to continue the good work that you do. Jim & Liz Barker

Posted: 02/27/08 at 09:55 AM	Steve Helmer : I was going to leave it to the hundreds of others who have written supporting PBS. But then this week, I've been reminded of just how much it means to me. The NewsHour, Charlie Rose, and Tavis are a regular part of my day (the last two recorded and seen tomorrow). They are ALWAYS solid, timely, insightful--keep me in touch with my world. And now and then, there is a single program that is just luminous, draws you so close into the realities of an issue or news story, is so rich, and intimate and tellling. The Charlie Rose segment on Pakistan and France this week was this way. Breath taking. Vital. Could I do without this? Could I get it anywhere else. NO and NO! Is this "musty" and dated. Come on! This week I also bumped into a "sometimes" that was so fascinating it hooked me again--American Experience. The double feature Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley were superb Americana. Again, I'd never see it anywhere else. (Ditto the recent "Mormons"). Frontline, is another favourite, NOW, Bill Moyers Journal. PLUS all the world class kids programing (which I acutally do sample now and then) and is a huge investment in our kids and our future. Mystery and Masterpiece have been long time favorites (a little less time for them of late). Just where do I start counting the "tired," musty, "Ho, Hum. I can do without this" stuff. I'm not sure where the NYTimes is lookng. PBS is alive, vital to my understanding my world, relvant, fresh, "today. Things would be vastly different without it, vastly worse, poorer, less informed. God forbid we let it be lost. May we have the wisdom and courage to choose quality and deeply valuable programming over "the alternative".

Posted: 02/27/08 at 08:52 AM	Tim McNeely : The idea of living without the objective and in depth look at the world I get from PBS is scary. NBR, News Hour, Now, Gwens show, Red Green, to name a few. I love it. We would all be the losers if the News Hour was to to hatcheted.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 03:18 AM	Guy : yes no doubts about it. terrific US news ,great team ,time to plan for the future team not to end it.

Posted: 02/27/08 at 02:04 AM	S.D. Forte : Dear PBS, Yes, PBS is very necessary, especially to those of us who cannot afford cable/satellite TV. I particularly value Jim Lehrer's Newshour, Frontline, Nova, American Experience, Washington Week, Bill Moyers' Journal, and the documentaries of Ken Burns. These programs have been an education for me beyond anything I ever got out of school (1 thru 12 + other , specialized classes.). They should be required as homework assignments. (See, history's not as boring as you thought! Isn't it amazing what people have gone through to produce this relatively safe, secure, and productive country we live in, with apologies to Chiefs Joseph, Sitting Bull, and all your people, who lost so much! And to Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver who gave so much to this country in spite of the hard, sad lives led by those from whom they came. And, of course, apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who gave his all that black people would finally be judged, "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character!") And, finally, for the purposes of this message, thanks for "American Masters" and its homage to those people who excel at moving us emotionally, or who through their mastery of other arts and sciences, have moved us forward. There ought to be an American Masters program devoted to those whose vision keeps the ship of PBS on its course of excellence in telecasting. Thank you, PBS! May your "enterprise" continue to "boldly go where no one has gone, before!" Sincerely, Dave Forte Wetumpka, AL

Posted: 02/26/08 at 09:03 PM	Elizabeth Swaim : Life without PBS would be so dull. They have the original voice in reporting, and besides that they have so many great shows. How can I describe something that is apart of my life? Please, oh please keep PBS. Thank you, E.O.Swaim

Posted: 02/26/08 at 08:26 PM	Richard : Say it ain't so Jim. The newshour is the best, say again, the best TV current affairs program on television. For information on the American condition nothing beats it.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 08:14 PM	Joann : I can't imagine television without PBS. Even though I have the ability to view hundreds of channels, PBS is in my top five. I can not tolerate the "regular" news on CBS, FOX, ABC, NBC, or CNN. On the rare occasions when I happen to catch a glimpse of one those stations with the remote, I wonder if I am viewing a real journalist or an actor? Does anyone watch commercial TV? Why bother?

Posted: 02/26/08 at 07:44 PM	R H Rice : While reading the NYT article, I reflected on the PBS programs I like best: News Hour, Now, Bill Moyers Journal, Frontline, Masterpiece, Mystery, Washingtom Week, McGloughlin Group, etc. I am happy to make an annual contribution to help such programs continue. Contrary to the NYT article, I do not find the equivalent or much else worth watching on cable. As a consequence, and despite trying to find worthwhile programs on it on numerous occasions, I do not subscribe to cable. With few exceptions, the news programs not on PBS are drivel or slanted. One point raised in the article that seems emphasizing is the desirability of increasing federal finding for PBS instead of continuing the decline. Yes, indeed, we need PBS!

Posted: 02/26/08 at 07:43 PM	Peter HEWITT : I live in Perth in the state of Western Australia. Perth has the distinction of being one of the remotest State Capitals in the world. As such its denizins must lay out big dollars to travel, even to it's closest neigbour (state capital). As you can imagine people of Perth rely enormousely on the reciept of information via the TV/Internet for up to date, in depth and comprehensive information. I have relied on The News Hour for this information for a very long time - 10+ years. In all that time I have never been let down. I find the service provided, even when I disagree with slant on many issues' is fair, unbiased, challenging whilst remaining calm and well presented. I wish PBS and The News Hour success in their efforts to show their detractors that Public Broadcasting is necessary, important and of great value in the world in which we now live. PeterH...

Posted: 02/26/08 at 05:52 PM	Siobhan : I'm glad to join in the chorus of support for the News Hour. (I mostly listen to the program on the radio, as I don't have a TV.) I think the show puts other news programs to shame by covering salient topics in depth. The reporters are professional & exhibit a sense of humor without coming across as the fakes that one hears all the time on popular talk radio shows. Mr. Lehrer, I enjoy you SO much! Thank you all for a wonderful show. By the strong support you are getting from your viewers you KNOW that PBS is relevant. Don't ever leave us!

Posted: 02/26/08 at 05:33 PM	G.H. Lewis : Our friends of the NeoCon persuasion want to advance the perception that any news outlet who endeavors to be fair and/or unbiased (i.e., give both sides of an issue) is a tool of the Liberal Media and should be silenced. Should federal funding be withdrawn for PBS? No way! PBS clearly does its best to allow qualified pundits the airtime to offer different "sides" to controversial issues. NeoCons will continue to sound off. Let's continue to be respectful.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 04:34 PM	Abbie Stewart : I am a life-long viewer of KQED (I'm 64) and a member for years. I cannot imagine TV programming without PBS. Where to begin? The news: I've been viewing long enough to still call it The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour and it's by far, the most thoughtful and unbiased news hour on, along with the BBC - containing actual discussion and examination of issues instead of pandering to emotions in five second spots. I trust their reporting and look forward to hearing the views of Shields and Brooks. I am put off and profoundly disappointed by ignorance of journalistc standards when so-called "news reporting" by some talking heads includes their own unnecessary, lame and subjective comments. Some ask questions of reporters so laden in tone as to dramatically reveal their bias and color the response. CNN and MSNBC are so loud in presentation and garish in tone, with the unnecessary and ever-present crawls as to Hollywoodize the news. The Arts: Masterpiece Theater. Need one say more? Nova, Frontline, Now, etc, etc. I agree with many of the contributors above, that the question the Times raised actually reflects more about the Times than the question itself. With their latest article on John McCain and now this, I have lost any respect I had for the Times and it will be hard to regain, if ever possible. The Times is very out-of-touch to be so ignorant of the critical ingredient PBS is in a successful democracy. But then, it's a big Corporation, isn't it? We need MORE PBS, not less!

Posted: 02/26/08 at 04:16 PM	Rochelle Cavalli : If PBS is not necessary, why do I still watch PBS 90% of my viewing time. I pay for cable and HBO and until recently I paid for Cinamax. Until I realized I never watch Cinamax- and dropped it. My husband and I would be lost without PBS it is the best thing on TV. The News Hour - the Sunday morning news shows, Bill Moyers, Frontline and Charlie Rose. Then we watch Antique Road Show, Nature, This Old House and the Norm Abrams shows, the cooking shows, and Mystery. It is most defenitely necessary. Rochelle Cavalli Please keep it on - we love it. Thank you

Posted: 02/26/08 at 04:08 PM	JeanK. : The NY Times article was ridiculous and I say this as a devoted NYT reader. First of all, PBS is free, cable is not. Even if it were not free, I would pay to get the NewsHour. It's the only program with a thorough, factual account of news on a daily basis. Cable does not offer an equivalent program. Other PBS programs without cable equals are NOW, Bill Moyer's Journal, Independent Lens, FrontLine, Masterpiece, and works by Ken Burns. Without these programs I would be very unhappy and that's why I support my local PBS station. The Times should find a reviewer with more common sense. Yes, public televion is necessary.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 03:52 PM	George Cook : Mr. McGrath’s Bias Revealed In responding to Mr. Charles McGrath’s Sunday New York Times article of February 17, 2007, questioning the relevancy PBS in today's electronic marketplace, I am reminded of the time Abraham Lincoln spoke to an audience of reformed drunkards, who were members of the Washington Temperance Union. On that occasion, Lincoln took the opportunity to explain why the “old-school” temperance movement had failed to garner widespread support, while the empathetic approach of the Washingtonians was succeeding. “[T]he thundering tones of anathema and denunciation,” Lincoln argued, “was not only unjust but impolitic. It simply worked better to reason with, coax, and convince people” of the merits of ones own exemplar behavior. 1/ Let us react to Mr. McGrath’s remarks in that light. There is much merit in his contrasting the competitive weaknesses of PBS programming against the strength of NPR, PRI, cable, internet, even DVD rentals and sales. For that matter, PBS is facing increasing competition from the digital inventories of our local public libraries. And, while expressing our outrage with Mr. McGrath’s conclusion – that PBS has lost its battle against the emergent competitiveness of “high-minded” alternatives, so much so that whatever residual federal subsidies are dispensed ought to go to NPR, where it would be better spent – we may feel a bit better by avenging our hurt feelings, we need to keep in mind that “harsh condemnation can no more pierce a man’s heart than a rye straw can penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise,” as Lincoln cautioned his reforming contemporaries. Yes, PBS is bleeding slowly in a protracted war-of-attrition. The threatening clouds of federal disenfranchisement hover transfixed on the near side of its planning horizon. Whatever the relief is received from year-to-year, it cannot be expected to remedy PBS’ systematic problems. Far more precious than federal funding – remember – is the lasting loyalty of its passionate patrons. Their engagement cannot be allowed to slowly and silently be siphoned away. The PBS cry of wolf, from season-to-season, dwindles away its members energizing emotions every bit as much as the gradual withering away of its cherished subsidies. Few among us would disagree that PBS’ seasonal pledging drives, have unintentionally become, what Mr. McGrath calls, “the fund-raising equivalent of water-boarding.” It is time to ask how can PBS survive with little to no federal financing, and how can we, its loyal members, be collectively brought into the process of bringing this transformation about? It is time to join the competition. The answer for which is total quality programming, measured in talent, technology and timing. In today’s electronic universe, where the viewing marketplace and its associated production and delivery technologies are fragmenting and converging at an accelerating pace all around us, the measure of success is not a network’s primetime lineup, but its ubiquitous reach. Its entire programming inventory needs to be easily reached by anyone, anytime, anywhere. As in the lottery, however, you cannot win, if you do not buy a ticket. Mr. McGrath is right, in so far as, PBS’s value proposition and respective business model -- at least the one that it presents to its membership and general public -- fails to adequately tap into its organically loyal customer base, which it has built up over decades. Without so doing, it cannot generate the excess cash flow and financial capital it needs desperately to creatively compete in the innovative landscape that surrounds it. From the view of its membership, PBS stations are living from day-to-day, from paycheck-to-paycheck, from hand-to-mouth. Being ignorant of the costs of production projects and overhead operations, I can only guess that their growth rates are rapidly outstripping traditional fund raising methodologies. Mr. McGrath’s article begs the question: does PBS have plans in place to double, even triple, its revenue stream and capital resources, before the drastic federal cuts seeming inevitable finally hit home? Should it not have such plans at the ready, including a time-line, not unlike that for the nation’s conversion to digital-TV format? A phased process that can get us there in incremental steps, successfully? Mr. McGrath is right, in so far as, it is getting a harder each year for upset “die-hard” viewers to rally to the glorious cause of the PBS tradition. How many times must we be called upon to browbeat Congress into restoring the public broadcasting budget? Considering PBS’s diminishing financial strength it seems, as if we need only miss the next cry of wolf and public broadcasting will suddenly cease to be, as we once knew it. Is that what is happening? NPR stations such as all-jazz, WBGO FM, 88.7, by example, are closer to their targeted audience and seem better prepared than that. I do not believe the “heretical” notion that glory days of public television are past recapturing, but a paradigm shift in raising funds is needed. A vision of change is required. One that alters the way PBS thinks of itself and its viewing audience, in the way it engages its membership in its internal processes, and in the way it packages, delivers and presents itself to the electronic universe that is around all of us. Mr. McGrath is right, in so far as, PBS has surrendered some of its high-cultural distinctiveness and has become marked by a measure of “mustiness,” by “trolling after ratings” and by taking on the elements of “just another” cable-TV channel, running “pop-knockoffs” like “America’s Ballroom Challenge“ and rerunning stale “sitcoms,” whose format can be seen every night of week on any other cable-TV channel, hour after hour. Indeed, nothing, absolutely nothing in the media compares to the “mustiness” that can be found across the wasteland known as traditional cable-TV. Mr. McGrath is right, in so far as, the distinctive, epic-scale projects that once anchored PBS have become too “few and far between.” One can only assume, this is so because traditional funding sources cannot keep pace with growing production costs. By definition, these epics are time-consuming, but that does not argue that they should not be produced in greater number, or that they will lose their attractiveness over time. If PBS is to be severely faulted in this regard, it is in the way it casually catalogs, stocks and prices these highly desirable properties. They are being horded them away in hardcopy, DVD form, at shopPBS.com, without any effort to aggressively market their consumption, as if they are too valuable to be moved. I do not believe it is too impertinent to suggest that this is an outmoded, and, thus, a relatively ineffectual means of harvesting the economic value of these organically, rich, revenue generating resources. They ought to be ubiquitously accessible via downloadable on-demand and pay-per-view, Internet and TV platform technologies. Mr. McGrath is right, in so far as, alternative, high-quality, high-end cultural, educational and scientific programming is run far more frequently on digital, fiber-optic, broadband TV network outlets, than they were in the recent past. As NPR faces competition from PRI (Public Radio International), PBS finds itself being challenged by the insurgent BBC programming, with its history, science and military special interest channels, as well as, daily and weekly series, covering news, information and entertainment. At the risk of miss-counting, my interactive, digital, broadband, fiber-optic, TV provider, offers four BBC-brand, six science, four military, four history and four home improvement networks, along with a variety of wealth, health, travel and gourmet cooking interest-based channels, and more news and sports channels than is worth listing. With the exceptions of the “NewsHour” on PBS and “Sunday Morning” on CBS, I rarely view the programs I watch at their regularly scheduled times. Since recently switching interactive, digital, broadband, fiber-optic, TV providers, I have learned to manipulate the whole-house, digital video recording (DVR) feature that comes with my service. This allows me to search for, save, playback and enjoy dozens of recorded programs, at my convenience. I am regularly recording entire series run on the History Channel (a President’s Day marathon series, 1789-Present), the Science Channel (Carl Sagan’s Cosmos), TCM (31 Days of Oscar), and multiple PBS programs, across multiple PBS stations. I do not know if I would watch commercial TV at all, if it were not for this feature, which allows me to cut through the clutter that characterizes traditional cable TV. As channel capacity has increased over traditional cable-TV, it has paradoxically become so utterly barren, void of original and commendable content. Repulsed by the decadence and ever increasing expense of traditional cable-TV, I have taken to viewing lectures given by college professors, covering political and cultural history, literature, art, music, mathematics, science and religious appreciation. Known as the Great Courses, these lectures are produced in DVD format by the Teaching Company and are made available through my public library. So, I refuse to subscribe to, and no longer pay for, all the so-called premium channels. It is worth noting that digital, interactive, broadband distribution it is itself enjoying a rebirth in competition. Verizon’s FiOS Service is available in parts of the NY-NJ-CT viewing area now. So, let us hope that the head-to-head confrontation among interactive, broadband disturbers, so long awaited will, at last, herald a new era in high-end, educational, cultural and scientific programming: one in which PBS is favorably granted state-of-the art, interactive access arrangements, commensurate with its financial needs, not unlike when PBS was created. This time born out of our “collective despair” over what traditional cable-TV has not done to enrich our culture. Media critics commonly agree that PBS has produced some of our nation’s greatest treasures in electronic imagery and oral history, and it still enjoys unprecedented levels of good will, which, if served and leveraged appropriately, should produce economic self-sufficiency sufficient to generate high-minded, high-quality, epic productions of global proportions. These achievements remain a source of great cultural pride. Given the cultural gulf that exists between our nation and other parts of the world, I would not hesitate to go international and translate volumes of existing content into Arabic, Chinese, etc. Indeed, I would start with Ric Burns “New York: A Documentary Film” and other presentations from the “American Experience” series, along with excerpts of the “NewHours,” “Frontline” and more. With a transformational business model, our beloved PBS (dot.org) can reclaim its creative leadership among the commercial “dot.com” giants of our electronic universe, and it can hold a position of leadership in innovation and creativity for decades to come. I close with a final comment about Mr. McGrath’s article, for all his useful observations, he is terribly wrong. Inherent in his reasoning is a singular bias that is neither justified, nor defensible. This is his bias against news, informational and public service programs that have succeeded over several decades, which have consciously avoided gratuitous changes in style and format, and, whose anchors have become the senior statesmen of the news business. Before I address myself to the label of “mustiness” that Mr. McGrath hangs on Jim Lehrer and the “NewsHour,” let us point to other programs in the commercial sphere, which by definition, ought to be thrown into the same bucket, namely: ABC’s “Good Morning America,” NBC’s “Today Show” and “Sunday Morning” on CBS. These shows are the staple of American Life. Their anchors have time and again formed a visceral bond with their audience built over years of familiarly, making them the most sought after personalities in the news industry. Even so, their base of support does not approach the links of loyalty engendered by Jim Lehrer with his audience over the years of his career with PBS. Consider for a moment, how “This Week” with George Stephanpoulos and the “NewsHour” with Jim Lehrer sign-off their respective broadcasts. In memoriam, George lists of names of the dead killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in power point format. By contrast, Jim Lehrer dedicates the entire screen to eulogize each soldier, sailor and marine, who died in combat. You can look deeply into their eyes, you can see where they were from, you can see how young and full of life they were, and in your heart you know that they have given the last full measure of human devotion to our country. It is my ritual every weeknight to try to stand in front of my TV, alone, in silence, and I hold my salute for each of them. Never have I been so moved by any show on any network. Try to look into their eyes. That is relevant, reality-TV of the highest order. 1/ You can read more about this episode in Abraham Lincoln’s life on pages 88 and 89 of "Lincoln’s Melancholy," by Joshua Wolf Shenk, published by Houghton Mifflin Company, in 2005

Posted: 02/26/08 at 03:40 PM	Malcolm Neill : I definiely think the news hour is relavant. It is so much better than the soundbites of the major networks and the yelling a screaming of cable news. I'm a fairly consevative person and used to think that the News Hour had a liberal slant but I was wrong. I enjoy the calm and informative discussions on issues and feel I learn alot about both sides of the topic. I love Friday's and many times I crack open a beer and listen to the views of Sheilds and Brooks. Great entertainment. Brooks is great and I learn alot from Sheild but he needs to be a little more concise so Brooks can talk more. More people should watch the News Hour so they can be better informed.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 03:17 PM	Paula Corbell : My family watches the News Hour together and we have for many years. It is the only news show on TV which provides opinions and experts on the same subject. We also listen to All Things Consideed on NPR which we consider like your show, only without the screen. I think you provide an excellent service without "messing around" with the story. I wish you could have Mr. McGrath on for a one on one interview with Mr. Lehrer. Or get Mr. McNeil on too which would be just terrific. Thanks.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 02:56 PM	Mike and Barb Russell : We have been watching the NewsHour since it was a 1/2 program. It is, without exception, the best news show on television. It is balanced, objective and civil. It is not designed to produce the greatest ratings. Instead, it produces the best insight into issues that shape our lives. We have the greatest respect for PBS and will continue to support the excellent programs it offers.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 01:31 PM	Hugh Owens : It is a sad commentary on the Times that it should feel the need to posit such a fatuous question considering how far that once great newspaper has fallen. I would turn the comment around and ask "Is the NY Times till necessary?" Heads need to roll at that paper. Their level of competence is on a race to the bottom on a par with the microcphalics in the bush administration. My only television news sources are the BBC and PBS. The other network talking bobbleheads are not worth the bandwidth they're printed on. Could PBS do better? You bet. They could start by reporting the consequence of events, more editorializing, not less. Many of the PBS(not all thank heavens) commentaors when they get an answer to their questions just acccept what plops out of someones mouth and move on to the next question("We are liberating Iraq

Posted: 02/26/08 at 11:58 AM	Bob Morrison : I love the PBS Newshour, always well done and truly "fair and balanced," not just the slogan. We also watch Antique Road Show and many of the excellent programs produced by and for UNC-TV, public broadcasting in North Carolina. As for cable, not everyone has it, and some who do have only basic cable. For many reasons, three cheers for public TV, which we support.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 09:28 AM	Phil : PBS has always tip-toed around the truth and has always been a home for nice politics. PBS's biggest sponsor = government funding. Don't tick off the people who fund your programming.

Posted: 02/26/08 at 02:41 AM	Edward R. (Ed) Brandt, Ph.D. : Jim Lehrer's News Hour and BBC World News are the ONLY things on TV which we view regularly. We are lost on weekends when neither one is available. I do think it was poor judgment to have a former NYT reporter defending its indefensible smear on John McCain, who has more integrity than the Times has ever had. What the Times needed was a criminal attorney. By the way, I haven't voted for any major party presidential nominee since the end of the Cold War. It is highly improbable that I ever will before I die. PBS as a whole is not as good as the programs I mentioned. Its documentary about a highly respected Senator during the phony "ERA" era was decidedly biased by omitting his opposition to the issue du jour.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 11:43 PM	Bob Mill : The News Hour remains absolutely essential. Tonight's program afforded Sens. Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel the opportunity to share their expert views of the tensions and problems in the Broad Mideast. The broadcast media other than PBS focus far too narrowly upon Iraq and give us only the most limited understanding of the rest of the Mideast.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 11:04 PM	Vernon Van Rooy : Are they out of their minds...PBS television is the only thing I watch...I don't subscribe to cable...$700.00 is too much for nthing....I cannot get the information anywhere else like PBS TV....I wish it were even more like BBC...seen some documentaries like The Trap...that was great...and where would we get great shows like Frontline...

Posted: 02/25/08 at 10:57 PM	Ryan : We need the news hour now more than ever. The newshour is the only unbiased forum for high level analysis of the news. I don't know how I would take positions on american politics otherwise. If I want to hear Wolf Blitzer tell me about about hotel fires in Tasmania, I know where to go.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 10:35 PM	alexander buchwald : We watch The News Hour regularly. Unlike the commercial stations they cover important national and international news and do so in an unbiased and informative manner. This is news for adults.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 09:53 PM	julie : It is hard to imagine why anyone would question the relevance of PBS. The Newshour, Bill Moyers, Washington Week in Review, Now - all help me form the opinions that I hold. On the rare occasions when we come across screaming commentators on other channels, I am amazed that there is an audience that actually likes that. Yes, I am over 60, but if PBS is irrelevant, I must be too.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 09:36 PM	William : We live in the farm land of western New York. NPR Morning Addition, NPR All Things Considered and the PBS News Hour are all important. Why is it necessary to choose between three different but very essential public news programs that are not controlled by big corporations, commercial sponsors or squeezed by a less than truthful administration? As some one who works out side much of the day, I get to listen to these different programs at three different times during the day. PBS has exhibited a problem in new non news programs in recent years but even the reruns are better than many of the CBS, NBC, and cable day time and evening programs such as Big Brother, Wife Swap or How I Met Your Mother. PBS is still the only place during the day to see non multi- advertising children's programs. . The government seems to have enough money to spend on wars over seas, military bases in friendly foreign countries, House and Senate pork barrel projects. I believe it is essential to have a non sponsor, non government driven news and entertainment broadcasting outlet to try and keep a balanced view. How else can a democratic country know what is truthfully going on? To think of not funding public broadcasting is insane it is a sure way to loose our democracy.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 08:28 PM	Jeannette Olson : The News Hour is the most important daily source of analysis and un-biased reporting for me. It is the one American program I miss the most when travelling overseas. Viva PBS!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 07:54 PM	Jan : Of course PBS is relevant! Where else can one find unbiased news with both sides of an issue represented, programming designed to inform as well as entertain and freedom from embarrassing commercials? Who needs the thud and blunder of commercial programming dumbing down the country even more?

Posted: 02/25/08 at 07:30 PM	Arlon Stubbe : PBS is essential to the public good. We live in FL for six months each year and have 2 excellent PBS stations, and another 2 when in western PA. Their programs are high quality, balanced and thoughtful. Without specials like Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers' Journal and Lehrer News Hour - our news and commentary would consist of networks and cable only, which increasingly have turned to entertainment and controversy to increase viewing audience - rather than substance. PBS forever!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 07:10 PM	Pamela R. Lombard : Television without PPS is like a Tree without roots! How will we grow.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 07:10 PM	Parnell : Thoughtful, thorough coverage without the commercials...NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ROCKS! P.S. I do wish there would be more on-the-ground reports and less time on interviews and discussions.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 06:57 PM	John Smulders : As an Australian-born citizen residing in Australia, I regularly watch the Newshour on SBS, and Frontline documentaries shared by the SBS network and our national public broadcaster the ABC. Your news programs provide an intelligent and in-depth perspective on the news and foreign policy issues of the day, while also providing a balanced news service which is not afraid to explore both sides of a particular argument or ideological viewpoint. Without the PBS, the cable-based networks alone would fail to provide me with an informative news service which has the balance and professionalism of the Newshour and Frontline programs.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 06:56 PM	Stan-G : No, PBS is not perfect, nor is The News Hour or The New York Times. Are any of them irrelevant? No! Would the public be worse off if any were eliminated? Certainly!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 05:56 PM	Carolyn Bishop : Without the NewsHour, Now, Bill Moyers, and Washington Week, we would perish here in the hinterlands of South Carolina. To see and hear reasonable, articulate, intelligent people discuss the news and ideas is a vital part of each day. Fridays are particularly special because we usually get Mark and David, David B. and road crew, then Gwen and group, and finally Bill and guests. How could anybody in his or her right mind question the relevance of these programs?

Posted: 02/25/08 at 05:47 PM	oldman : PBS including News with Jim Lehrer is a quiet spot in admist the cacophony of the cable and network programing and it is too valuable to lose. In addition, the local programing, in my case WQED in Pittsburgh, is outstanding. They just profiled a program on the Western PA Tuskegee Airman and they also have thoughtful political programs. The NYT is hypocrital I think because cable and networks have government subsidies when channels and broadband or whatever cable uses are sold or given away.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 05:28 PM	Faithful PBS viewer : PBS is a mainstay in my house. The NewsHour w/Jim Lehrer. This is our primary source for news coverage. No other TV or cable media outlet provides the depth and breadth of coverage as The NewsHour does. And some other programs that come to mind are: NOVA; Frontline & Frontline/World; Nature; Austin City Limits; American Experience; Scientific American Frontiers; This Old House(& Ask TOH); Bill Moyers Journal; Faith & Reason; Globe Trekker; Greater Boston; WIRED Science; Wide Angle; The Supreme Court; Soundstage; Ken Burns' Civil War. Of all the television programs I've watched over the years, it is the ones from PBS which have made the lasting impressions. I hold PBS in such high regard that I think of it in different terms than I do the rest of the TV/cable outlets. I expect more from PBS, and I get it! Thank you. My contribution check was mailed last week. If anything, the institution on the brink of irrelevancy is The New York Times. Let's see: Where did Jayson Blair work? That's right, The NYT. His Exec Editor Howell "The Narcissist" Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd resigned in disgrace. And Judith Miller? Where did that witting or unwitting dupe of the Bush Administration work? Oh right! The NYT. A journalistic disgrace. And, I don't have the facts straight, but I can recall 1 or 2 other incidents over the last 4-5 years where The Times have shown themselves to be less worthy of the "paper of record" than at any time in my life. And their partisan coverage of certain topics/events, and the non-coverage of other topics, has led me to sweep the NYT into the same bin as I have most other "for profit" media outlets. They're just another newspaper at this point. Keep up the great work PBS!! I'll try not to complain so much during the next Pledge Drive!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 05:16 PM	Mickm : PBS and The News Hour are responsable, intelligent, civilized and honest. It's a shame that the Times, the networks and the cable news industry can't make the same claim.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 05:00 PM	Oregonian overseas : As an American overseas PhD student, PBS offers me the only reliable means by which I can keep up to date with events in the US. From the US election to social issues, PBS helps keep me in tune with what is happening back home via its website. All the other "news" channels are so blatantly corporate that they are completely unreliable as sources of information. Furthermore, when I lived back in Oregon, PBS was virtually the only channel I watched. I would be very afraid for America if PBS were not there to keep other news channels honest, or people informed. The Bush administration is simply trying to assist corporate interests in gaining a stranglehold on Americans' right to independent and honest reporting. This goes along with his freeing up of anti-merger laws to allow a few corporations to own a greater percentage of US media. These media giants (such as Fairfax and News Corp.) already own the majority of all media sources in Australia and New Zealand (and probably other countries as well, not to mention the US).

Posted: 02/25/08 at 04:09 PM	J.M. Levy : Not everyone has cable. "The News Hours" offers the only in depth news analysis on TV while the other "news" shows are more interested in entertainment rather than information. Cable news channels often focus on celebrities or sensational crime stories, a real distraction from what the public needs to know.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 03:49 PM	Maurice Flynn : I watch Jim Lehrer whenever I am home at 6:00 pm. It is the best news show on the air. Nothing on cable or the other networks compares. To insinuate that Jim may be too old for the job is insulting and short-sighted. May he broadcast for another ten years.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 03:43 PM	David Maranz : I am a regular viewer of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. It is the only newscast that is worth viewing. The network newscasts are at least 90 percent fluff or such oversimplifications that they are not worth the price of the ads a viewer must suffer through.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 03:18 PM	Wayne King : I have At&T Universe television coverage, with evey imaginable channel available, and still I watch PBS more than all the other channels put together. Jim Lehrer' news program is superior to all others, and the Bill Moyers interview program on Friday evenings is like intellectual manna to a television audience starving for sustenance. The Times should ask whether the 200-plus commercial and cable channels are worth preserving. Most of the time, except for PBS, I join the Boss, Bruce Springsteen, in mourning that there are 200 channels and nothing on.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 03:15 PM	Roger Pease : Roger and Edna Pease: We watch several programs on the local PBS stations faithfully and the quality and variety of these are superior to that of most of the commercial stations. The Lehrer News Hour, Now, and Bill Moyers are exceptionally fine programs, and BBC News often covers worldwide subjects not found anyplace else. And on the radio, PBS offers a variety of excellent programs. PBS is the number one selection on the car radio.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 02:59 PM	lee jones : PBS encourages civil discourse, expecting the viewer to actually listen quietly, calmly, and to consider various angles of whatever topic is presented. PBS does not engage the viewer by means of hype, or simplistic good/bad solutions. PBS thinks of us as civil listeners, capable of thoughtfulness. Thank you, PBS, for viewing your viewers as intelligent human beings rather than as consuming and materialistic creatures who will voraciously swallow indigestible hype.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 02:52 PM	Sally Moore : I like to watch PBS news for the unbiased presentations. Also, the in-depth reporting of the stories in the news. I would be very unhappy if the news hour with Jim Lehrer were discontinued.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 02:37 PM	Suzanne B. : Cable's 24-hour news has its value, but it doesn't come close to applying the perspective, consideration and savvy of the NewsHour. I second Dale Heckman's comment that the NYT should have asked the far more relevant question, "Are the commercial media -- both TV and radio -- still relevant for news and information reporting? Do they use our public spectrum for significant public benefit?" When I switch over to a commercial network, I'm stunned by the lack of continuity--it's hard to follow a line of thought with constant and lengthy ad interruptions. Maybe that's why even worthy commercial shows have been put in bite-sized, dumbed-down units. Finally, I'll borrow (in jest!) a wild-eyed bumpersticker slogan of years past: "You'll get my PBS when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands!"

Posted: 02/25/08 at 12:59 PM	Sam Gassmann : PBS is the only channel my parents let me watch. We do not have cable so I only get to watch it when I visit my grandparents. Without Novaand the history and science programs as well as the learning shows I would only watch DVD's. I agree that the other stations don't have good stuff on for kids and the commercials are only trying to take my money and make me want stuff that falls apart. PBS likes kids more, I think. And cares what's good for us.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 09:59 AM	Charlotte Mulvihill : The NYT article was elitist in that it assumes that EVERYONE has cable television but there are still a substantial number of tv owners who either cannot afford or choose not to have cable tv - as one of that group, I would be truly lost without the fine programming of PBS, especially the news programming, in contrast to the snippets on CBS, NBC and ABC - PBS is virtually the ONLY television I watch!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 09:28 AM	Sayre&Bonnie Andersen : We get our news from Public TV, most of our entertainment programming, and nearly all our "informational" programs. It is not only relevant; it represents 85-90% of our viewing.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 09:22 AM	Doug : We have entered an age where daily newspapers (such as the New York times) are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Readership is down and revenues are plunging. Some daily rags now give themselves away as a means of being read. Others continue to dumb themselves down in feeble attempts to garner a share of a dissipating pool of revenue. No doubt the Times editorial board finds it far better to accuse PBS of becoming irrelevant than to face up to its own condition. Such whinging may divert attention for a time, but will not reverse the malady. PBS is not immune either. Stalwart shows such as the News Hour should be commended for maintaining their integrity while corporate strategists try to find a way to maintain their bottom line.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 08:21 AM	RedBarberian : In a desert of network stupidity and cable trash, PBS is like an oasis that is more essential than ever. Actually, it is the NYT whose continuation I question; culturally it has dumbed itself down so much that it sometimes reads like a rock 'n roll fan magazine or web site.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 02:17 AM	Dale M. Heckman : It surprises me that The N.Y.Times asked the wrong question again. It should ask, "Are the commercial media -- both TV and radio -- still relevant for news and information reporting? Do they use our public spectrum for significant public benefit?" Public TV and public radio have long provided us the only news (via electronic media) that my family and I trust. As for Jim Lehrer and his finely-tuned team, does The Times forget whom the major parties trusted in the last pres.campaign to moderate their final debates? The owners of The Times may buy up any commercial stations they salivate after, but leave our public-supported TV and radio alone!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 01:36 AM	David Smith : I watch the NewsHour every afternoon here in Canberra Australia on the free-to-air Special Broadcasting Service at 5.oo pm local time, Tuesday to Saturday, which is about 10 hours after it is broadcast in Washington. To me as a foreingner the NewsHour gives a balanced view of American politics without hype. I will admit that some of the items are rather local in the American sense but by-and-large you cover most of the news with fairness, as I've already said. you coverage of foreign news, to you, is a bit patchy but I can accept that. I was particularly pleased that you included the historic, from our point of view, the "sorry" staement by our Prime Minister to the Australian Aboringal people in your news summary recently. Keep up the good work in your news reporting and discussion pieces. We have "knockers" in newspapers in our own country who always think they know what is best.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 01:28 AM	Bob Talbot-Stern : As a Yank living in Australia (Sydney), I can say that I valued the Newshour above all other news broadcasts when I lived in the US (Connecticut, Detroit and Washington DC). The internet is great for getting my fix of US and international news; and I view other US news programs as well . . . but the Newshour (which is on the local SBS network) remains a far superior product for the reasons eloquently stated in the other blurbs . . . all the more so for the depth that explains to me and others not in the US (including non-American viewers) what really is going on there. The Newshour is America's best ambassador as it shows the thoughtful, responsible side of the US rather than the quick news bight of most stations or the jingoistic overstatement of certain others so easily perceived as such by non-Americans.

Posted: 02/25/08 at 12:55 AM	MTinAL : PBS is not only relevant, to me it is a lifeline. Cable may have a few good channels (a very few), but the number of commercial on cable is just ridiculous. I am constantly amazed anyone is willing to pay for cable when the programming on PBS is much, much better...and at a fraction of the cost! In an age of ever increasing media conglomeration, The NewsHour is not only essential viewing, it is one of the view television voices with any meaningful degree of independence. It take so few dollars to provide such a tremendous resource for the public, I think PBS is one of the most productive investments ever made with THE PUBLIC'S tax dollars! Viva PBS!! Viva!!

Posted: 02/25/08 at 12:54 AM	TRUMAN : God help us if we ever lose PBS !!!!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 10:45 PM	Osaru Sasaki : To question PBS’s relevancy as a irrelevant question to begin with. The News Hour which seems to be the focus of the article is by far the best nationwide news program. If I would place an article in the NY Times front page, it would’ve been fund raising for PBS, as oppose to asking for it relevancy

Posted: 02/24/08 at 10:28 PM	Jean Reed : PBS, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 1. You inform me in more comprehensive, balanced ways, often leavened by humor, than any other media source. 2 You provide more thoughtp-provoking and ethically-centered programming than any other media source i know. 3. You delight me with high quality entertainment, both old and new. 4. You rescue me from advertising and the crassness of commercial media. 5. You save me from having to pay ridiculous rates for cable because you use public airways as they should be used. People who can't afford cable or choose not to use it should have access to news and entertainment. 6. You promote genuine democracy by involving your audiences in its crucial questions and in asking them to voluntarily support PBS. There are more ways, but I rest my case.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 10:05 PM	John Harbord : I live in Brisbane, Australia, but I was born in Surabaya in what was then the Dutch East Indies. My father and his mother were also born in Surabaya. His father was born in Vienna. My mother was born in what was then Batavia. Her father was born on the island of Muntok. Her mother was born in the Netherlands. I have cousins who live in various countries including the USA. I would like you to know that I regularly watch the Jim Lehrer News Hour and Meet the Press as well as DW News. I like to try to obtain a broader perspective on world events. The majority of Australian news broadcasts and newspapers contain more parochial news. On SBS I watch also the Dutch language news broadcasts on Mondays. I try to watch French language ones but my french is basic. I also try to watch Chinese news but have no knowledge of any Chinese dialects.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 10:04 PM	Lawrence Hecker : PBS in general and the Newshour in particulr are the best in broadcasting. Quality programming all the time! Short, sparce commercials are also a plus.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 09:41 PM	patrick david gorse : I apologize for getting in on this so late. I write a daily (Mon-Fri) political-pop culture humor column called Gorsefeathers for RadioOnline.com, and I consider The News Hour with Jim Lehrer to be an important and invaluable information source. I have been a daily viewer of the show only for the last two years, so (even though I realized Mr. Lehrer had been involved with the program for a long time), it never occurred to me that he had been on the show since 1975 or that he was 73-years-old. I find each of those numbers to be irrelevant because there is nothing in the quality of work that Jim Lehrer does that indicates his age or length of time with the show are a negative mark against him. I've not seen anything even close to a 'senior moment' attached to Jim Lehrer while viewing the show. Instead, the host I watch nightly is simply the most competent and informative news host in broadcast television. His interviews skills are unmatched, even by the likes of the brilliant Gwen Ifill, Ray Suarez and Judy Woodruff. His understated humor, especially during his moments with Mark Shields and David Brooks is a weekly delight. I find the comment of the New York Times writer, "Jim Lehrer, 73, has been with “NewsHour” since 1975, so long that some of his early viewers are now in assisted living," to be both condescending, and a cynical attempt to lead readers to a discriminatory judgment. This article (Is PBS Still Necessary?) is contemptible and beneath the 'dignity' of the New York Times. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer is the best news program on television. Patrick David Gorse

Posted: 02/24/08 at 09:40 PM	Pat and Dan Braccio : It is almost beyond comprehension that the NY Times, representing a medium that continues to lose sponsorship and readership, would imply that PBS has lost its relevance. Specifically, PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is an exemplary form of news reporting that gives its viewers the ability to form an educated opinion about current issues. Our hope is that both print media and the quality programming that PBS provides, including Frontline, Bill Moyers' Journal, NOW, etc. continue to attract and excite consumers. We need an informed public now more than ever.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 08:14 PM	trina Paulus : I watch TV only one night a week, start with NOW, than Bill Moyers Journal. I am better educated than most with this. Sometimes some other shows, but this is my Friday night special. I do the news on Radio Pacifica WBAI NJ 99.5 and Democracy Now. Thank you PBS! need you. And yes, I often love Masterpiece theater. tonight Pride and Prejudice concludes.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 08:08 PM	Burt Nelson : The New York Times article, "Is PBS Still Necessary?", by Charles McGrath is an excellent show piece for McGrath's creative writing ability but little else. Amidst numerous high impact words and phrases, we are astonished to learn that the telivision landscape has changed! Because there are now other sources of "high-minded programming" should PBS quietly fade away and save the tax dollars? This would indeed complete the privitization of the once public airways. Or should PBS fans prod congress into providing more funds so that PBS can stop "water-boarding" its viewers and limping along with low cost shows like "Antiques Roadshow"? McGrath does not guide us. Should the news hour continue in its decades old mustiness or should it engage in the personality contest of the modern infotainment show? How say you sir? Are those of us in assisted living no longer worthy of better than the ipoder's taste? This is one vote for PBS's continued "mustiness".

Posted: 02/24/08 at 07:53 PM	Leonor A Barrett : I am a grandmother whose grandaughter told her "Grandma you watch to many news programs" Well, I rather give up CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS combined than give up The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 07:49 PM	Karis Goldsberry : I am a news junkie and the most reliable, accurate, and balanced reporting comes from PBS, NPR, and C-Span. Jim Lehrer and Brian Lamb are heroes of mine among reporters.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 07:33 PM	Donald Yannella : Rather than repeating or endorsing the numerous positive reviews given by others already about the consistently high quality of programs such as the Newshour, Moyers' Journal, PBS Now, or again lamenting the ongoing lack of support for American counterparts of Masterpiece Theater and other imports, I'll simply open myself to being accused by McGrath and his sort of an personal attack. If McGrath can introduce silliness such as Jim Lehrer's being 73 (my age too}, then I should be allowed to call attention to McGrath's nostalgic reflection on his '60s undergraduate days at Yale where he reports roaming the stands at football games on "fart patrol," scoring finds such as "geezers in their raccoon skins or camel hair topcoats" ("Rites of Autumn," YALE ALUMNI MAGAZINE, January/February 2004, pp.67-69). He admits that his own gang of nearly geezers today in their boringly casual duds are sad, even sloppy, compared to the the alums who turned out in the '60s. But, more important, we should contrast the slide at the TIMES, including the Book Review during McGrath's recent editorial reign, with the hard- won stability and, yes, health of the solid, even reporting by Lehrer, et al. If there are, to use McGrath's vulgarism, "farts," they come from the lips of the chattering classes who fill commercial programming. I'll end here by scoring both the TIMES and the Newshour for their hospitality to David Brooks, subject for another comment.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 07:26 PM	ch : Of course PBS is relevant. I just watched a host of programs for Black history month. Not only that, they cover stories on all races/cultures and I love their dedication to musicians and political programs. It is definitely a "necessity". It's very educational, please do not ever get rid of PBS. It's still the best decent thing on television, and if it weren't for the programs they show, I would miss out on a lot.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 06:58 PM	Barbara Garson : I've struggled to find a news station that does justice to domestic and world news so that I am an educated citizen. BBC, CNN, network news - they all leave me without enough substantial information about the MANY sides of news reporting and situations around the world. If I am going to be an effective citizen who can make educated decisions about my political voting and causes to champion I need to know I have substantial, sophisticated and accurate information. I am a visual person who desires daily updates. ONLY the Newshour provides this depth and breadth of information. If there is another television source of the same quality or better PLEASE LET ME KNOW!! Otherwise my dollar stops at this report. I absolutely champion this production.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 06:51 PM	Nelson, S : I would much rather give up the rest of the TV stations before I would give up PBS! Enjoyable culturally, infomative, and not as controlled by media/corporations as much as other news programs.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 06:51 PM	John Chapko : Over the last number of years I have become very disillusioned with network and cable news programs. Specific programs have not only left behind any form of outward commitment to even handed, mature journalism, they have resorted to a 'world wrestling' kind of attack format that incites antagonisms and does little to promote the modeling of adult communication where genuine disagreement exists. The News Hour is my alternative. I respect and trust the kind of reporting the program provides, including segments that feature proponents of differing opinion. And I am glad, as a result of watching the news hour, of being introduced to David Brooks. He represents honesty and measured journalistic responses to topics. I say this this a sense of respect in part because no one would accuse me of being politically or otherwise, conservative.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:40 PM	Warren : Unnecessary? Musty? Contrary to Mr. McGrath’s opinion that PBS adds only a “little grace note to our lives,” PBS continues to provide some of the best shows on TV. The NewsHour deserves special mention for the way it gives viewers the most in-depth and even-handed analysis of the daily news and current issues. But the list goes on and on…Frontline, Charlie Rose, Now …Nature, Nova, American Experience…America’s Test Kitchen, Sesame Street...I’m glad that cable networks are providing some additional high-quality news, nature, science, and history shows. I’m also glad that the audience is growing for the great programming on NPR. But at a time when world-class newspapers and other trusted information sources are either being forced to cut back or appeal more to commercial interests, the value of PBS couldn’t be more self-evident.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:38 PM	John : The criticisms have validity. But that fact calls for more investment, not less. PBS needs to demonstrate that it can escape a tendency toward banality and revive its perceived innovative past. Otherwise, it might as well just become a branch office of BBC. The present exception of steady quality can be found in the News Hour which is an absolute necessity for the continued well being of the Republic.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:24 PM	edgey : PBS is not only relevant it is necessary. PBS is the only station where intelligent programming, relevant and comprehensive news coverage, intelliegent discussion and educational formats are available. In this era of 2 second sound bites, bling and entertainment instead of news...or as they call it now ...news "show".....PBS is more relevant in all areas than ever before.!! I can not understand why the NY Times even needed to ask the question. Democracy is indeed in question if they even ever think of minimizing or removing PBS.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:18 PM	Nona Lee Gregg : PBS nees more money not less. It also needs unbiased leadership. I watch the News Hour, I'm not always in agreement of what they cover and how, but, needless to say, I'm not watching the other news casts. I do not have cable, the Times article seems to assume everyone does. Even if I did, I would still watch PBS. Programs like Frontline, Now and Bill Moyer's Journal are matchless for the kind of in-depth information given. The writer(s) of the Times article can watch what they like. Leave PBS alone it needs more support so that the likes of ADM, Chevron, Boeing, and similar corporations can be eliminated.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:16 PM	Donald K. : Consideration of funding for PBS must consider the environment. Because there are more opportunities for voices doesn't mean that they are useful or productive. We have seen a number of instances on cable and network TV recently with errors or unprofessional comments by "newspersons". The NewsHour on the other hand consistently gives us authorities and experts representing multiple viewpoints on a story and in depth. As the Times reported, that might be considered as bland but such is giving information to a listener. The Times reporter did not delve into the fiscal realities of broadcasting today...television is an expensive medium and it simply devours content. The result is repetition of the quality material that they have. Public broadcasting has set the bar so high that with level funding, their ability to provide program material in an increasing cost environment is reduced....shrinking support develops a self-fulfilling prophecy. And federal funding is not level but continues to be cut. The Presdent and Congress should not be threatening further cuts to PBS funding, but should be building educational bridges to somewhere, a small share of entitlements that are included in each "modern" budget bill. PBS...keep up the good work! Thank you.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:09 PM	J. Byma : My husband and I watch only PBS programs as they are the only programs which do not insult our intelligence and which expand our political, cultural, societal and scientific awareness and knowledge. In particular, The Lehrer Newshour offers us an opportunity to hear varied opinions and analysis of the day's important events and issues facing this country and Frontline and BBC news give us information not covered by the commercial news organizations. In his NYT article, Mr. McGrath puts forth a false premise when he trumpets cable as being a valid replacement for PBS. As others have said, cable is not available to everyone nor does everyone, including ourselves, want to have or pay for access to hundreds of channels that offer little of interest. We support our local PBS station with regular monetary contributions. It's a disgrace that our country will not increase federal funding for PBS when it needs, more than ever, the content, quality and depth of programming that public TV can bring to its viewers. Rather than contributing to the increasing dumbing down of intellectual capacity in this country by eliminating or decreasing federal subsidies for public television, we can try to raise the standard with increasing its funding. If PBS ceases to exist, we will stop watching television.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:51 PM	Mary Anne Clausen : Thank goodness for the Newshour and its top notch interviewers, whose concern is neither promoting themselves nor pandering in order to entertain, but who concentrate on eliciting important facts and opinion from knowledgeable guests. So long as there is a need for well informed citizens, the Newshour and the other few news shows of similar quality, most of them on PBS, will be not just relevant, but essential.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:41 PM	Suzanne Shannon : Our afternoon newspaper, the Albuquerque Tribune, died yesterday after a run of 86 years of consistently high-quality, relevant reporting of both local and national news issues. It ran the course of most afternoon newspapers, but left its long-time admirers like myself in mourning for the inciteful, pull-no-punches unbiased reporting of issues. Without sources such as this and PBS, I don't know where I could count on getting the news. I don't particularly care what happens to my local broadcast news or the national news on the commercial television stations, but I need to be able to count on PBS in order to feel informed.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:29 PM	Damien : PBS in general, and 'The News Hour with Jim Lehrer' in particular, is an oasis of dignity in a vast sea of spin, disinformation, distraction and hysteria. As far as I know, there is no other television news service of comparable quality in the English speaking world. I watched the NewsHour before I moved to America and I have continued to watch it since for that reason. By the by: I am 26 years old. I mention this because the Times piece repeatedly implied that PBS and the NewsHour are musty relics of a bygone era, kept from falling off the edge of the Earth by stubborn oldsters who refuse to change the channel.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:28 PM	leanne paetz : PBS is the only relevant network available in my book! Sure, there are things I may not like or enjoy, but where else but the News Hour am I going to find real news, as opposed to the latest Brittney Spears gossip or other un-newsworthy bit of titillating information. Isn't there enough "dumbing-down" in the media and culture as a whole? I have all but quit watching or listening to all but NPR and PBS over the past several years, because no where else do I find enough healthy food to feed my brain. The rest of the population can continue feeding on the fluff & goo spewed out from other networks, but as for me and mine, we are all yours, PBS!!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:20 PM	Richard : I was taught that there were no such things as stupid questions. Perhaps “times” have changed and there are now such accepted interrogatories boasted and backed by the well-financed elite. I continue to support local PBS programming for many reasons – The “NewsHour” is one of several. In fact, I receive a programming guide loaded cover to cover with reasons and intelligent programming. Whether new data for the sciences and documentaries or updates to current events to inform the public I am not disappointed. I have grown accustomed to being well informed through PBS and even expect it. It is a habit I intend to keep.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:11 PM	Marnie Hammer : I learn about so many things from the Newshour that I wouldn't have had the time to uncover on my own. The Newshour is relevant and having a host with experience to weigh in on current events is helpful in a "youth obsessed" culture. The updates that have occurred to the program are driving me to finally purchase an HD TV - I feel like I am missing too much. Finally in an era of biased news from Disney, Murdoch and other media corporations who have far too much media control, it is delightful to have a balanced view presented. To suggest that the Newshour and other PBS shows be snuffed out would bring on the damage that the Founding Fathers feared - news and the Fourth Estate are critical to a functioning democracy. I could do without my local paper far easier than I could do without PBS and NPR.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:10 PM	Susan Hartje : In today's corporate-owned media market, PBS is one of the only free and fair sources of balanced news, information and education. A Free media is a critical part of a functional Democracy. Their ability to freely question and challenge the veracity of legislative, judical and presidential activities are what inform the population and allows the 'common' citizen to be involved. A free media -- one not motivated by financial or political profit -- is critical. When the other rails of power in our Democracy become corrupted -- which most folks will agree is currently happening -- a non-profit Free Media is the last chance to re-balance the scales of justice. We need more, not less PBS!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:01 PM	Jud : I question the relevancy of the Times.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:51 PM	Cynthia M : If there were no PBS stations I wouldn't have a need for a television. Fortunately in my area I have a choice of 3 PBS channels. The rest of network television should take programming lessons from PBS and use their ability at captivating audiences with the showing of more educational programs that are also entertaining.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:31 PM	Nick Burlinson : If it was not for PBS, I probably would not watch TV. There is so much garbage out there on NBC,CBS,ABC,FOX commercial TV, that it is not surprising many third world countries think of the USA as the 'devil'. Granted, I only get the minimum (about 12 channels) on my Direct TV signal. I strongly support PBS and the "Jim Lehrer Newshour"

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:26 PM	Brian : Even though I have a strong objection to some of your left-leaning programming (NOW, Moyers, Frontline, BBC News), it is a completely ridiculous notion to question the value of your news (News Hour, Nightly Business Report, Washington Week...), science (NOVA, Nature...), and interest (This Old House, Antiques Roadshow...) programs. Where else would we get these great programs ? I think the New York Times is simply throwing rocks from a sinking ship.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:22 PM	Clem and Dianne : PBS in its entirety is a national treasure. Not only do we appreciate the unbiased reporting on the NewsHour, but many other shows as well. Other news organizations give opinions rather than providing both sides of the issues and allowing us to decide for ourselves what is relevant. We have and will continue to support PBS because of the NewsHour, Frontline, Masterpiece, Mystery!, Great Performances, American Experience, Nova, Nature, Now, Bill Moyers Journal, Washington Week, Sesame Street (and other children's programming). And this is the short list! Where else (other than a theatre) can you see a performance of Sondheim's "Company"? How about Eric Clapton, James Taylor? Thank you PBS for enriching our lives.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:02 PM	David & Avril Howe : Yes, Public Broadcasting is often fusty -- but irrelevant, never. Agreed; ‘soft’ programming such as Antiques Roadshow, Ballroom Dancing, a permanent Jane Austen season and silly Brit comedies to name a few do leave rather a lot to be desired. But nowhere else can be found in depth, thoughtful and educational programming such as The News Hour, Washington Week, Sesame Street, Studio 360, Now, Moyers, Nova, Frontline etc. etc. How can anyone suggest that such important, searching and relevant programs be dropped to leave only the propaganda / info-tainment, People Magazine style programs that pass for journalism and reporting everywhere else on our audio, video and streaming dials? And what does Jim Lehrer’s age have to do with anything? It is obvious that he has a more agile, incisive and humanitarian mind, and a far greater sense of responsibility than all the ranters, some half his age, found on the other news and talk stations. If this is fusty then the world, and our so called news outlets, could well do with more of the fusty and less of the glitzy self-promoting, bottom-line and advertising driven fare that is served up as news these days. It would seem that the NYT and those that deem PBS obsolete are unable to distinguish between the ‘fustiness’ of PBS and the plethora of superficial, two second sound-bite rubbish propagated by all the other so called news outlets combined.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:40 PM	Mark & Gisela Wilson : Are Charles McGrath's columns still necessary? His vacuous essay is more an inadvertent comment on the writer's bad mood than an analysis of PBS' worth. PBS is the only television offering unbiased, in-depth, broad-range coverage and analysis of the news. Charles McGrath's personal attack on Jim Lehrer regarding his age is not only indecent but unintelligent: it is precisely the cumulative experience of the people involved with long-term PBS programs that makes them so valuable. Charles McGrath's criticism of PBS for insufficient funds is puzzling. It is partly the federal government's unwillingness to fund it sufficiently that leaves PBS vulnerable to its corporate sponsors' demands for time devoted to commercials. If everyone who watches PBS television actually contributed to it even one-quarter of what they're willing to shell out for cable access, "Masterpiece" wouldn't be "strapped for cash" and shows like "Planet Earth" might in fact be affordable. Come to think of it, given this ongoing problem with obtaining enough funds, it is both admirable and amazing that PBS is able to continue broadcasting such high-quality programs. This essay by Charles McGrath is, however, not entirely worthless: it serves as a wake-up call to those of us who want PBS to thrive, reminding us that there are many who wish it would go away.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:39 PM	Joseph/Lois Thompson : We find PBS provides the only consistently worthwhile programming on TV. There one can find real news with enlightened analyses, entertaining dramas and comedies, and substantive discussions of important issues. Loss of this resource would be a disaster.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:17 PM	herman trutner : It is extremely important that PBS continue to receive federal support,especially in reporting the news. The Lehrer hour gives a balanced view of the important news of the day and is an important educational tool for the public, young and old.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:10 PM	Audrey Ruth : The reason I subscribe to cable TV is to access PBS. The daily Lerner news hour is the most respected and trusted news show in the U.S. PBS is the only channel that respects viewers' intelligence. The other channels sunk to the lowest common denominator level long ago. What is the matter with the New York Times? This, and the attempt to smear McCain, makes me think that they must have serious circulation problems. I believe that PBS is a national treasure and should be permanently preserved.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:54 PM	Charlene : My high interest in current events and ideas is inversely proportional to my income. Please, please maintain a tabloid murder/Britney free zone. Yes, I mean PBS.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:52 PM	Patrick Smiekel : PBS is very important to the American public as it gives an adult option to news and broadcasts programs that parents can feel comfortable having their children watch. So much of television is geared to noise and sensationalism that eliminating PBS would be a huge mistake.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:29 PM	Gary Oetting : PBS is one of the few stations I think has programs worth watching. Most all the other are just chewing gum for the eyes. for people that think and want to learn PBS has it. So in my opinion it is not PBS that is outdated, but it is the Times that is outdated and destined for extinction that's why their articles are so desperate.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:20 PM	Frederick Franke : It appears that most of the positive comments are from PBS staffers and family members. WHYY in our area has gone from begging for money twice a year to begging for money twice a month. They've become bottom line oriented every bit as much as any commercial station. The money is never enough as they become more and more management top heavy. Opps! I guess I'm not suppose to notice that they assualt us with commericals in the first and last five minutes of every program. Sorry.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:45 PM	Shirley Sampson : There is no other TV new program that comes near the News Hour for accurate, detailed information. I support my local station and an important part of my support is for the News Hour. Don't change!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:39 PM	David Edelstein : The News Hour provides in depth reporting and analysis of current events. There is no other source on television that offers this degree of coverage. Jim Lehrer is stands on the shoulders of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. If we lose the kind of reporting provided by both the N.Y. Times and PBS, we'll lose the American democracy.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:34 PM	Dillard : Not only should PBS continue to be federally funded, it should be doubled. It would not be a totally bad idea if certain programs were mandtory viewing for preschool aged children. The only problem I see with PBS is that certain programs are repeated for weeks and months. I worked for WGTV at the University of Georgia in the late 60s and fell in love with Bert and Ernie, Masterpiece Theater, and owe much of what I know to the quality programming PBS provides. Nova, Nature, News Hour, Washington Week and many other programs are the true award winners of the TV world.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:16 PM	M. R. Klivington : I was dismayed by the Times article about the relevance of PBS. Cable TV truly is a vast wasteland and if it were not for PBS, I wouldn't have the privilege of being so well informed on so many issues. I love the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. I tune in wherever I am in the US. I am an avid supporter and will continue to contribute in hopes of not losing this precious commodity. Thank You, Thank You.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:11 PM	Helen Herleikson : Yes, very definitely, please keep my PBS reporters and commentaries broadcasting the news. I enjoy the fact that they give both sides of the story so i can make up my own mind on the problems facing us. Again i was to stress how important PBS is to me and my family as an advit supporter, Thanks for allowing me to voice my opinion.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 11:56 AM	Rusty Wadsworth : There just simply is no other news station that presents the new factually rather than "hyping" whatever they have chosen to report. Of course, the full range of PBS programs is wonderfull, too.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 11:54 AM	Beverly Reynolds : Before WXXI, Rochester, New York, there was another classical music station which changed their format. I was so thrilled that we had WXXI to listen to, as I do all day long on radio, and most of the evening programs on television. We have been supporters since those early days and are charter members. Rochesterians and suburbanites love their classical music and these stations are a MUST

Posted: 02/24/08 at 11:33 AM	Jesse & Bernadine : We wish to add our voice in support of PBS, the only forum for news, views and entertainment not part of the wasteland that is today's TV menu.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 11:31 AM	G. LeRoy : After reading a number of to comments from other viewers, I can only echo what they say. Absolutely, PBS is very relevant. Although some of the programs are more important to me than others, I find that the quality of all your programs is so far superior to most anything else. In trying to come to a better understanding of what is really going on in this world, I feel that the News Hour, the other news programs and documentaries all do thier utmost to give a thorough, unbiased presentation. Thank you for so many wonderful years. Please stay with us.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 11:16 AM	Dennis Weiler : This ongoing drive to halt funding for PBS is nothing more than an attempt to supress the analysis, communication and discussion of pertinent information and typifies the Putinesque measures the Republican administration is willing to pursue to degrade what little exchange of ideas and constitutional rights that remain after these last seven years. There are few if any other televised sources other than PBS from which this vital information is made available. If anything, funding should be doubled.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 10:35 AM	Chase Rice : Regular television is mind-numbing, biased, violent, often disgusting, and a disgrace to America, and it is beamed all over the world. I tried cable and satellite and gave them up. They were very expensive and offered much of the same pap, but one could sit in front of the television all day, which is what a lot of people do. I couldn't get along without PBS and NPR as they offer quality, adult programing.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 09:54 AM	mwoods : The Newshour is a much needed and appreciated staple in my daily collection of information about the world in which I live. I count on it. I learn from it. Newshour invites me to understand, especially on political topics, and calls me to confront even ugly issues with candor- to really ask "what is fact" and "what is opinon." I also really love that Newshour is not 60 minutes of middle-aged white guys telling me what I should think or patting me on the head with a feel-good story of the week. The Newshour is for people who think and care and challenge. To all of the people who work so hard to deliver this quality program every evening for those who want to know—thank you, and keep up the good work!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 09:52 AM	mwoods : The Newshour is a much needed and appreciated staple in my daily collection of information about the world in which I live. I count on it. I learn from it. Newshour invites me to understand, especially on political topics, and calls me to confront even ugly issues with candor- to really ask "what is fact" and "what is opinon." I also really love that Newshour is not 60 minutes of middle-aged white guys telling me what I should think or patting me on the head with a feel-good story of the week. The Newshour is for people who think and care and challenge. To all of the people who work so hard to deliver this quality program every evening for those who want to know—thank you, and keep up the good work!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 09:28 AM	fedrick : The News Hour is my primary source of news. Next comes the New York Times. It heartens me so many feel as passionatly abiyt PBS as I do.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 09:15 AM	Greg Metcalf : I read the NY Times for 40 years when I lived in NYC; but now that I live in Utah where it takes 7-9 days for the Times to arrive this family spends all of its time with PBS: for us it is both "relevant" and absolutely essential in our rural community. You go PBS!!!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 08:16 AM	Carole Cavanaugh : I'm just adding my voice to so many here in support of Jim Leherer. The News Hour is the best thing on television. I can't remember what the subject was, but I recall my amazement once at a story with experts who were all minorities speaking on a topic unrelated to minority issues. They were there as experts in their fields, not as representatives of their race. What a concept! Where else would you find that kind of grown-up sense on American TV? I know I'll always get the full story from The News Hour without the hosts promoting their own egos. If the show goes off the air, I might as well throw away my TV.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 05:15 AM	Larry Rosenberger : I'm confident that I'm not the only one with the view that "Jim Lehrer, 73, has been with “NewsHour” since 1975, so long that some of his early viewers are now in assisted living" is a really CHEAP SHOT that damages the reputation of the New York Times. What part of that sentence has any relevant bearing on the merits of the Newshour in particular and PBS in general? If there's a "musty" institution that ought to be examined for its "no longer relevant" journalistic practices, it's the New York Times.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 04:14 AM	Tom Gates : Thank goodness for PBS. The network morning programs have become TV tabloid format. Evening news has become info-tainment. When should the creation of a new separate nation and Brittney grace the same 30-minute news program? Sure Nova, Nature, Sesame Street, News Hour, This Old House, etc are in their 2nd and 3rd decades - because they are good and have stood the test of time. Most new network shows can't be found after the first three months, let alone three years. 48-Hour Mystery and a 10-year old case vs Frontline and a no-punches-pulled look at current topics. Gee, takes about 2-seconds to determine which should remain on the air. The current Washington establishment and its big-business ties has been stung big time by public television and radio over the years. Tom Delay exposed as the thief and cheat he is (ABC had him giving election opinion with George S. - Really!!??) Enron exposed and the ties to the current administration and why problems were not remedied before the corporate collapse and robbing of California electric customers. Blackwater exposed and the 10's of millions of our tax dollars they just left in the desert because their equipment was out of fuel, oil, or had a flat tire - for starters. Did I see any of this on a network program of any kind? Absolutely not. Was this on cable? Darn if I'd know. With the drivel on network TV - why pay good money to see more of the same, just on 40-times more channels. Thank goodness for PBS!!!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:21 AM	Glenn Reihing : The cynical side of me cannot help but wonder if this is not a test balloon sent up to gauge support for PBS. I have watched over the years and seen "news" channels morph mayhem (murders, fires) into actual "news". It is important to remember how much real programming variety on current issues are actually shown on these "news" channels. In my opinion that amount is extremely little as compared to PBS. Another point to be made is that it is not the Times place to be asking such a question. The ability to obtain news and information from whatever the source should not be regarded as irrelevant. If anything they should strive to protect it. For a major news outlet like the Times to write an article like that worries me as to who is really in charge (behind the scenes).

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:19 AM	winnie : The News Hour has to be THE BEST one-hour news show on television. Every single reporter and commentator is top notch. This intelligent, eloquent program should remain in our lives for ever. No doubt.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 03:06 AM	Philip Suthons : This is a comment about the New York Times article on the relevance of PBS. First of all, I'm a Canadian living in Japan, so maybe my opinion doesn't matter. I decided not to respond on the Times site, because I was so angry; writing to the Times feels like talking to the Taliban. I never expected the Times to write such a rude, shallow and possibly criminal article (Jim Lehrer is 73? So what??). By the way, I'm 53 and I don't need assistance, thank you very much. The Times is no longer venerable, not as far as I'm concerned! Almost every point they raised was ludicrous: for example, was there no serious tv journalism in the sixties? Did they miss the Vietnam War? Sure things are better now... because we have PBS. The main thrust of their criticism seemed to be with entertainment programming. Education is not entertainment! (I'm a university lecturer.) There's plenty of entertainment on the other networks. That's why we need educational tv. I think the Iraq War, the New Orleans fiasco, Enron, the subprime crisis and whatever comes next is ample reason to keep PBS. The U.S. is falling behind in democracy -- which requires an informed public. What we don't need is CNN, ABC, FOX and other shrill "entertainment"/ propaganda. Maybe we don't need the Times either.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:41 AM	William Kidd : It must be a fascinating world that this guy McGrath lives in, but it sure doesn't resemble any reality I know. It boggles the mind that he considers the NewsHour in the same category as network news -- ANY network or cable news program. He does barely touch some of the real world in his comments about NPR, but other than the difference in the percentage of airtime devoted to current events/news (Gee! Do you think the differing funding levels might have something to do with that??), PBS & NPR are the ONLY places the responsible citizen can go to hear/see in-depth access and reviews. I have often only been able to hear or see the viewpoints of those who oppose my own on one or both of these sources. To allege that "extended news broadcasts" of the PBS sort can be found on cable is totally ludicrous. Cable certainly addresses a host of niche interests, but I have found that even if you can find a channel which includes the niche of your choice, the quality is usually a mile wide and an inch deep. No one consistently does current events, political analysis (in the true sense of the phrase, not several talking heads debating whether some candidate's faux pas is worse than another's) international relations, or the like as thoroughly as does PBS, short of C-SPAN which of course eliminates the analysis and gives you random access and periodic insight into the views of those who you will NEVER see on network or cable programs, OR on PBS. The repeated White House (read "Republican") efforts to stifle PBS is just another sign how much they fear a citizenry that is well-informed and able to distinguish good science from religious proseletyzing. Mr. McGrath is whining because PBS doesn't more perfectly fill the niches of his preference. I, too, would prefer more of what I like, but that's no more likely than "free lunch", and I'll put up with tuning out the "Ballroom Challenge" in return for the opportunity to never miss Lehrer, Now, Moyers, Am Experience, Nova and the occasional history special.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:41 AM	Justin White : I must add this postscript to my earlier comment. I am one of a group of friends who watch Charlie Rose as he fuels discussions with some of the best interviewing this side of heaven. Once again I must comment on the depth of information that is transmitted nightly on Jim Lehrer's News Hour. His commentators and interviewers are the best I have ever seen.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 02:27 AM	Justin White : After reading some of the comments that precede mine I feel like I am writing in an echo chamber.I am a devoted consumer and long time financial supporter of PBS radio and television. The programming regularly provides me with a range of intellectual stimulus and entertainment that other media do not even approach. I work late on Friday evenings and am able to come home before Jim Lerher's News Hour and tape his show and the subsequent hours of Friday evening news round-ups and analyses(Gwen Ifill, NOW, Bill Moyers). This allows me to strech out and listen carefully when I am comfortable. More importantly, I do not miss these offerings. This is just one example of the importance I place on Public Televison. Few of our nation's social institutions can match PBS's consistent high quality and I am sure it is those characteristics that generate consternation amongst those who would not attempt to (nor in most cases can they) compete at the same level.Thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts and you can count on my continued support.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:48 AM	Jim DeLoach : PBS and Jim Lehrer’s News Hour is my primary source of news. Yes, I read the paper, listen to the news on the radio and check out the web, but by far the most reliable news and analysis comes from PBS. To say it is no longer necessary is just not true. The documentaries and other programs are far superior to most anything found on commercial TV. Jim DeLoach (Stockton, CA)

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:38 AM	G Sawyer : I agree with many of the comments posted here. PBS is invaluable in making real news accessible to the American public. Additionally, I continue to be amazed at the excellent cultural programming that is offered. I don't watch any other station, not just because of the lack of good information elsewhere, but because I've decided I don't need the excessively crude, materialistic, and generally distasteful programming offered on other stations, especially cable stations. Thank you PBS for programming that is informative, interesting, and mindful of basic human dignity.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:30 AM	Peter LaTorre : The viewing audience for PBS television may be shrinking, but it's role as intelligent TV for the masses is needed more now than ever. To me, you cannot find a better, more balance and objective news program than the "Newshour". I don't care if Jim Lehrer is 73. Ray Suarez, Gwen Ifill, and Judy Woodruff are all top notch. My wife and I watch it every night. And have for the last 20 years. PBS is much more than the old standbys like NOVA. There are local programs like Quest, Spark, American Experience which are entertaining and thought-provoking. We need to keep it and improve it, not get rid of it. Perhaps federal funding will go up once the Bush Administration is out and the Iraq war is over. You state there is no liberal bias on PBS, and I agree. But the Republicans are STILL promoting the perception that PBS is a bastion of liberal bias. Long live PBS!

Posted: 02/24/08 at 01:16 AM	TheTeaDiva : The whole household LOVES you PBS! From 86 year old Grandma who revels in the hilarious snobbishness of Hyacinth, to my 4 1/2 year old autistic son, who loves all the PBS kids shows with their websites to match (and who constantly recites the entire list of contributors to various programs), to me, a tail end baby-boomer, who was devastated when Bill Moyers left NOW - even though I thought David Brancaccio was very easy on the eyes - but then became completely ecstatic when Moyers came out with his journal. (More of Moyers and Branccacio! Joking aside, Now and the Journal are 2 of my faves - great in depth coverage on timely issues, with more insights available online.) All the girls have loved the Jane Austen specials, and the Wild series continues to thrill us all. We don't have cable, and can't imagine why we'd want it. Okay - maybe the history channel someday. But really - PBS is our mainstay 98% of the time. And really - The News Hour is such a beacon in the news world. It really gets us all going when we hear people saying that The News Hour is "the liberal news." Well - maybe in comparison to FOX, but it is so obvious that such care is taken to maintain objectivity and balance - for real - not FAUX. And for any of those out there that are skeptics, take a look at the comments about The News Hour in this study: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx #1 for "most centrist!" Thanks PBS for being all you are to us.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:17 AM	Tim Brown : I'm a 22-year-old senior of political science at Arizona State University , and people are always surprised when I tell them the one hour of news casting a day I couldn’t live without is the News-hour with Mr. Jim Lehrer. If I were to pick the second most valuable hour of programming on television it would be either Frontline or Nova. Without a Doubt. Thanks PBS.

Posted: 02/24/08 at 12:07 AM	AlisonS : I cannot imagine living without the News Hour, Now, Bill Moyers, Washington Week etc. Not to mention all the marvelous arts and drama shows. As a Canadian, I have the CBC but for American coverage, PBS is the only reliable source for news. May you long be able to keep up the quality work

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:40 PM	Lois Firalyo : We have had cable TV for two years but we rarely watch anything that isn't on PBS and we're members of our local station. It would be hard to live without Frontline, Bill Moyers, Now, Nova, and many others we watch regularly. And we have been avid NPR listeners for thirty years, too.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:18 PM	johnnie : Hi. Newshour with Jim Lehrer is a regular for me. i live in Australia and we get it on our SBS network daily and with the time difference the previous day's show. we see it daily at 5-6PM local time. it is fantastic and the PBS is to be congratulated. i like the presenter, his experience & unassuming manner, and the other news-heads are good, and i enjoy your two regular columnists, one from the NY Times the other independent (i put my hard-earned dollars - i have bet 3X - on Hillary for the Democrat nomination, after your guys previous comments and sticking with her, now 4/1 here and that's big odds.) seriously, the program gives me insight into the USA and how it thinks and what are its concerns. and i so much appreciated your nightly commemoration of your soldiers who die in Iraq, it is an honorable tribute (my mate actually used to send these photos to our govt politicians in Canberra - they have since lost the election). i hope you keep going. you are doing a great service even to us here in Australia. cheers

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:15 PM	Willie M. Defee : The News Hour with Jim Leher is THE program for me and my husband, and has been for many many years. We go back to McNeil/Leher!For us, there is no more honest, thought provoking news than that one. Add to that the other great programs--Washington Week, NOW. Bill Moyers, Masterpiece Theatre,Mystery, and Charlie Rose. What more can one ask? Otherwise, T.V. is mostly entertainment, and not very much of that. We watch very little, but P.B.S. is tops with us. Relevent? I vote a hearty YES!!!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:13 PM	Mary Phillips : Bottom Line: PBS is important! That is where I get my news. The other commercial stations are NOT an option in our home. We want to hear the whole story. I always watch the News Hour. It appears that the New York Times reporter was talking through his hat.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:44 PM	Cynthia : We need many, many PBS's, of course.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:22 PM	Christian Engleman : After others' at length eloquence, I post only to vote for PBS. However, one comment on News broadcasting: Turner CNN was immediate and often had wonderful detail, going beyond daily PBS News. The new and improved CNN can’t keep up with Fox but does its best in affecting the Fox paradigm of third graders running around screaming at each other. I do hope PBS can resist this format. The Times was right about Waterboarding and Pledge Week. I sit in solemn silence.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:20 PM	Yael : I thought about this for a while before I decided I would actually write anything myself. The reason for my decision to post something: I simply could not imagine my family life without PBS. Inconceivable.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:59 PM	Nonni : We NEED PBS for our intelligence to be fed and nurtured. We can count on 'fair and balanced' information, not entertainment. Cable News has become increasingly biased and a branch of show business, with the true information lost and obscured with opinions and favor. Let's keep the information on PBS and the clowns in the circus!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:55 PM	Joel Porter : My wife, Bobbie, has gotten me to join her in watching The News Hour with Jim Lehrer every night during our dinner without fail. It's become a part of our lives. It is as essential to us now as were other programs of its kind growing up in the 70's. But because of how fast news circulates in modern times, it's even more relevant now.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:47 PM	Tijo : Twenty, or was it thirty, years ago we were staunch supporters of Public Radio & Telivision. That was until you started having your first commercials -- & yet you kept referring to yourselves as "commericial-free". We, and presumably others, pointed out the hypocrisy of this to you without avail. Since then your commericialization has got worse & worse & evermore tacky. You are almost as bad as the other out-&-out commerical programmes. What makes it worse is that unlike the confessedly commercial stations, you have become precious. PBS is so special, such a blessing to the public that "EVERYBODY should support us!" Hence the blitz of adverts: "We'll blast the dough out of 'em!". But that doesn't work does it. It just hardens the hearts. One of your most egregious & obnoxious gimmicks are those goddamned strips & descending balloons that you slap in our faces when we are trying to watch something else, e.g. Masterpiece Theatre, or American Experience. With this brilliant innovation you not only startle us, but shatter the spell (if there is any to begin with) of what we are watching. That includes Lehrer News Hour. Who cares about Rick Steve's Europe, or Rick Steve's anything. Rick (or is it Ric???} is a bore. Should we want to find him, for some unimaginable reason, we are perfectly capable of doing so -- without your obtrusive help. As for your hundreds of comments -- our printer currently is not working, so our visual accuity & commitment were not strong enough to lead us to read more than a few. We noticed particularly the euphoria of many & the constant references to "deep analysis", the broad range of topics, the high "intellectual level" -- well yes, when compared with everything else. And so on. Our feeling is that just about everything on PBS has deteriorated -- Masterpiece Theatre has degenerated in many instances to melodrama with bad casting, poor staging, god-awful camera work -- pore-&-nostril cinamatography I calls it -- where you are looking up somebody's hairy nose, or into his (or her) pores, or at his alcohol-veined face. We don't need to be that close, besides it destroys the sense of space. Your recent Jane Eyre was unusually good. I expected it to be awful, like a lot of the latter-day Jane Austins. The Brittish comedies are dreadful as a rule. Canned laughter is sickening & makes one want to throw up on the morons -- as for Dame Whatsit, what can we say? NOVA has slipped into children's fantasy with racing clouds & all sorts of camera-warps -- barely watchable these days. Formerly good mysteries such as Sherlock Holmes & Poirot fall into the clutches of New Types who think they can improve on them, thereby making them un watchable. What can we say about the so-called "Deep Analysis"??? Some of it is very good, some of it is boring, some of it is not so deep. You should do something about not letting guests interrupt. We want to here what the "experts" have to say & not listen to some loud prima donna walk over somebody who is less self-assertive. Another thing that is really irritating is that certain of your people, especially guests, are inclined to use the expression "people of colour". This is a racist expression. We are suprised that you, a Politically Correct.org, lets them get away with this. Does the expression mean that only black, brown & yellow people have colour?? And should therefore be taken more seriously. Does it mean that "white" is not a colour & therefore is not to be taken too seriously? I am white & red (Metchif). Most people do not recognize this, or know what it means. I have grown up with American Indians & other native peoples. It is interesting to me that people who have grown up experiencing prejudice can feel justified in expressing prejudice. "They owe us." This will not get anybody anywhere -- except backwards. Finally, PBS has got too Pop -- it wants to be something for everybody. This can't be done. If you spread yourself too thin, then you penetrate all the way to the surface. Perhaps this is the reason that so much of your programming is getting melodramatic, overdone & superficial. Finally, this gets to the New York Times. we gave up on them a long time ago. Too many of their correspondents are callow & inarticulate -- & too full of "Uhms". We do like Green from Iraq, however. As for the New York Review of Books, we stopped taking it. Do not like writers reviewing other writers. Too clubby. They all begin to sound alike. We have friends who do this. We do not yet think PBS's time is up, but there is a lot of room for improvement -- perhaps by turning back the clock a bit, & by not thinking you are indespensible. If we sound unduly harsh, perhaps it is because over the years we have come to expect more than you are delivering currently.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:35 PM	Oregon Bill : The News Hour is the ONLY news program on TV that is more than sound bites, greying for not. Also, while it is true that some of the entertainment programming is reruns of old series, many of those --however old-- are refreshing and welcome changes from commercial broadcasting's foulmouthed sitcoms and gory crime/legal series.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:30 PM	Allen : If cable TV has anything to offer that is remotely close to that offered by PBS, I for one haven't found it. The uninterrupted programming and the marvelous content is unmatched by anything else I’ve found in TV land. I hope PBS is with us for generations to come.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:29 PM	Dietmar : I live in Australia and watch The News Hour, NBR and Frontline on our local SBS (Special Broadcast Service) on a regular basis.PBR gives me an indepth unbiased sophisticated coverage of the USA and the world on par with other non commercials such as the Australia Broadcasting Commission ,BBC and CBC.Commercial news channel such as FoxNews has a background noise content of 80%, with 20% news content.Cut the noise out and you have an inferior and biased news service.KEEP UP THE BRILLIANT WORK PBS

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:27 PM	Swanee : Without PBS or the News Hour, I don't need TV. I'll get my news and entertainment from the newspaper and radio. I watch News Hour every day it's on. I watch it all the way through. I trust the coverage, and look forward to the balance of opinions. The other news programs, I click around, see what they've got to report, but rarely stay long. Yes, PBS is very important. Thank you for asking.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:24 PM	Dan : NPR news, Washington Week, and the Jim Lehrer News Hour are important news sources for us. We also watch Bill Moyers and Now. We like the tone of these programs and haven't seen any other sources that we like. Loss of any of these programs would leave us without the current information that we need as good citizens.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:14 PM	David : I love the quality of the journalism and production values of PBS. I live in Australia and I get the delayed telecast of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on SBS television. PBS documentaries are also well produced. Keep up the good work! Yes, PBS is necessary, especially when compared to the hollow alternatives.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:48 PM	Gregg Reitmeister : I beleive that PBS is still quite relavent. I am a regular viewer of the News Hour. I respect that it is both a reliable and accurate format. It does have the typical hype and censationalism that get from the networks and cable.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:46 PM	Kate Vanderheiden : Public TV and radio are the only non-print, non-Web sources of information and entertainment that consistently offer quality and do not insult my intelligence. The news and science programming is unbeatable, and I enjoy many of the entertainment offerings. My son grew up with Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Bill Nye, Reading Rainbow. We subscribe to cable, but find that I watch very little (it is truly amazing that, with all those channels, there is so little worth spending any valuable time watching!) But there's more! The sense of community that public media create is also very unique and important. I was surprised at the New York Times piece, and am glad to have this opportunity to comment (which I usually don't bother to do).

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:33 PM	Ruth F. DiGiuseppe : I cannot imagine the disappearance of the News Hour. It is my most reliable source of the most important news of what is actually going on around the world, not just in Washington DC or Hollywood. The in-depth examination of the significant issues of the day by experts with usually opposing opinions is really valuable. The New York Times has certainly shown the level of its intellect, and the article is an insult to educated and thoughtful people. Thanks, Jim and crew, for all the years of a wonderful program.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:24 PM	Marilyn Jacobs Furey : I was outraged to read that article in the "Times" about PBS. I mainly watch PBS as the rest of TV is as Newton Minnow said years ago "a wasteland" and now even more so than when he first said it. I have over 1000 channels and late at night there is only "paid programming" or ridiculous and boring programming. My only option besides PBS is the Food Channel or C-Span. Has this Mr. Mc Grath watched CNN, MSNBC and the commercial networks to see the "pap" they put on and that the commercials are more numerous than the program content. And he complains that the commercials on PBS are 30 seconds long!!! To view those commercials and to be able to view such programs as "Washington Week in Review", "Bill Moyers", "Frontline", "Expose" and the cultural programs such as "Live From Lincoln Center", "Masterpiece Theatre" and "American Masters". 30 seconds is a small price to pay for this programming. I have written a letter to the "Times", but do not know if it will reach them.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:24 PM	Megan : My three year old and i love to watch pbs. We love to watch are you being servered, antique roadshow or how about word girl or all the other great t.v. shows that pbs has. The other best thing about pbs is that once the t.v. show has started there are no t.v. commerical interruptions that you have to worry about.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:22 PM	Martha G : The News Hour and Washington Week are the two programs that convinced me to finally subscribe to DVR. If I am am not home from work in time to tune in, I feel that my day is incomplete. Those two programs alone provide the most in depth and unbiased summary of national and international news and politics available on television.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:17 PM	Megan : I love pbs i don't just watch the news how about all the kids shows that my three year old would be sad if she was not able to watch

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:59 PM	BB : I could not disagree more with the opinions expressed by Charles McGrath. He certainly does not speak for me. In terms of news analysis, no commercial TV station does it better than PBS. The answer to the author's query is not less federal funding for PBS, but more. I, myself, will continue to be a supporter of this precious national resource.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:56 PM	Eric : PBS is relevant. I enjoy watching PBS programming. I don't have cable. I would perfer watching The NewsHour, Washington Week, and Charlie Rose, among many other PBS programs. By observing the other news networks... FOX, with their conservative bias. CNN and MSNBC, with their liberal bias. Entertainment news programs and tabloid magazines, with their obsessions over the hollywood stars private lives, by wanting to turn it in to a public spectacle. For the New York Times to question PBS and NPR's relevancy... that's just wrong. Shame on you, New York Times! PBS and NPR have my full support 100%. Thanks, Eric from GA

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:55 PM	russell swanker III : Irrelevant? The night I heard this piece on the News Hour about the Times editorial, I saw Bill Moyers interview Sarah Chayes about what is really going on in Afghanistan. That was a riveting, gut wrenching and amazing interview. We are failing there due to our venture in Iraq, and it is plain as day – IF you have someone to tell the story. And only on PBS do you hear this type of thing. Go PBS. And NYT? Go to hell.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:55 PM	PM : The barbarians are pounding at the gate once more. Mr. McGrath is an advocate of the networks that have more "relevance" with more attention to blings, bangs, updates on celebrities, "debates" that consist of two advocates, one often a dope, trying to talk over each other, and avoid covering boring issues such as those addressed by PBS. How dull, to have unbiased, factual reporting on the news or coverage of cutting edge science. Mr. MGrath's concept of relevance is highly troubling.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:54 PM	Marilyn Jacobs Furey : I was outraged to read that article in the "Times" about PBS. I mainly watch PBS as the rest of TV is as Newton Minnow said years ago "a wasteland" and now even more so than when he first said it. I have over 1000 channels and late at night there is only "paid programming" or ridiculous and boring programming. My only option besides PBS is the Food Channel or C-Span. Has this Mr. Mc Grath watched CNN, MSNBC and the commercial networks to see the "pap" they put on and that the commercials are more numerous than the program content. And he complains that the commercials on PBS are 30 seconds long!!! To view those commercials and to be able to view such programs as "Washington Week in Review", "Bill Moyers", "Frontline", "Expose" and the cultural programs such as "Live From Lincoln Center", "Masterpiece Theatre" and "American Masters". 30 seconds is a small price to pay for this programming. I have written a letter to the "Times", but do not know if it will reach them.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:29 PM	robert henderson : I value PBS because it is the only avenue available to give me thoughtful and entertaining programming.When programs end,I'm always saying " that was good!" We need PBS!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:24 PM	Carol : I think that Mr. McGrath is not a PBS viewer. What would we do without Bill Moyers and other news programming like Frontline? Mr. McGrath suggests that the HBO series, The Tudors, is what Masterpiece Theater used to be. I have seen this series, one of the most poorly written and poorly acted drivel ever presented on television.How anyone could suggest that this dreadful series could in any way be considered superior to the amazing dramatizations of the novels of Jane Austen, currently being run on Masterpiece, utterly astounds me. And what about Sesame Street, Nova,Independent Lens and on and on.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:21 PM	RobinO : I would be lost without PBS. I feel I can trust it to be minimally biased and majorly informative. I definitely feel that PBS has a role in news that is critical. I wish there were other choices to hear balanced discussions about world affairs and news of importance. I will turn off celebrity news and confrontational panels. I do not subscribe to the premium catv channels and even though I get about 40 channels I am often left with nothing to watch. Also, my catv provider dropped one of my 2 PBS stations so now I cannot toggle between 2 on fund drive occasions plus it also had some British continuing programs that were not on the other station. I dislike reality shows, contest shows, law enforcement(except Monk), and all the "jump into bed" shows masquerading as dramas. I have to agree with some of the points in the NYT article about the need to update some programs. I watch News Hour, BBC news, Nightly Business Report, Washington Week, Antiques Roadshow, Masterpiece, & Great Performances on a regular basis. A lot of the topical programs/reports & Ken Burns are great, but sometimes Moyers & Now are a bit too unpleasant to make me a regular fan. So I guess my opinion is that PBS should take some advisement from the criticisms in the NYT article to improve. I do not object to commercial time at the beginning & end or after an hour of a long program.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:20 PM	norma henderson : PBS is more vital today than ever before. The programs provide in depth, accurate news, great scientific programming and wonderful drama. I f it were not for PBS I would not turn on the TV.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:14 PM	Donna Ascalon : Where else can we get indepth, balanced reporting on the major issues we face?

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:11 PM	Viewer : Lose PBS and The News Hour? Hope not!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:11 PM	wayne Ferrari : PBS in general and the News Hour in particular is a rare unbiased source of critical intelligence about our world. Its journalism is on par with NY Times. Both are necessary and appreciated.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:57 PM	Carey Inman : Is the New York Times still necessary?

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:51 PM	Cynthia : I watch PBS more than any network or cable channel. There is nothing on non-PBS channels that compares to the quality reporting of The NewsHour. And I cannot imagine life without Charlie Rose. NPR is grand, but it does not replace or supplant PBS.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:30 PM	Miriam E Wright : My only consistant TV viewing are PBS programs The News Hour, Bill Moyers Journal and Washington Week are my top choices. The in depth interviews by journalists who ask intelligent and respectful questions and respect the listener my reasons. Without PBS, I'd just give up on TV.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:25 PM	Glenn Hamilton : PBS is the only place you can get in-depth discussion of news items of national and worldwide interest. In addition. the entertaining programs of nature, science, and mystery cannot be excelled. Our evening starts with the Newshour everyday. We also look forward to the Friday Washington Week and the other fabulous programs. We are contributors to KQED, KTEH, and KCSM here in northern California. There would be a big blank if something happened to PBS. Keep up the good work!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:05 PM	Freshfry : I couldn't help but laugh....Do I want to watch Millionare Matchmaker, American Gladiator, reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger versus Bill Moyer's Journal.... especially when he has Kathleen Hall Jameison, Now, Frontline, and Independent Lens? Or how about the Nightly New with Brian Williams, a man who knows no limit on the excessive use of the English language, who continually refers every segment to their Nightly News website for more information; I don't want to go to their website...I want it right now or not at all.... And Katie Couric.... Too perky and she, like Mr. Williams and Mr. Gibson, just can't stop referring everything to their website...Mr. Leher, on the other hand gives us full, complete discussion on a variety of important subject, all with the analysis by Brooks and Shield every Friday.... Thank you PBS...if you weren't there, I'd go back to radio, as bad as that is....No, how about books?

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:04 PM	Jane M : It's shocking to learn that so-called educated people would suggest that PBC might be considered irrelevant. Best single reason: Jim Lehrer's Newshour -- journalism with intelligence, depth and integrity. Of course, diverse and quality programs such as Bill Moyers, Masterpiece Theatre and the other above-mentioned sort of programming is nothing less than vital for any civilization. The "No Child Left Behind/Dumbing Down of America" syndrome seriously applies to our adult population as well. It may not be necessary for the majority of a population to have an intellectual bent, but it is certainly critical that a society promote, at times demand, that people with average or better intelligence can develop and function as reasonable, intelligent adults. This is not to be confused with elitism. It is at the core the success or failure of a democrqcy. It seems the dominant media/entertainment sectors have excessive influence and perhaps actual desire to aim for the lowest common denominator. In my opinion, this is undermining the exercise of our very rights of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" we claim to hold so dear. Leave PBS alone.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:04 PM	Johann : I am astonished at the personal umbrage that Jim Lehrer seems to take at the McGrath article, since it includes a simple (but gratuitous) ageist comment on Jim, but does not really disparage the show. But since you have mounted this crusade, Jim: I watch The News Hour regularly, not because it’s so good but because everything else is so dreadful. It is possible that Jim is either conservative himself, or so fearful of being seen as liberal that he comes off that way. I find in the show an irritating tilt toward the right in what is vaunted as balanced reporting. “Newsmaker” interviews are too often limited to Administration shills who are allowed to present their cases to Jim without any meaningful comment or questioning. The possibility that fear is at work was most evident in the simperingly reverent commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. Ray Suarez closed the segment (as I recall) with the line, “Elvis Presley died thirty years ago today, of heart failure.” Well, that’s not a lie, but it is also very far from the whole truth. Whose exquisite sensibilities were in danger? And Mark Shields must go. How about giving David Brooks (a man I have come to respect as one of independent mind) a run for his money with someone like James Oliphant. Oliphant, aside from being my much-desired liberal Lochinvar, has the sense of humor the other two lack. You can often hear him on NPR. The network in general has long been a mixed bag for me. Too many British imports, as good as they are, and not enough Nova’s. My greatest disappointment, because it started with such great potential for excellence in home-grown programming, was the cancellation of the entertaining and benign “Tales of the City,” a cave-in to the voices of hate. I never again thought as highly of PBS as I had before. Happily, there was a cable network to pick it up. I take two important exceptions to the McGrath article: 1. Bill Moyers is magnificent. There is no one on TV or radio who will take on the difficult issues he tackles in such depth and with such clarity. His show and “American Exeprience” are the two best on Public Television. And 2., despite the fact that there is a food channel (which, for true foodies, is more often annoying than satisfying) the only shows for people who like to cook are on public television. I do believe that public television is relevant, and should have significant public funding. If only Edward R. Murrow were here to chime in. It is important, as well that it have subscribers. People should want to be a part of the noble enterprise that it once was, and I hope will be again.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:53 PM	Bob Underhill : Ditto..! ditto..! on all the good comments concerning all the PBS programs. You're quality staff & programing is the reason for 95% of your success. The other 5 % is because you have no competition..!! You know what I mean....What a shame broadcast TV quality has gone so far down. I don't have cable...as I don't see any quality there either. I get nothing but screaming, yelling, banging noises in the background of commericals & programs as well. Again what a shame.. & thank you for maintaining an adult format.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:52 PM	Shabbeer : Adding to my previous comment, News Hour and other news based programs are perhaps the only 'decent' and 'civil' debates I have seen. Just for this fact, I am a proud supporter.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:49 PM	Shabbeer : I am a legal recent (six years) immigrant to the United States. PBS and especially News Hour and Charlie Rose and other analytical programs are 'the source' for my consumption. The cable TV has its pulls, pushes and whims to satisfy and therefore are not true in presenting a 'correct' analysis. May be it is generationals shift that led Charles McGrath to write about the need. But then I am young and woudl dispute if this shift prompted such an article. Watching CNNs, FOXes, MSNBCs, ABCs and CBSs as newbie I was horrified at how the America I dreamed about was not right. Each one of these channels cater to a segment but not a complete analysis. Public broadcasting especially PBS and NPR are necessary to balance and to offer a 'journalistic' view as opposed to presenting 'their view'. I am a proud member and would be pained to see this taken off air. I strongly support continuance and would be eager to do my part if required. Thank you.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:47 PM	Matthew Gillmor : I find the PBS more relevant, poignant, unbiased, and thought provoking than any other TV news station/program. It is a shame that mainstream news outlets' content has become purely entertainment driven.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:40 PM	Elizabeth Shaw : I count absolutely on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, along with Washington Week, for my main news and issue discussion for the week. I watch very little TV, but these programs are an important part of my everyday life (along with a few others, mostly PBS programs, such as Masterpiece Theater, some of the specials, Nova, etc.)

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:36 PM	Hope Lewis : ...and I forgot to mention "Washington Week in Review" with Gwen Ifill. Can't figure out DC without it!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:34 PM	Joy Mcabe : Every year I hear from politicians and pundits that we do not need PBS because we have hundreds of cable channels to suit our every preference. Every year I write the politicians to inform them that one must subscribe to cable TV and pay a hefty fee every month. they do not seem to be aware of this. I do not feel that I should waste my money on cable TV. I am a member of Channel 13 and send them a small donation each year, far less than if I paid cable each month. Thirteen plays the programs that I enjoy and vote for. while Cable shows whatever they choose. As anyone who looks at a TV schedule can attest, there really is nothing on network worth watching....well, perhaps two, sometimes three, programs in a week. PBS is a necessity in my life.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:33 PM	Hope Lewis : I am an African-American woman who was born in Brooklyn, New York. I am a member of the Sesame Street, Electric Company, Zoom, Masterpiece Theatre, Mystery, McNeil-Lehrer (still call it that), Nova, Frontline, Wall Street Week (with Louis Ruykeyser), Charlie Rose generation. I am now a law professor and human rights activist. I see the multicultural content, the fascinating substantive discussions, and the sheer enjoyment provided by PBS series on literature, the arts, sciences, and politics as essential educational resources. I use them as teaching tools in the classroom. Most importantly, they are available to all who have access to television. Keep up the good work; do not let financial pressure undermine the quality of your programming or the political risks you take.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:31 PM	MJofSanFran : PBS is the most constantly good quality television, I know. The lists of programs that I watch are diverse and always thought provoking: BBC News; The News Hour, Nature, Mystery!, etc. I have watched PBS from the 1950s to now. It is part of my everyday look at the world-I trust and appreciate PBS for World and National news. CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc no longer deal in News-they deal in propaganda and half-truths. Frontline, Now, Bill Moyer's , and even "Firing Line" are and were great programming. PBS is levant and relative.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:26 PM	Rev. Donald Morgan : The world would be a far less desirable place without the richness of the Newshour and the many other outstanding and penetrating features of public television. Most other TV is shallow and of far less value. Anone who cares about maintaining the quality of life in America will support and demand public television.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:25 PM	William Lee - California, USA : I consider our Public Broadcasting System a National Treasure. It's like bringing the Smithsonian Institute to the common man. Seems to me, PBS consistently brings top quality and uninterrupted programs in such broad arenas of subject and approach as to be important for the expanding culture of our nation. Unfettered as to content, PBS reaches both higher and wider for all to see.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:15 PM	Kilgore : We are dedicated PBS viewers. We do not have cable TV, and find the statewide and national coverage of life issues to be enduring! Thank you PBS for quality programming!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:14 PM	Ken Tipton : I have never written in support of any organization before...EVER...online or otherwise. We have chosen (wife and I ) to not have cable and view you courtesy of an OSU channel in Columbus, Ohio. For a a variety of reasons, need and necessity...we are on a budget...so, after looking, we have chosen you to help with our view of the world. All we ask is good information. We believe you do your best.We hear both sides...or more and real conversation and questions. We appreciate the lack of sensationalism. We enjoy the human, thoughtful, in depth (relative to other nightly news programs) presentation and aspect of your program. We are both college educated, grew up in simple settings, have worked our entire lives...and are now in our mid fifties. As simply put as I can . Our enjoyment of the Leherer Report...on a given day or in some cases, weeks after the specific show, has encouraged many long conversations...a wonderful, growing, learning thing for us. Thank you for the irreplaceable, enriching and as best you can, honest job you do for us. Ken Tipton

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:00 PM	P Thomas : At one time, PBS was the only alternative to commercial television. Today, there is a glut of cable stations. The problem is that you have to pay for those stations. While PBS depends on contributions, you are not prevented from watching if you can't afford to donate. I had times when I had no extra money and I'm sure there are others like me. Today, I can afford to donate and do. PBS relevant? In my opinion, yes.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:54 PM	Allan Cox : Please; Please keep PBS, whatever it takes. I watch about 7 hours of television each week: Five of those watching and listening to Jim, Gwen, Judy, Margaret, Ray, Jeffrey, and many regular fascinating guests, who give much needed informative and unbiased reports and commentary on the news of the day (albeit 18 hours later as I live in Oz and watch the Newshour on our own form of PBS, viz. SBS at 5pm Tuesday to Saturday). The (always good-natured) banter between Mark and David on various reporters' points of view provides penetrating and knowledgeable discourse on things that really matter, particularly in the politics of the US and significantly, the current unfathomable (to outsiders at least) primaries and cuacuses just to elect a proponent for the election of ......? Likewise, Susan has a thorough understanding in the state of the (poor) health of 'US' with a (passionate) compassion for those in need. Paul's tongue-in-cheek exposes on the economy make it easy for all to understand the intricacies, dynamics, pitfalls, and mysteries of what really goes on in the daily lives of ordinary people. I'm absolutely fascinated by Linda's depth of knowledge, and clear articulation of the many convolutions before the Supreme Court over interminable questions of that most confounding document on earth - the US Constitution, albeit, a book called 'A Country With No Name' might suggest even greater issues to resolve, like, what is the name of the place most people call 'the USA'? So, please; please keep the Newshour on the air, Forever.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:53 PM	Daniel J. Andrews : I have been a PBS viewer for decades, but it was only within the last 3-4 years that I "discovered" The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. I watch virtually no other news source since none -local, network or cable - is able to provide the unbiased, in-depth reporting provided by The News Hour. I supplement this show with Washington Week, Frontline, and a host of other programs that commercial television is unwilling to or incapable of providing. When one adds in the "entertainment" programming such as Austin City Limits, Masterpiece Theater, Mystery et al., there is no comparison. To suggest that PBS is no longer relevant merely means that the author of the piece is, himself, irrelevant. Thank you and keep it up!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:49 PM	Paul Hoodman : My responce would be are cable programs relevant? They are not even close to being relevant as compared to PBS programing. I've been a member of KCET/KOCE for a number of years and will continue same. I especially enjoy World News,The News Hour, Tavis Smiley and a host of others. Please keep up the great work.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:34 PM	Elly : PBS is not only one of the most relevant in program content, but I feel it is the most believable and trustworthy. PBS could not be more necessary to me. I watch it all the time.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:22 PM	Thomas Benson : The NEWSHOUR is the best news show on television by a wide margin, offering reliable, balanced, intelligent, and civil reporting, analysis, and discussion five nights a week. Our family has watched it since its beginnings. The NEWSHOUR has maintained its standards as network news has softened, and as FOX news peddles right-wing propaganda as if it were journalism. Public television maintains a high level of excellence despite continuing threats to its independence, continuing competition from cable and the Internet, and inadequate public funding. It is an important part of the social capital of this country. We would all be poorer without it.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:17 PM	Ignacio 999 : Public radio and TV irrelevant? In no other station one can listen and watch a good program without commercials and with the variety of comemtators from all walks of life. Commercial TV brings its oen personnel to make comments but they are not fresh and are given the time to explain what we do not know. Academics, businesspersons,politicians and other commentators add another dimension to pbs that no other network does. If you have money, give it to pbs. It is dough well needed!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:13 PM	Michael Murphy, Lubbock, TX : I have been watching PBS since 1974. Many people do not realize that there are low income people, retirees, or simply those people who do not watch TV very often, who do NOT have, nor care to have cable television. Aside from NBC's "Meet the Press" or ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" (both with commercial interruptions), there is no comprehensive television news coverage with uninterrupted thorough and intelligent discussion except for PBS and especially "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" or “Washington Week.” This is why I watch these types of programs. I also think that there is other programming on PBS that is critically acclaimed, outstanding, and much more enjoyable to watch than many of the programs that I have seen on commercial television. If I have a criticism, it is with what I see as growing and creeping commercialism from the many corporate sponsors who fund a major portion of public television. While I appreciate their sponsorship notices at the beginning or the end of the program, I also worry that they are, psychologically at least, intruding into viewer’s mind with the blatant advertising approaches of the kind that we see on commercial television. There still is a place for public television in the American mass communications system, and it should be maintained for years to come.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:13 PM	Louise : I appreciate PBS very much. Jim Lehrer comes into our home 5 days a week and we watch their special news casts as well. I value the high quality programing such as the several outstanding Ken Burns series. Great programing for children too and other helpful educational series such as French in Action and Destinos. Masterpiece theater is much enjoyed. I do not appreciate the NYTimes negativity toward PBS.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:06 PM	Yale B. Joseph : If there were no PBS, where in the world would we find balanced newscasts in depth? Where would we find a science program like NOVA? Where would we find symphonic programs, or opera, or even fine jazz performances? Where would we find politics discussed in an unbiased way? Where would we get business news that's better than the Journal? In fact, to even hold PBS open to a discussion of its relevance is mere foolishness.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:05 PM	greg corkum : pbs is as important as has ever been-childrens programs-parents know that children will not subjected to ads for cereals etc-programs like the nightly business report-the news hour-mclaughlin group-now-washinton week in review-are not equaled in broadcast or cable tv-television worth watching is television worth paying for-i not only a viewer but also a donor and volunteer at my local station-opb in portland, oregon-pbs will thrive and grow

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:01 PM	R.M.Morrison : As a regular viewer of the "Newshour" with Jim Lehrer (M-F), and the previous MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, etc. for more years than I can recall, I have never found anything superior which is available to the Public without additional subscription on a local TV channel. I have become a supporter of my local PBS Station in Milwaukee,Wi, because of THIS program. Many other vision expanding, as well as enjoyable, programs became part of my life through PBS. Go, PBS, Go!!!!!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 04:00 PM	James Morrison : It would be folly to eliminate, or even change substantially, The Newshour. I'm like countless other Americans who depend on it for sober analysis in an environment not (greatly) affected by commercial considerations. The Newshour feature I like best is the political analysis, with Shields and Brooks (Brooks has been a wonderful addition to the team; but where's Tom Oliphant lately?--he was a wonderful fill-in for Mark Shields. The segment is most effective when Jim Lehrer is the anchor. And that brings me to an issue that has worried (!) both me and my wife, Mary, for some months: Jim Lehrer is getting a little long in the tooth, and won't want to stay in harness forever. Who will replace him when he's gone? My favorites (in no particular order) would be Judy Woodruff, Margaret Warner, Gwen Ifill, and Jeffrey Brown. Any of them would do a wonderful job; maybe some combination, sort of like the old Newshour with McNeil and Lehrer. I could write much more, but at this point, it seems a tad redundant. James Morrison

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:58 PM	Catherine Cronquist Browning : I'm a relatively young viewer of PBS. I'm in my mid-twenties, but I've still spent more than two decades watching PBS programming, from Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers as a child to Frontline and Charlie Rose as an adult. At all ages, I've watched the NewsHour, either with my parents or alone, and always found it to be the most in-depth, critically focused news program available, head and shoulders above CNN, Fox, or local cable news, superior even to the BBC World News, which summarizes but rarely provides the same kind of analysis. I've also watched PBS in a variety of markets--not only Southern California, where I grew up, and Northern California, where I now reside, but in northern Idaho, where I was a teenager and college student and where it was often very difficult to get access to the kind of programming PBS provides from any other source. As a young adult I support PBS financially when I can, and as a voter and word-of-mouth promoter all the time. There are problems with PBS, and there are some aspects of the Times' criticism that I agree with. PBS is, as the article points out, starting to ape more successful, less thoughtful programming from other channels--only two nights ago I watched a program on my local PBS station (KQED in the San Francisco Bay Area) about whether or not there is a Loch Ness monster, which was, frankly, silly, even though a lot of effort was expended to make the point that such a thing is wildly unlikely. I agree with the Times article that programs like America's Ballroom Challenge and Keeping Up Appearances really don't further PBS' mission--even though I admit to enjoying both. These problems of creating a lineup of entirely "quality" programming, however, are natural; I recognize that PBS must negotiate between educational and analytical programming and retaining viewership with substantive entertainment. It is telling that the Times criticizes PBS both for "mustiness" and for "pop knockoffs"--clearly, if PBS seems to be both, that simply demonstrates the fine line it must walk. PBS does seem to have much more corporate support and even advertising spots than it did when I was a child, but it's still far more watchable than regular commercial television. I disagree with the Times' claim that "[e]very year . . . it gets a little harder" to find the money to support PBS. As someone who has watched a lot of PBS for several decades, I can testify that pledge breaks were just as obnoxious when they interrupted Big Bird and Ernie for me twenty-odd years ago as they are when they interrupt Rick Steves today. It's always been difficult to fund PBS, and it always will be, but that doesn't mean it isn't "relevant." Finally, I want to add that the Times article has the feel of having been written by people who have been sampling PBS in the last month or two, but haven't really seen more than that. For example, they criticize "Masterpiece" for turning to all-Jane-Austen, but that's just the current set of "classic" shows. Only last season Masterpiece (Theater) produced a lovely adaptation of Nina Bawden's "Carrie's War," a gripping version of Trollope's "He Knew He Was Right," and a masterful adaptation of Dickens' "Bleak House." Similarly, the Times criticizes the NewsHour for retaining Jim Lehrer for so long--despite the fact that evening news anchors often have long careers--without noting the increasingly pivotal roles played in the program by Gwen Ifill and Ray Suarez in particular. I could quibble with the terms of the Times article at greater length, but suffice it to say that I consider PBS' role in our society to be as crucial and relevant today as it has ever been. Nevertheless, it is always beneficial for PBS and its viewers to reevaluate its programming and funding choices and its mission, which, as I've learned while watching, can only benefit from critical reflection and self-examination.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:54 PM	Louise : I appreciate PBS very much. Jim Lehrer comes into our home 5 days a week and we watch their special news casts as well. I value the high quality programing such as the several outstanding Ken Burns series. Great programing for children too and other helpful educational series such as French in Action and Destinos. Masterpiece theater is much enjoyed. I do not appreciate the NYTimes negativity toward PBS.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:53 PM	divinia : I could not live happy without OPB. They excite my brain continually. I've always found the accuser is in fact guilty of what they accuse someone of. The Times surely fits this profile.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:52 PM	Sally Jones : We have watched the Newshour for years, and always have our TV set up to record it each afternoon, so we won't miss it. In today's news environment, yours is the only voice of sanity and objectivity available. Of course in the mornings we watch as much as we can stand of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc., but they insist on so much drivel that we don't last long. We so appreciate your newsmaker interviews and your relevant topics on every show. Thank you and keep up the great work you do. Very sincerely, Sally Jones

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:51 PM	Sue Mieske : PBS is the only channel that we ever watch anymore. The News Hour is by far the most indepth and unbiased news available on TV. We are individual prescribers, but we also want our tax money to support such a fine network.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:34 PM	Richard Kruger : I feel that the New York Times is suffering from a reality gap. PBS is the bench mark against which all other similar entities strive to obtain. The quality of the news reporting is unparalled! Fair balance is the stock and trade of PBS news programs. Unless physcially impossible, both sides of an isssue are presented and given equal time to state their responses. The news is presented in a manner that is consonant with being the best news "outlet" there is. The brief "ads" are a reality; Botanists have not yet found the tree upon which money grows! PBS' programming appeals to virtually all age groups, cable and direct TV services do not. Richard Kruger

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:33 PM	Richard J Fox : I find the NYT article regarding the News Hour incredible. Are we to watch Fox News and all the unenlightened news sources on cable and print. PBS is the only remaining news source out here. We have suffered through the Judy Miller debacle that allowed Dick Cheney to declare on Meet the Press that there were WMD in Iraq.Followed by William Safire's 23 opinion colums regarding why we should invade Iraq. Followed up with David Brooks and now Bill Kristol. Now we have the NYT consolidating the Conservatives, withwhat looks like a errant article on John McCain.Please join me boycotting the NYT for the next month. Thank you.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:32 PM	Rod : Dear Sir or Madam, I believe PBS is wonderful. It offers excellence across the spectrum of its products. NOTE: Clearly, it is in a class by itself. Thank you PBS, Rod.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:31 PM	Mark : Is PBS still relavent? As long as it provides superior journalism on the Newshour and Charlie Rose, there is no question in my mind. My father (right), Mother (left), and I (center) have differing views on economics and politics but we are all avid viewers. They watch the TV version while I track it online. And my children? The children's fare is their top choice. We invariably choose PBS Sprout when making our on demand choice. I must admit that I do scan the NY Times and WSJ for newsflashs, but no longer rely on either for "journalism". So they are still relevant too. However, the Economist is far superior (especially on analysis) and is my newspaper of choice.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:28 PM	Timothy A. Meltzer : I am writing because I disagree with the premise of the New York Times article "Is PBS Still Necessary?" The article concludes, among other things, that public radio is a valuable means of public discourse, but PBS is not. On the contrary, PBS remains one of the few forms of media in our culture that consistently delivers in depth analysis of major news stories. Pick any broadcast of the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and you will hear from both sides, or several sides, on any given issue. No other news program, whether on a commercial network or cable, does this so consistently, and fairly. I believe public television represents just one of many essential attributes of our great Nation, and of any free society. I have watched, with great delight, at least three of the Ken Burns' programs, and regularly watch other programs on PBS. They are universally more informative than anything else on television. I am in my mid 50's, and have been watching PBS since I was in my twenties (even when the primary news program was the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour). There have been enough inroads on our free, fair and diverse discourse. I think it would be a great mistake to cut off or reduce public funding of PBS, Sincerely, Timothy A. Meltzer

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:26 PM	Michael and Felicia Pollock : I am 90 and my wife is 87. We are distressed to read stories that imply that PBS may lose its public funding and poaaibly be abolished. We depend on the unbiased analysis of the Lehr Hour, the Moyers Journal and others. Also the wonderful entertianment value of Masterpiece Theater and the other British imports.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:24 PM	Cathie Morgan : PBS provides the best programming anywhere. Where else can one find balanced journalism such as one obtains on Newshour? All the programs are top rate. I have been a member for years, and will continue to tune in on a regular basis.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:20 PM	J. D. Roth : PBS is informative and thought provoking and gives in-depth news coverage. I can't imagine my life without it. I think my local PBS does an exceptional job of scheduling a variety of programming.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:07 PM	Rosie Stephens : Without The News Hour, Washington Week, Moyer's Journal, NOW, I fear I would be lost and unable to carry on an intelligent conversation. NPR is on from the time the alarm clock wakes me and my OPB station is far and above superior to any other station for news and entertainment.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:05 PM	Alarmed in Oregon : I am so angry at the re-emergence of this thinly-disguised effort to do in PBS before the End of the Error...just the price of one nasty big bomber would support PBS nicely. Sorry, I can't write any more; it would be completely unsuitable for this forum.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:58 PM	Barbara Hilbourn : PBS is definitely needed. We watch the News Hour every night it's on because it's the only news program that devotes more than 5 seconds to a story to give us complete information. We need this to make informed choices, not only about the election but also on many other matters. We also enjoy American Experience, Masterpiece Theatre and so many other programs. Please don't let anyone convince you PBS isn't necessary.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:51 PM	linda keenan : i wrote this on the huffington post about childish cable news anchors, and as you can see, the newshour has a very young demo in my house. the link is below if anyone wants to read it but here's the part where i talk about "jim ware's" biggest fan. Question 3. This person is a huge admirer of the sober, thoughtful reporting of the Newshour with Jim Lehrer and watches it religiously. Toddler or Anchor? Answer: Toddler. My own junior news junkie loves when Jim "Ware" does the "wee-cap" of the news at the end. When the show lists the Iraq war dead, he says "Jim Ware is sad now." He also loves substitute anchor Gwin Eye-full, and analysis by David Bwooks from the New York Times. Mommy prefers to kick it old-school liberal with Mark Shields. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-keenan/toddler-or-anchor-i-rep_b_78750.html

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:48 PM	Gary Anderson : I certainly think PBS is necessary. I find more and more network news being influenced by their owners. I want news that is more investigative and unbiased and believe PBS is the place to do that. It provides most of the viewing that I watch and I continue to trust them more than anyone else to give me truthfulness in broadcast news. I am a supporter of PBS and NPR and will continue to be.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:48 PM	David Mangurian : The NY Times is wrong! If cable channels could be doing the same programming PBS does, they would. But they don't. Where else except PBS do you find "Bill Moyer's Journal" and "Frontline," two of the best shows on TV and they only news magazine shows that have covered the Iraq war and the "reasons" for it in depth. Likewise, "The News Hour" is the only prime time news show covering the news in depth and without bias. The interviews are not the "Got ya" interviews on the cable news channels (and even on network news programs), not do the talking heads yell at each other. These interviews are more informative than any others on television. I still watch some network news in addition to PBS when there are hot stories, because their take is different. The main reason to keep PBS on the air is don't mess with a good thing. David Mangurian, masters in journalism, Columbia School of Journalism, 1966.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:42 PM	Jill Hubbs : What sets PBS apart from all the rest of the broadcasting industry is much more than the outstanding quality, educational and diverse programming. What makes PBS rise above all the rest is the PBS commitment to making a positive difference in the lives of citizens through outreach services that touch lives beyond the broadcast. PBS education and outreach staff work all over the United States, helping to improve literacy in communities through the PBS / CPB intiative Ready To Learn and "Raising Readers." There are numerous health initiatives in cities all across the United States that were conducted by PBS stations. Teachers and students benefit not only from the OUTSTANDING curriculum-based programs that meet state and national curriculum standards, but also from a variety of outreach services that offer educators profesional development, offer those who need to complete their educations an opportunity to earn a G.E.D., and offer parents, preschool teachers and caregivers free resources to help young children learn. The PBS Web site is a wealth of information and valuable resources for life-long learners of EVERY age! That is just a small sampling of what PBS stations are doing to improve their communities and make a positive difference in the lives of citizens. Anyone who is not sure about the value of PBS should look at individual station Websites to see what is happening in communities all over the United States - because of PBS. There are amazing things happening because of PBS stations. There was a tagline on PBS a few years ago that said "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" No truer words were ever spoken! No other media outlet or media organization sends teams of staff members to utilize their programming to make a difference, to help children and families learn, to raise awareness about issues of relevance to all Americans. PBS is a unique treasure in the American landscape. Sometimes we take things for granted that we have come to know and depend on... 99% of every American household owns at least one television - and can learn from and enjoy PBS over the air, free. PBS is a treasure worth preserving for all of us who are life-long learners and for future generations who deserve to enjoy and learn from the riches that PBS offers for everyone. Jill Hubbs, Pensacola, Florida

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:40 PM	Katherine Fish : I think the New York Times recognizes it can't compete with the quality and the straight forward message that PBS gives to its viewers, because of the NYT own self-inflicted limitations... I have been watching PBS in the Philadelphia area since its inception, and that was a long time ago. My parents got me hooked. PBS is for people who are "Thinkers and Doers." PBS has come along way. It gives its audience an up-to-the-minute view of what is really going on in this country, and in the world. I recently watched the Bill Moyers' show when he interviewed Ms. Chasey, and what an eye opener. I watched NOW and how the U.S. Congress pads its coffers with "ear marks." More Americans MUST begin to watch this station in order to get down-to-earth, informative, and intelligent information as to what is really going on in this global world we live in. It's beyond disturbing to hear first hand that the U.S. government is funding Pakistan with $1 billion a year, to fight the Taliban, and then Pakistan turns around and funds the Taliban efforts. Just as tiring to hear is that Afghany leaders are putting Taliban leaders in governmental positions throughout Afghanistan, and both are bullying the Afghan people. PBS has placed a glaring light on the sinister behavior in our own government, and its prevailing attitude of sheer laziness, incompetence, and "what's in it for me." I was so thankful to see that the Investigative Journalist is making a comeback. This country desparately needs people who are dedicated to uncovering the truth, and exposing those who are responsible for their dishonest behaviors. PBS Rocks! With Great Respect, Katherine Fish

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:39 PM	Theo Antheil : The notion that PBS wouldn't be there for us people who value the programs, the fair and well researched presentation of the news and world developments is one that I do not want to contemplate. It would be a great loss. Surely PBS is a model of where braodcasting should be headed. Its standards are appreciated and let us not go backwards.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:37 PM	Tina Wake : Is PBS necessary? Yes, it is very necessary. There so many great programs available to both adults and children. It is difficult to understand why such a question is even asked in this age of the "dumbing of America". We need more PBS and much less of what is available on cable and regular television. If there is no more PBS, may as well turn off the set permanently. What a great loss it would be if it were to happen. We need Masterpiece Theater, Nova, Now, Bill Moyers, the Jim Lehrer Report, etc. and the special programming that is presented from time to time.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:29 PM	steve chiu : As a Chinese living in Canada, I think PBS is indispensible in understanding the American belief / culture! People could be misled by the administration. Luckily, we have PBS to put things in the proper prospective. Keep up the good work!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:28 PM	Patricia Shaye : Where else can we see the wonderful "Masterpiece Theater", "Mystery", and the delightful British comedy shows. Where else is the equal of the programming availabe on PBS to be found? It is a wasteland out there in tvland. The News Hour is the only truly fair and balanced news program on television. It is unthinkable that anyone would want to eliminate the public television channels.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:18 PM	Mariei : The nature of fund-raising at PBS has let me to believe that PBS's days are numbered. For the most part, I avoid programming and making donations during the fund-raising periods. However, I will continue to support PBS as long as it is the single best and most accessible source of news, information and analysis. For example, the NEWSHOUR is, bar none, the most thorough reporter of current news. There, my need to hear different points of view is satisfied. The analysis usually answers the questions that arise in the reports. As regards the professionalism of the staff, I have found myself wishing that the entire country were like the broadcast of the NEWSHOUR. Charlie Rose gives me unparalleled access to movers and shakers. On Chariie Rose I get to hear from them directly rather than getting second-hand reports or commentary. As one who has tried to better myself with limited resources, I have found PBS provides access to excellence which otherwise might not have been available to me. So long as there is more good than bad on PBS, I will support it fervently.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:14 PM	Lee Traven : In response to your article asking if PBS is still relevant: Yes, it certainly is. I find that I watch PBS more than any other channel. C-Span is the next most watched channel in my house, but it would come about four levels below PBS. Do you realize the variety offered through PBS by quality journalists. I don't think I would have TV without PBS availability. I know that the government is always threatening to cut funding, but look at the state of our present government. We can fund war, but what can we do to uplift the culture of our country and offer educational oppotunities for our children? I am a long time reader of The New York Times, both during the 38 years I lived in Manhattan and while I attended graduate school at Columbia University as well as while I have been living in Wisconsin. I have also served on the Board of Wisconsin Public Broadcasting since retiring to Wisconsin. Please let us not lower our intellectual vision! Remember that Wisconsin Public Radio has been long known as the "Ideas Network". Let's not cut off the ideas disseminated through quality journalism. Lee Traven

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:09 PM	patrick hughes : Newshour provides the only real, in depth news on TV. Fox reports, distorts and turns every issue into a matter of taking a political side rather than providing a clear, detailed reporting that actually allows veiwers to decide based of information. We have 80 stations on our cable we watch WOSU TV at least 60% of the time.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:02 PM	Nicholas V. McCausland : Re: "Is PBS Necessary?", it is. Many of my friends tell me they turn to foreign sources for news since U.S. sources, mainly controlled by right-wing media corporations not only focus a lot on entertainment, but they also suppress and do not report news critical of their goals. Thus PBS Lehrer Newshour often is the only U.S. source of some news, and even it occasionally avoids controversial news, which, fortunately, often then gets covered on Friday evenings by programs like "Washington Week","Now" and the Moyer "Journal". An improvement on the Lehrer Newshour would be for it to modify its rule of never challenging people being interviewed, even when they make outrageous and/or false statements.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:59 PM	WMcBride : The Lehrer Report is the most important program being carried by PBS. Whenever I'm at home it is an automatic viewing-frequently on a daily basis. This is followed in importance by Washington Week.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:46 PM	Barbara Moskal : I've watched the NewsHour for many years. I don't watch any other news. I depend on PBS and the NewsHour to keep me informed with objective reporting and not opinion.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:44 PM	Rev. Don Woodford : It saddens me and angers me that quality is once more being set aside for cheap and shoddy. For years I have relied on PBS for news, information and entertainment and have never been disapointed. Their should be no question about increasing government support for quality programing that raises life standards instead of lowering them. But the answer is no. And so we get a tiny increase in advertising time which does not block the program content. In response to mr. mcgrath's question "is PBS still necessary?" the answer is now more than ever or perhaps the question should be restated "Is charles mcgrath Still Necessary?". Without Jim Lehrer and the wonderful people that work with him and Charlie Rose and his crew and Frontline, Nova, American Experience, life would become a lot less interesting because they add debth to understanding our existence. They are friends that I will not lose! PBS, Checks in the mail! Keep up the wonderful work and to the new york times I have had thoughts of subscribing from time to time, forget it!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:28 PM	Mike : The relevance of PBS and NPR has never been greater than during the last 7 years. At our house, we watch the news on PBS every evening. The commercial television station news "shows" are ludicrous circuses of vanity and ignorance. Each evening, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report (which we turn to after the PBS nightly news) provide a brilliant analysis and critique of the depths to which commercial television news has sunk. The necessity of independent, non-commercial television and radio has never been more clear than during the tyranny of a lying president and his administration. Without Frontline and Bill Moyers' Journal, how would we really know the true depth and breadth of the corruption of our federal government? It will take generations to correct the side effects of the last 7 years. Our nation's children have been taught that lying and corruption are to be expected from government. PBS and NPR are shining lights in this darkness. By the way, the hubris of the New York Times in questioning the relevance of PBS and NPR is almost infinite. The Times has become just one more shill for a lying president and his administration. We are in the fifth year of the most disastrous war in the nation's history thanks to the complete failure of the New York Times to fulfill its duties to the nation. Relevant indeed! Thanks a thousand and more times to PBS and NPR! Mike St. Petersburg Florida

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:22 PM	Phoebe Farnam : I concur with the vast majority of opinion about the vital role PBS fills in our daily lives. THe Lehrer News Hour is far superior to formats on commercial networks - even those headed by distinguished news journalists. Specifically, I would like to rebut those critics who commented about the increasing number of "commercials" attached to programs. It should be made clear that these are merely acknowledgements of those sponsors. Sponsors are entitled to be recognized for their contributions to public television and are entitled to have their products and services identified. MOST IMPORTANT! THESE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARE NOT CALLS TO ACTION AS WOULD BE THE CASE ON COMMERCIAL TELEVISION. There is a distinct difference.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:21 PM	Carolyn Newcombe\ : Thank God for PBS!!! I'm one of the baby boomers who has watched PBS most of my life and have been a member for years. The"News Hour" is an essential part of my day. It is my primary source of national and international news. It is the one hour of the day I make sure to I tilt my wheelchair back and pay attention to what is going on in the world. My comments will probably be like thousand of others. In an age of glits and glimmer, PBS is one beacon of intelligent broadcasting. Obviously it comes down to funding and what is in the public interest. In my estimation PBS is worth every penny American taxpayers put into it. Yes, PBS is relevant. Carolyn Newcombe Mansfeild, Connecticut

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:19 PM	BenitaM : I watch the show nightly for a rounded perspective on the news as well as issues that are not likely to be seen /heard in other venues.(Poetry, philosophy,interesting inventions, e.g.)Also follow the Friday evening commentary and journalistic shows.There is always an attempt to be balanced,something that is missing in many other broadcasts!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:11 PM	chris : For many years we did not have cable or satellite TV, but we watched the News Hour (with snowy reception), as well as other PBS programs (Charlie Rose, children's programming, etc.). Recently we added a satellite connection, and now have hundreds of crystal-clear channels to choose from. But we have to say that, despite the expansion of our options, we still regularly watch the News Hour, and our son still watches Fetch! wtih Ruff Ruffman. PBS remains our home base. Although CNN is wonderful for campaign coverage, for instance, there is nothing that replaces the analysis on PBS: one does not find political programs with silly titles such as "Ballot Bowl" on PBS, and the dignified commentary offered by Shields and Brooks is never surpassed by CNN's self-styled "greatest team" on TV.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:06 PM	Charlie Schott : I was more than surprised that anyone would questions the relevance of PBS and the News Hour. I don't anywhere other the PBS (News Hour & BBC), Morning Edition or All Things Considered where I can find such even-handled and in-depth reporting. That's where we go to find news - not entertainment.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:00 PM	Stephanie Matz : The News Hour is the only reliable, unbiased source of information available. By reporting stories in depth--rather than in 45 second segments--News Hour reporters are given the scope and time to get to the real issues behind the news, look at all sides of a story, and follow up later when necessary. I trust The News Hour. I trust no other news "show" because that's what they've become--marketing and entertainment with "news" thrown in, often with a cute or even harmful spin. The News Hour is truly one of the last bastions of good journalism.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:58 PM	sydney havemann : I totally disagree with the Times' article. PBS is almost the only channel that I watch. Their news is head and shoulders above the commercial channels and their entertainment programming is actually entertaining. Keep it going.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:58 PM	Donald Gilson : PBS is the reason I don't shoot my TV set. I've enjoyed countless hours of PBS watching. Most other TV programming is just so much junk interrupted by inane, lewd and silly Ads.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:47 PM	Patricia Hart : What would TV be without PBS? Boring. I am an avid viewer. Where else can you view accurate information and entertaining programs for all ages!!!! Please stay the course, thank you soooooooo much

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:46 PM	Joe Harris : I watch pbs when I want to grow or better myself. I watch other programming for a laugh. Just like I listen to NPR to form my own opinions, but the only times i listen to other radio stations is to find out what my opinion is 'supposed to be'.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:46 PM	Bob : I find the questioning of PBS's usefulness insulting and a purposeful attempt on the part of New York Times to avoid the far more relevant question of its own usefulness. Despite a significant history as a news provider to America's largest city and the world, its new ownership brings its obfectivity and its worthiness as a serious news provider into question. If we are going to discuss something truly meaningful we should talk about the significant decrease in proffessionalism of virtuallly all of the news nets, especially the Times. PBS, is the only one left that provides insightful relevant news that those in power (i.e. this administration and multinational corporations) would rather we did not know about.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:46 PM	Mary and Ken : My family has supported PBS stations for at least 30 years when our son was watching Sesame Street and MisterRogers Neighborhood. We turn to PBS television almost every day for the best source of news, sciene, history, music, and educational programming. With over 100 TV channels provided by our local cable company, many nights we find there is simply nothing of interest to view. Thankfully, PBS usually has something to offer. We will continue to support public television, and consider it one of the best investments we can make. The NY Times isn't always correct, and they made a mistake on this issue.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:45 PM	Susan Taylor Wehren : My husband and I find that the only television we really want to watch is that on PBS. We have the basic cable service (about 10 channels of programming and four sales channels) and we live in Hawaii. We find that often the News Hour gives us the only real national news we can watch to get a complete report of events of the day. We would be very upset to lose PBS and the programs offered locally and nationally.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:45 PM	Bob D'Errico : I am a "news junky." For me, this is a 12 month a year avocation but it is never more evident than during presidential campaign seasons. My wife is amusingly accepting as I pour over reruns of shows on CNN, MSNBC and the like at 1am. However, as enlightening as those shows are, none of them offers the in-depth reporting, discussions and views of The News Hour. I think it's simply not possible for a commercial station to probe as deeply as pbs. Someone like Larry King may do on a single topic but The Newshour does it consistently on many topics. The Times article is completely without true merit. LONG LIVE PBS!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:44 PM	douglas strong : the times has lost touch with with ordinary people. they seem to write these articles from their ivory white towers. pbs and c-span are the only bright lights in a sea of garbage.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:42 PM	Richard : With the advent of television we had a new exciting medium. In Great Britain this was state owned for a long time. The BBC sought to inform, educate, set high standards and entertain within prescribed limits. Commercial television was allowed much later and from then on standards dropped. In the USA there were no standards right from the beginning and low quality programmes were created to match the low quality demand. From this one beacon of light shone out brightly. It was PBS and to this day it has maintained its standards of excellence. It is an institution of which America can be proud. It is fitting, but sad, that the New York Times should want to question its continuance.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:41 PM	C. Martinez : Watching cable news is like being the target in a Nintendo game. There are data bits thrown out but never linked, pictures of events presented for shock value but rarely discussed at length, or heaven help us, discussed to death (movie star offspring) when the value of said discussion is nil. The promise of "news to come" is interspersed with a spate of louder commercials, followed by another round of meaningless same. Attempt to watch a morning "show" on regular commercial tv. How many agitated, loud, thirty second non-events can one person take? No wonder our kids' attention span is so short. How are they to compete in a serious world when such shallow programming is an avaiable daily refuge? For the New York Times description of PBS as musty, read thoughtful, which is slower, less hypnotic and more mindful. If you prefer to be a target, watch cable. If you prefer to be included in meaningful discussions about our real world, watch PBS, and keep the Lehrer New Hour on your radar at all times.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:29 PM	from West Chester : PBS irrelevant? The great programs I enjoy are to numerous to mention. Bill Moyer's journal last night was great.PBS has my support.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:22 PM	Gene Clarke : I depend on and support PBS and NPR as my main source for news, analysis, and commentary. High quality programs like The News Hour, Nightly Business Report, Frontline, Now, Bill Moyer’s Journal, the BBC News along with Independent Lens and American Experience cannot be found anywhere on the cable networks. PBS is both essential and irreplaceable. However, having stated my support, PBS is at a cross roads and to remain relevant the network will have to break new ground and take programming risks. For example, Bill Moyer’s Journal teaming up with Expose brings a powerful new perspective to this program. The News Hour and Nightly Business Report would do well by also experimenting with like partnerships to expand their coverage, add depth, and give viewers more variety to keep us thinking and on our toes. Thank you PBS!!! Gene Clarke

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:19 PM	jonQpublic : Re: Is PBS relevant? For those of us that prefer truth to chatter, and serious discussion to inane blather, PBS is the only relevant TV on TV, with rare exceptions.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:18 PM	GSabella : As the chairperson of the history department in my high school, I rely heavily upon the important information that I receive from the News Hour. I have been watching this program since the format was only a half hour on one topic. It is invaluable to have both sides of an issue debated. Most of the news on TV is entertainment. The News Hour is a breath of fresh air and a welcome change from the usual fare, which is often not in-depth and leaves you without most of the background and facts. I'm a member of public television and grateful that there is still a real news program on TV.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:18 PM	Anna Dowd : If there were no PBS, there would be no reason for me to own a t.v.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:16 PM	WL : Of course the Bush administration wants to cut out PBS! Anything to further their goal towards supreme rein within the USA. PBS is the last voice of honest reports with dignity and solid morals for this country. How else would the public know any truth of what goes on in the minds of demons in Washington. United we stand divided we fall. Diminish Democratic and republican party's, use the majority vote only, take back America....WL

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:15 PM	Nan : I could hardly believe that anyone, but especiallly the New York Times, would say that PBS is not necessary or relevant or is redundant. I try to watch the News Hour every day--for news, not a news show. Each evening I scan the on-screen programming to see if PBS will have something interesting to watch. If not, there is not much hope that there will be anyting on the other 200 + stations to watch. ... Back to puzzles or books for the evening.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:13 PM	Peter Pangman : Although it's true there has been a certain "dumbing down" of content, we would be lost without PBS. Watching the BBC World news, then the Jim Lehrer News Hour every night is an established part of our family routine, and has been for years.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:12 PM	JC in FL : The broadcast networks and cable news have thin, repetitive approaches to stories, and sensationalize trivial differences of opinion in the campaign, while ignoring substantive issues. The candidates react and are drawn into discussions that waste everyone's time. PBS takes the time to explore multiple perspectives, with respect, and is questioned about its relevance. The NewsHour, Moyers, Frontline, the dramatic productions -- nothing on broadcast or standard cable matches the quality of PBS. I agree that the first 5 min of commercials are aggravating, but it's a small price to pay. I don't see the market creating this work elsewhere -- PBS is necessary.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:10 PM	albert alt : pbs is the most and best. without pbs, our window to the world would be very small. i cannot imagine a day without it.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:07 PM	Ivan Charvat : I live in Ontario, Canada, I very much appreciate Ameriacn puclic television and I watch the PBS station's HD programme nightly. There is nothing like itin Canada - all other available stations are drenched in advertizing. (I also regularly listen to publicradio, whenever I travel in the US). I hope PBS with survive and thrive - it really is special.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:59 AM	Two long-time PBS viewers : Belatedly, we want to add our voices in support of PBS! Glad you got such a strong positive response to the NY Times article.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:58 AM	Dorothy Toth Beasley : I cannot imagine being an informed American without the vast benefits of PBS and, in particular, the week-nightly NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and the team. I watch it and the 1/2-hour BBC news program that precedes it every night except when not possible. The NewsHour is a primary source of in-depth understanding of today's events and significant issues here and abroad. Without The NewsHour I would have only superficial information. One especially important aspect is that both (or more, if appropriate)sides are given, through interviews of experts. As a Senior Judge of the State of Georgia and mediator and arbitrator, I know that the information from one side does not give an accurate picture. I am enormously grateful for this crucial public service, which costs so little in comparison to the value of the enlightenment and education of the public which it provides. I should add that in addition to BBC and The NewsHour, I am grateful especially for "America and the Courts" and documentaries such as the recent one on the history of Jews in America. And, I must say, "As Time Goes On" and "Keeping Up Appearances", for levity. Thank you all, Dorothy Toth Beasley Atlanta

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:56 AM	benduzzi : I think Americans are getting used to the lowest common demoninator in almost all products. PBS is & has always been higher quality programming than most anywhere else. It's an oasis we need and should vigorously support. Someday, maybe Americans will value education and dignity again.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:56 AM	Tom and Betsy : There is really nothing else on television that compares with PBS. We could never add up the value it has had to us raising our kids, and now that they are grown up and on their own, it enriches and informs our lives even more (because we have time to watch the programs for adults!). If it weren't for PBS and npr, we wouldn't have a television or a radio. The idea that someone would think it irrelevant is chilling. It's certainly the best bargain we get for our taxes and for our contributions. We've been contributing members for 35 years.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:54 AM	richard Gier : I add my voice to all who have spoken in favor of public television in general and the News Hour and Washing ton Week in Review. It makes no sense to challenge the value of programs such as these at this time in US history!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:46 AM	Genevieve : I fully support PBS by watching and contributing. TV would be a desert to me without the programing the station provides: news, commentary and entertainment

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:43 AM	Dennis Fayant : We have over 500 choices on our satelite system, of all those choices the most watched is PBS. Without the News hour we would have no idea of what is going on in the world. At a time when Fox 'News" claimed that the recent fires in California could have been caused by al Quieda, we need news that is actually fair and ballanced and sane. Such news in delivered by PBS and the News Hour and not by Fox.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:34 AM	ruth gier : YES!!!! PBS IS VERY RELEVANT!!!! I WATCH PUBLIC TELEVISION AND FIND ITS MORE BALANCED VOICE TO BE ESSENTIAL!! I DO NOT HAVE CABLE OR A DISC SO DEPEND ON PBS!! I CERTAINLY HOPE SOMEONE DOES NOT GET IT IN HIS/HER HEAD TO MEDDLE WITH PBS.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:32 AM	Lucretia Lee : I know you waved your stack of letters on the Newshour last night, as if this issue were wrapped up, but I have been mulling my comment since you first brought it up, and don't want to be bilked out of my chance! I don't know what I would do without PBS. We live (very happily, and by choice) in the wilderness of West Virginia, and of the broadcast material available to me, PBS is the only thing I am interested in. Oh, there are the football games on commercial channels, and the occasional divigation into CNN and C-Span, but in general, all I ever watch is PBS--Nova, Frontline, Ken Burns' productions, Gwen and David and Bill, and the anchor of my evening, The NewsHour (in whose defense I have several times gone to war with our local broadcaster---they keep wanted to broadcast basketball in that time slot! We have finally arrived at a compromise: they put The NewsHour on a hour early, before the game.) I also listen to All Things Considered, love it! I listen as I fix dinner, and in the car locally, and search for it when I travel. It's great when your hands and eyes are occupied, but your mind isn't. Why? PBS takes the time to fully examine things. I first realized this many years ago. Jim interviewed Helmut Schmidt (yes, MANY years!), taking 20 minutes or half an hour to cover many topics, and I thought how wonderful it was--almost as if I personally had the opportunity to have a discussion with the leader of a major foreign nation, and I noted that nowhere else could I have such an opportunity. And PBS does it in a reasonable tone, without hectoring or propagandizing, looking at the issue from several perspectives. And PBS doesn't beat you up with commercials. I occasionally watch a particular program on Discovery or the History channel or House and Garden, and the ads are a regular bombardment, enough to drive away any viewer with a fragile nervous system. And to more directly address the NY Times' article--they say nothing against the quality of The NewsHour, just that Jim has been there a long time. Hey, what's wrong with that? If you've got something good going, why not stick with it? I am extremely fond of Jim. Since Robin isn't there any more to say "Good Night" to him, I always do it for him! And what's wrong with Jane Austen? They would have complained a few years back that it was all "Upstairs, Downstairs"--that lasted a lot longer than Jane Austen is apt to. I am sorry to hear that good programs are going elsewhere. We should do something about that! Thank you so much for being there, and, yes, I do support my local PBS station.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:30 AM	Howard Purgason : Yes! PBS is vital! Most all of the other news channels (slight exception would be CNN) are dreadful. We could not do without the Newshour and we love the other broadcasting: Mystery, Masterpiece Theatre, and so on. What is that man crazy?!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:27 AM	Karen del Sol : Without public television with programs like the newshour and front line, we would go back to the dark ages. Commercial television news and information have been bought by special interest and real news are obscured and manipulated.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 11:22 AM	Lawrence D. McGovern : I disagree that there is no liberal excess on PBS. Friday evenings, at least on PBS in New York City, is liberals night out with Bill Moyers and David Brancaccio financed in part by public finds, at no cost to the DNC. "The NewsHour," on the other hand, gives the appearance of balanced reporting. But viewers of the network claiming to have "kept America's trust" do not need a television version of "The New York Times" every evening. For example, New York Times reporters constitute a major source of reporting, as if there is a lack of other sources. More specifically, I was surprised that the lead story on the NewsHour on Thursday, February 21 was the front page story on Sen. John McCain in the Times the same day. Then on Friday, February 22, Mr. Lehrer concluded that the NewsHour would continue to follow the Times story closely, immediately after Messrs. Brooks and Shields questioned the Times reporting and agreed that the basis of the article appeared to be a dead issue. Here again, it should be noted that Mr. Brooks writes for the Times and that he certainly does not provide conservative philosophical balance to Mr. Shield's unwavering support of liberal Democratic positions. I believe more balanced political coverage in PBS programing is long overdue.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:52 AM	Ted Tonkinson : I watch PBS almost every evening and never read the NYT. As far as I am concerned, we can get rid of the New York Times and keep PBS.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:51 AM	Carol Kieval : I can't really express the many hours of enjoyment I have received from watching Masterpiece Theater, Mystery and other productions over the years going as far back as the original The Forsythe Saga. Other wonderful productions have been :I, Claudius, The Jewel in the Crown, The Mayor of CasterbridgeTo Play the King, White Teeth, Inspector Morse, and Prime Suspect and many more. My life has been enriched by these programs. I hope they will continue even though at the moment they are without funding. I also find the current events programs extremely informative. These programs include The News Hour, Frontline and Bill Moyers. Yes, PBS is indeed a necessary!!!! Very necessary!!!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:39 AM	joanschmedemann : What an outrageous question. Of course PBS should be continued in order to inform a country trying to represent the views of the populace. The Newshour reports are balanced, unprejudiced, and informative. What bearing does the age of Jim Lehrer have on anything? He is an interviewer of unexcelled quality. All Newshour correspondents are superb in interviewing a most appropriate and balanced guest selection. Entire range of PBS programming deserves support from public financing in addition to individual stations' fund raising.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:38 AM	Emily Morrison : First I am an elder, if that matters. More and more I find the commercial TV shows written on the moron level. There are no valuable programs except on PBS. Happily I live in the NH/ME border and get 2 PBS stations which is wonderful. In our area a lot of re-runs of old English comedy shows which I don't think have aged well, which might mean the English have a problem with their base comedy shows as we do. Please keep this valuable asset coming. The idea of having a place on our tax forms might help the funding. Emily Morrison

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:37 AM	Thomas W. McDermott : The Newshour is the most informative, unbiased, evenhanded, news program on television these days. I cannot imagine how this could, or would be replaced on commercial or cable TV. I hope Jim Lehrer lives forever. Most of the television I watch is on PBS. I consider PBS to be a National Treasure in the mostly vast wasteland of commercial and cable TV. I enjoy the science of NOVA; the coverage of issues by Frontline and Bill Moyers; the live musical performances on Great Perfomances, Austin City Limits, and Sound Stage; and the entertainment of Masterpiece. And where else is history covered by the likes of Ken Burns!? I'll tell you where else-no where else. These are just some of my favorites. Who's going to replace Sesame Street et. al. for the education and entertainment of children. PBS is a National Treasure-if you think about it.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:32 AM	Valerie Garcia : With the exception of the Lehrer NewsHour, news on television has devolved into infotainment: opinion packaged to look like news. It's getting more and more difficult to ferret out real news. Cable television is BIG BUSINESS, ratings driven. The Lehrer NewsHour, NOW, Frontline, NOVA, Washington Week, Bill Moyers - all are favorite shows. Cable television: a zillion choices, mostly junk!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:31 AM	helene rand alexander : pbs/npr is my choice for daily information,without this i would be lost and confused. i believe all other news coverage is not telling the complete story.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:28 AM	ruth : I think it's time that all of t.v. should be converted to pbs programming. There is nothing like it anywhere. I watch it all the time and enjoy it immensely. PBS is not only a place of learning but one of a variety of entertainment covering the world. Where else is this available? I am shocked that advertisers are willing to pay for the bottom-of-the-barrel programming that has taken over the networks. The demeanor the networks represent sets a very low standard for those watching and participating. Of course, this low type of programming just might encourage more folks to go to reading. Now wouldn't that be something! PBS is the last and only place left for one to enjoy funny, interesting, educational, and challenging media. If we lose PBS, we lose ourselves.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:20 AM	Eileen Cole : I've moved a lot in my life, and am familiar with news programs in many different cities. The only place I've found I can find consistent, reliable coverage is on the PBS channel. I don't know what I'd do without The News Hour --it's the one program I can consistently count on!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:17 AM	Mary Liebrock : I am the mother of two college age children. Our family has been watching PBS since the kids were very little. Now, it's still our favorite. We watch Nova, Frontline and The News Hour. My kids have a great grasp of current events, and I believe it's from growing up with The News Hour. We need public television. There's no other source like it!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:09 AM	margaret peters : The News Hour, which we watch faithfully, is a bright shining light in the world of news coverage. It strives to present both sides of any issue in sufficient depth that the viewer truly gets a clear picture and stimulates one to consider topics that might be missed in the network news. We always turn to it the get a balanced view of what is going on in the world. Of particular interest is the outstanding coverage of legal issues and court opinions, made remarkably clear and understandable. As a professional historian and author, I can only trust that the News Hour will be used as an unusually valuable "primary source" as students of the future struggle to understand the history of the early 21st century.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:08 AM	Tom Kilroy : My family and I feel PBS is invaluable, and especially The News Hour. It's the one place we look for news that is unbiased and thorough. It's a substitute for reading about three or four newspapers. I wish every American would watch --we would have a more informed, less biased public. The fact that The News Hour and PBS is not dependent upon commercial support provides the viewer with much more objective content. I fear that much of the other news available -- even in newspapers today -- can be influenced by corporate ownership. For the past thirty years our family has relied on The News Hour, and we hope that it continues for at least another 30 years.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 10:05 AM	Tom Blair : Is PBS still necessary? In this era of 24/7 multiple, high-budget news networks, commercial television has turned the evening news into 30-second sound bites sandwiched in between lengthy segments filled with numerous ads. Even the “in-depth” reporting is only a couple of minutes long, if that. Hardly enough time to ferret out the facts pertaining to complex issues facing an increasing complex and interdependent world. The News Hour, on the other hand, devotes the time needed for a truly in-depth presentation of the issues and their commentaries are thoughtful and well balanced. By the way, I’m a conservative, registered Republican who doesn’t even own a pair of Birkenstocks. Looking for quality entertainment? We have Mystery or The Biggest Losers; Masterpiece Theater or Wife Swap. Need I say more? Is PBS still necessary? More than ever! Tom Blair

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:56 AM	Linda Lorenz : PBS IS relevant. i do not watch much commercial TV - reality TV? no way. i watch Lehrer Report every evening. Friday nites with Washington Week, NOW, and Bill Moyers - WOW ! keep up the good work everyone !!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:49 AM	June Weis : There is no other comprehensive, balanced news service available. I depend on it. Keep PBS and the NewsHour on the air.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:44 AM	John Malas : I believe that public TV and public radio (both) are necessary. History will tell us time and time again that public TV provides a unique service to the citizens of this country. I find public TV and the News Hour in particular to be one of the few things in this country that gives me hope. Jim Lehrer has dedicated his life to quality, objeectivity, and balanced news coverage. Please do not stop!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:42 AM	Nancy Mellon : The following letter was sent to the NYTImes. As a 73 year old woman who is not in assisted living, but swims 20 laps a day, I was highly insulted and angry over your comments relative to "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer." Here is one place where there is indepth coverage of the events of the day. Those interviewed actually have time to explain their views in at least ten minute segments. For example, did you see the recent interview of Attorney GEneral Mukasey by Jim Lehrer. It was the most thorough interview regarding water boarding and whether it was torture. Jim Lehrer came at the issue from every angle. I have a feeling that the reporter of this piece has never watched this program or seen the indepth insights from Mark Shileds and David Brooks every Friday night.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:36 AM	Peyton : Did you watch Bill Moyers' Journal last night, Mr. McGrath? I rest my case for PBS (and I'll continue to watch The News Hour every night).

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:21 AM	Janice Robin : To me, PBS is an absolute necessity. My TV is never turned to any other channel. I love Bill Moyers' Journal, David Broncaccio's NOW (Although it is too, too short and should be at least an hour long.), Frontline, Masterpeice Classics, and other very informative broadcasts on PBS. The only news broadcast I watch on TV is the Lehrer News Hour. It has the kind of news discussion which is sadly missing from other so-called news programming. (I do though notice that the News Hour is leaning more and more toward the right, leaving out the point of view usually of people whose politics are in the progressive mode, such as myself.) How can the New York Times ask if PBS is necessary? They should rather ask it of themselves seeing that they have given to its reading public a good deal of misinformation during the horrendous bush years.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:20 AM	1878Barn : My husband and I are creative professionals and work at home in a semi-rural community. Antiques Roadshow, This Old House, American Experience, Masterpiece Theater, Mystery, and Great Performances provide a nice break from our work. We read newspapers in the morning and watch the news hour to see a balanced, low key approach to the news. We watch the network news but are aware of how biased it is. Unfortunatly,while the Times is a great newspaper, writers who live in the New York City area are really out of touch with the rest of the country. PBS is extremely important to "the rest of us". Thanks!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:17 AM	marcie silverstein : Aw, c'mon. You have called attention to Charles McGrath's outrageously deprecating article in order to rally the PBS aupport troops. You've succeeded! Of course PBS is relevent, and what a relief it is to turn to it after flipping through the mindless sitcoms, the semi-hysterial talking heads with their "expert" panels, the "reality" shows and the seemingly authoritative news readers. NPR is also much to be praised for what it does, but to compare PBS's programming to it is not apt. I hope all your fans will increase their financial and moral support. We may be small, but we're mighty.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:16 AM	Peggy Aulisio : I love the News Hour and many other PBS programs like the current Jane Austen series, Washington Week in Review, Charlie Rose, Independent Lens and Frontline. Plus the classic movies on Saturday night. Adding Judy Woodruff to the News Hour added a lot to it. I really find Wolf Blitzer irritating and there are too many white males hosting the major programs on MSNBC for it to not seem chauvinistic. I do feel that there is way too much repetition of food and music programs that I personally am not interested in even though I love gourmet cooking and good music. I can find that kind of programming elsewhere. This Old House has become almost tedious at times. Perhaps you should have a real fun yet charismatic restoration historian as the commentator, not the awe shucks kind of narration. And I am not crazy about seeing the interiors of historic houses turned into modern kitchens, etc. I would love to see more imaginative new programming on real historic preservation or on subjects that are more American and less British. I loved the series on architects who worked on American parks and lodges. The major difference with PBS and NPR to me is that there is a freshness on NPR, more humor and more American stories. Why not do American playhouse, more programs that feature interviews with American artists and authors, or on the road stories like Charles Kuralt used to do. I like Antiques Roadshow but there is way too much of it. That conductor, Andre whatever, is ludicrous. Suddenly we are flooded with travel stories that are not really that edifying or well filmed. I will never watch American Ballroom, which seems like an obvious copy of American Idol or that kind of stupid programming. With all that is going on in the Mideast, you should have a Muslim/Christian/Jewish dialogue series. All of this costs money but paying for all those silly British repeats must also cost money. If you need to open yourselves up to a little more advertising to pay for this, and cut some salaries, then that should be the focus.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:11 AM	barnabus : Our radios are continuously tuned to one of two public radio stations. We watch a local commercial station for local news; otherwise our TV watching is 100% public television. The news programming is literate, comprehensive and fair. Entertainment programming assumes some degree of intelligence on our part. It is stimulating and entertaining -- completely lacking in the coarseness and crudity found in much of commercial television. And don't even get me started on obnoxious commercials! The underwriter pieces, while certainly necessary, are much less intrusive -- and offensive. Public broadcasting is relevant and absolutely necessary to both our culture and our democracy.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:09 AM	Pat K : We do need the NY TIMES and I read it daily on-line. I would, however, give up the TIMES for PBS and C-SPAN. The greater the level and quality of information that we are able to access the more involved and intelligent our citizens. I have a husband that loves using the remote so we are aware of the choices on our cable. There is absolutely nothing that would fill in the void created if we did not have PBS and CSPAN. Oh, and PBS also provides us with some excellent programs on the state and regional level. Pat K

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:03 AM	mediaman : Since most media decisions (feel free to substitute political or marketing) are made by using surveys like A.C. Nielsen, that delineate viewer preferences (feel free to substitute voter or buyer) we end up servicing the middle of the bell curve. All programming becomes mediocre -- America gets “dumbed-down”. PBS is important because it does not pander to the mass middle; rather it often services the thinking fringes. PBS is a service that brings intelligence to the public in a manner that does not underestimate the viewers’ intelligence. Our society cannot tolerate fewer “thinking” media outlets. Long live PBS!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:02 AM	COLETTE : YES, PBS and all its wonderful programs, including the NEWS HOURS are not only necessary, they are VITAL to viewers like me ...and have been for many, many years - NO other channel offers as many intelligent, pertinent, non-biased and also enter-taining programs - PLEASE, stay with US !! Colette

Posted: 02/23/08 at 09:02 AM	michael m. peters : I watch PBS regularly , especially the Nightly News with Jim Lehrer.This an excellent summary of the news. I do not care for Bill Moyers at all. A number of months ago he had a guest on , Bruce Bawer, who had written a book entitled " While Europe slept , the rise of Islamic fundamentalism ". When Mr. Bawer began to tell the truth on how the fanatics are advancing their horrors into Holland, Norway , France, The U.K. etc. you could see Moyers becoming increasingly nervous and apprehensive. It was a perfect example of a Liberal's inability to hear ideas and opinions different than his own without wilting.Mr. Moyers is a shill for Lib ideology. But I look forward to Masterpiece Theatre and do hope it can get back to great programming along the lines of Helen Mirren, Upstairs / Downstairs and so many other classics my wife and I have enjoyed for years.We are contributors. The programming is so superior to it's competition that there really is no comparison. SAYING THAT PLEASE REALIZE WE ONLY HAVE BASIC T.V. AND WE WOULD RATHER READ THAN WATCH T.V. As far as the NYT's is concerned I wouldn't be too concerned as the Gray Lady is on the path to extinction. It has little credibility left after it decided to become the mouthpiece for the Democrats and duplicate their editorials on the front page. Too bad but they have gone from Punch to Flinch and it shows.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:53 AM	Tom S. : The News Hour with Jim Lehrer is the best news source on TV. It has substance, knowledgeable presenters and is done in a civil and in-depth manner. It is a relief not to be deluged with stories about Brittany, Lindsay and paparozzi!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:49 AM	audrey seidel : Public radio and public television are the only place to get accurate and in depth coverage of the news. I can't believe the NY Times would not support this excellent source of news.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:47 AM	Mike : The Times questions if PBS is still necessary? Maybe they should spend more time examining thier own editorial staff. I suppose they would like to ask if they could change thier presidential endorsement too.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:47 AM	Burton Pike : I appreciate your quality programs, but the relentless increase of pablum programming on PBS is insufferable: feel-good psychology, cosmetic surgery, how to get rich, Lawrence Welk, Andre Rieu, Antiques Roadshow etc. How about taking a leaf from NPR?

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:30 AM	Claudia : The best program on television is the Newshour with Jim Lehrer. It is the only fair, objective news broadcast. Such a program deserves and has earned public funding. If it were not for PBS this household would not have a television set at all.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:29 AM	Chuck Johnson : To whom it may concern: I watch the M-L News hour every week night, Mc Group on Saturday Night and Washington Week among the many documentaries and theatrical productions. If everyone had been forced to see the documentary on the supposed reasons to go into Iraq -- we would not have. It would be crazy to even consider dropping such a valuable Media Asset. We can never have too much objective views and intelligent programming! Chuck

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:18 AM	Carl : I view PBS to get away from news programs. I think our society is "too" news oriented and PBS is a refreshing change from that. I also view PBS because there is way TOO much reality on television. Some of my favorite programming includes: American Experience Broadway, The American Musical Pioneers of Television - which is one of the best PBS programs in years. This is a MUST watch, and I hope they produce many, many, more. Is PBS still necessary? Probably not the way it is currently funded and structured Is it still wanted? Now that is the question and the answer is; without question. PBS needs to find a way to exist without our money. Other tv organizations do it, so if PBS wanted to, they could. If they would adopt the philosophy that some day government money will be non-existent, then they would be well on their way to adding new life to what is wanted by viewers. PBS needs to find a new way to fund itself and refresh its on-air presence. Mix some of the current with new, exciting, and fresh programming that is not a knock-off of other network programming.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 08:15 AM	Rob Martin : With all the choices available today on line, in print, & via cable, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer is the one staple in my information/entertainment diet. Yes, I too resent the encroachment of commercial messages into public television. But the reality explored on PBS in general and the News Hour in particular are more informative and thought provoking than any of the reality programming presented elsewhere.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:53 AM	Joyce Davis : I go to PBS to get the news because it is unbiased and you get both side of the story. I watch Business News with Paul Kangas, Bill Moyers Journal, Nova, Now and all the other wonderful programs they have. I cannot imagine not being able to watch PBS. I cannot believe the New York Times would allow such a thought to clutter their minds much less put it in print! I have watched PBS since the day it started and enjoyed every minute of it! MAY LONG LIVE PBS!!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:49 AM	Sally M. : When I am tired after a hard work-day, I sometimes watch a sitcom or rerun of Law & Order. The rest of the time PBS television stations are my choice-- for high quality, balanced news, entertainment, and information on a wide range of topics (Frontline,Amer.Experience, etc). If PBS "went away" my source of news would have to be newspapers, print and on-line. After years of hearing from the News Hour's outstanding journalists, I would find network and cable news sadly lacking, in depth and in seriousness of purpose. 'Ditto' for NPR as the only high quality source for radio news and features and, depending on the local station, a wide variety of music genres for listening pleasure. I wish these public radio and television stations were more strongly supported by public funding.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:46 AM	Lois : PBS is absolutely necessary. The only sane way to get the news and information of the day. The only station that gave complete equal time to all candidates. If not for PBS, I would not have known what more than 3 candidates stood for. If not for The News Hour, the only choices would be which of the screaming matches to watch. The News Hour and the BBC are the only news sources I count on for real information. PBS is definitely necessary.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 07:35 AM	Marcus : The best programs on television are: The News Hour, Frontline, Nova!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:38 AM	Taylor : After watching an episode of PBS "Rough Science" were Dr. Jonathan Hare was given the challenge to communicate his voice over a light beam using only what he could find in an abandon mine, I was inspired to contact him through the PBS website. I flew to the UK and we discussed the possibilities of using these challenges in a "hands on" science curriculum for US high school students. After two years of work, we came up with "Island Electronics" It just won a "science in action" award http://www.nsawards.com/newsmanager/templates/?a=189&z=24 Who would have thought this would happen after watching a TV show. PBS works for me. thanks

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:04 AM	Ed Gonzalez : In this day and age when all cable news channels cater to ratings and either side of the extreme The News Hour is THE ONLY news source that I trust. They provide in depth coverage and analysis and look for the unbiased truth in the news. To say PBS is not relevant today would be surrendering yet another liberty ( of the few we have left ) the liberty of free thinking thought, the liberty to seek truth.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 06:01 AM	Travis Duprey : PBS is more relevant and important now than ever; news programing is especially such. The very fact that PBS was willing and able to take the article, where for-profit news corporations would have snootily disregarded it, and engaged in a serious, genuine, and PUBLIC discussion of the possibility. While PBS is slowly bending to financial pressures of our corporate controlled economy, it is still by far, the most accurate, objective, legitimate news that is widely available. As we plunge more deeply into corporation-centric world, objective news becomes increasingly rare and therefore valuable. Never forget that telling the truth and telling what will make you money are fundamentally conflicting doctrines. I just hope that PBS will remain and continue to serve us as well as it has in the past and present. Travis Duprey

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:57 AM	STEVE WILLIAMS : PBS THANK YOU FOR BRINGING A BALANCED AND INDEPTH NEWS FORMAT. CBS, NBC, AND ABC PRESENT A SNAPSHOT OF THE NEWS THAT THEY BELIEVE THE VIEWERS WANT TO SEE. FOX IS BASICLY SPIN DOCTORS FOR THE CONSERVITIVES. THEN YOU HAVE COMIDY CENTRAL WITH RUSH AND SHAWN. PBS PROVIDES THE BASICS THEN EXPANDS ON IT WITH GUEST'S WITH OPOSING VIEWS. THE VIEWER IS GIVEN THE PRO AND CON ALLOWING US TO FORMULATE AN OPIONION AFTER HEARING BOTH SIDES AND THE FACTS. THANKS STEVE

Posted: 02/23/08 at 05:36 AM	Doug Johnson : I never used to read much of any type of book. But after many years of listening to the in-depth coverage of history and news, I am driven by todays issues and by in-depth coverage of history and news from PBS to read books on political U.S. history. Right now I'm reading books on recent U.S. Presidents along with the current crop of books all dealing with todays issues. Fortunately Portland has good thrift stores or I would not be able to afford the books. When I visit my Dad in the nursing home, I get a taste of what is being promoted as news on cable networks. I doubt very much I would not be driven to read from the breaking news junk and yelling that I hear on the cable news networks. Thank you PBS!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:48 AM	Ross Brown : The moment I heard about this I felt an urgent need to voice my disapproval of any measure to remove a service such as the PBS. I regularly watch the PBS news hour and find it does a great service to the American people by giving the rest of the world a glimpse that the U.S (TV & Cinema)is not all about sitcoms & hyped up hollywood movies ...... also your reporting in general is unbiased and the part dedicated to the casualties (soldiers names photos etc)from the Irag/Afghan conflict I find very moving. Keep up the good work PBS. Best Regards, Ross Brown Sydney Australia

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:44 AM	Lawrence Brown : The argument about the relevancy of PBS by Charles McGrath is simplistic, though the questions raised in the article are worth asking. Mr. McGrath points to Jim Lehrer's age and lengthy career at the News Hour, but fails to mention the vitality and depth that recent additions, such as Gwen Ifell, Ray Suarez and Jeffrey Brown have given the show. Nor did the article mention Frontline, still the best and perhaps the best ever, documentary and investigative news show. Nova is still as good and as fresh as ever, as are the insights of Bill Moyers and his guests; and the American Experience is quite good at giving us the history of its subject while entertaining with the story-telling that makes history so interesting. Mr. McGrath also mentions the PBS Ballroom Dancing show as a copy to attract audiences. But if he had done his research instead of relying on being glib, he would have known that PBS had been broadcasting the dancing competition years before the commercial network began its show, interrupted as it is every eight minutes by obnoxious commercials. As for Mr. McGrath’s argument in favor of cable tv, some of us who watch tv do not have cable, and don’t want it. Having tried it over a period of time when traveling, I can attest that cable tv has as much or more drivel than any of the free broadcast commercial networks. I will not quarrel with the assertion made that cable offers programming that matches the quality of PBS. But cable must be bought as a package that requires a monthly payment, and I argue that the quality given in the package, containing a large part of what I don’t want, is not worth the cost; and as a commitment to that payment, puts the buyer at a distinct disadvantage. There is a darker implication here that is entirely ignored by Mr. McGrath. Cable can boast of offering 500 channels, but an overwhelming majority are owned by five or six corporations. Their commitment is to profit, not quality or enlightenment. Radio and tv have always been for-profit businesses, but the growing monopoly of news and entertainment broadcasting is troubling, and not in the public interest. Monopoly also is growing in ownership of local stations, a stark example being the Boston market. At least nine television stations are broadcast locally over the VH and UH frequencies, and only two of these stations remain locally owned: WGBH and WGBX, the Boston PBS stations.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:32 AM	Twizzler : — coolcatdaddy, Greensboro, NC on the NYX site, You are being bias. Not bad, but I can hear it in your words. What opportunity do You have to get an independent film on the networks or cables. Oh & let's look at cable, no different then the Networks. Majority of cable shows carry as much Ad time as all programs. No difference except in the fact that you pay for tv programs, albeit a much wider variety. Don't be a Hater! If Lawrence Welk Rocks! did not have the audience he would not be on the Air! You do not need TV these days to capture an audience, just an internet connection! coolcatdaddy ain't so cool! get that cat de-wormed!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:26 AM	Alan V Somers, BA, MPH, MBA, JD : If "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom," then informed voters are the essential foundation of a democracy. When I brokered stock for Shearson Lehman Hutton, I encouraged clients to own a diverse portfolio of investments, because none, standing alone, despite each enterprise's best efforts, could guarantee its owners complete financial security. So too, because no one source of information to me as a voter offers completeness and objectivity, despite its investigators', reporters', and analysts' best intentions and efforts, I seek information about the world in which I live and vote from a diverse portfolio of sources, deliberately chosen for their reputations for professional excellence. Whenever I teach a college class, our very first session discusses "How do we know 'what we know'?" I encourage me students to do what I have said above for the reasons given above. While I encourage them to find their own portfolio of news sources, I hold out to them my own, as an example. Among "The Economist," "The New Yorker," "Business Week," "Newsweek," "INC," and "The Philadelphia Inquirer," I include CBS's "60 Minutes," NBC's "Meet the Press" and "Chris Matthews Show," NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," and PBS's "NOW," "Bill Moyers' Journal," "Washington Week," and its "The News Hour." I tell my students how specially I value the comparatively deep 10-15 minutes that "The News Hour" gives each day's major news stories, because such attention allows me so much better to understand them than the 1-3 minutes' worth of "sound bites" carried by the other broadcast networks. NPR gives me similar depth in reporting for the same extra devotion of time to stories. Further, both NPR and PBS have offered their respective listeners and viewers a parade of excellent journalism professionals for decades. For confirmation, witness the poaching that other networks have committed, year after year, hiring away great reporter/analyst after great reporter/analyst. At a time when conglomerates such as Disney and General Electric cut back on the quantity and quality of their news gathering and analytic staffs, just to boost their shareholders' returns on investments, NPR and PBS, operating not for profit, but for the Public Good, are our last bulwarks for great broadcast journalism. In the midst of a Right Wing assault on America's Constitution and fundamental democratic values now some 40 years old, news sources such as NPR and PBS are more relevant to preserving American freedom than ever!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:25 AM	Paul P. Duke : But the last few years PBS has become a wasteland of the kind of somnelescent mediocrity that big business Hopes entire airways are covered with. Throughout its history and as the central part of its public interest role, PBS is provided the service to America of bringing to light Problems in public policy And commercial practice that do harm to America and Americans. And the programming has moved public opinion To adopt an ethos to changes those practices . Most notable have been The connections of large U.S. industries and multinationals to and their effect on social conflict and war and that man has put the environment at jeopardy By polluting the air with hydrocarbons . You’re probably too intellectually dull to appreciate that you’re flagship “news” program ‘Washington week’ has allowed itself to become dependent for funding On a coal company and oil company And war manufacture, the very industry sectors that have contributed the most to going to war And to causing global warming. . You must be very proud of yourself . To show the insanity to which you have descended this is the very caricature triad of industries the comedy writers for the movie The naked gun selected to be the most Outrageous and ridiculous axis Of evil. And in your pathetic obsequiousness you embraced that sponsorship of these multinationals, who would not be giving money without an expectation of it paying off for their corporations, without the slightest hint of self consciousness Or objection that the PBS mission may be Compromised. Quick TEST: who created the program called NOW? Who is the only present contributor who was a part of the Original creation of PBS? . Why has he been stripped of his show that he himself Created? You disGusT me and the members of our foundation with what you’ve done to your public trust . Lehrer reads direct copy from the White House department of communications . The MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour is nothing more than an administration organ without Context or balance That ted Koppel with his many years of experience indicated was essential to good reporting . . Does anybody seriously believe that if Jim Lehrer were reading for PRAVDA in the Soviet union that his delivery would be 1 ounce different ?

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:09 AM	SwampFox1 : We need PBS more now than ever before. Anyone who believes differently need only check the major news stories about Bush and the Iraq War. There was not one story from ANY news agency willing to confront president Bush and his "take my word for it" scheme. The piece deserves an award for straight talking in your face reporting by real journalists, and not policitical pundits. Congradulations, PBS! May the spirits of truth always be at your side...

Posted: 02/23/08 at 03:07 AM	siberianblues : W/out PBS, there would be no truth in our Media! Let's face it, I live in Cincinnati & my local 5, 9, 12, & 19 are, I am very sad to say, dis-heartening in an intellectual sense. Our Nations "Prime Time" News is so riddle w/ half truths & out right fallacies, whether deliberate or not, it is more like 13 minutes of comedy. It is my lowly opinion the "National Press", so to speak, are merely 'Marionette's'. I mean come on, Katie Couric? Really? Great if your into "Fashion & Gossip". PBS Forever, NYX Never!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:41 AM	tom collins : My wife and I have been watching PBS and listening to NPR since their earliest days. I have long been disappointed, however, by some of the sponsorship of THE News Hour, especially by ADM and some others. Because ADM is a proven criminal enterprise, we ceased our contributions to PBS several years ago. By being associated with such sponsors, how can PBS distinguish itself from corporate news when it comes to the subject of ethics? I really enjoy much of the programing on PBS, but I feel that by contributing I am somehow being hypocritical by associating through PBS with criminal and unethical entities. Please clean up your act and choose sponsors with higher standards.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:25 AM	Lilianne Holden Ramirez : As television and other communicaton media are being gobbled up and consolidated by a few giant for-profit corporations, PBS becomes a crucial source for unbiased in-depth news coverage. I have lived a long time; I'm 69 years old, and have always been a serious student of history and world affairs. Recently, I became so disenchanted with the shallow, sensationalized dribble that passes for TV network news and political commentary, that I stopped watching it completely. I now rely solely on PBS, the BBC, radio, and sometimes newspapers or periodicals for my information. We desperately need to continue the sober refined un-glamourized news coverage The Newshour provides; we need in depth thinkers like Bill Moyers; we need Frontline; Washington Week; and Nova. I bemoan PBS's increasing reliance on corporate funding, but what other options do they have? As long as sponsors don't try limit or influence content, I can live with it. PBS will never appeal to everyone. But it will always appeal to the curious, to dreamers, and to seekers of truth. These are the kind of people who watch PBS. These are the kind of people who make a difference in the world.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:09 AM	m.odonnell : I tried to comment to the NY Times in their forum, "Is PBS..." although I don't think I got in under the wire of 800-plus comments. Obviously there are many more respondents to the NewsHour already, so I will be happy if someone merely reads this, even if it doesn't get posted. PBS is the last island of sanity in the US television universe for those who can read above the 5th grade level or can remember broadcast news in its heyday. Veritable glaciers of infotainment rubbish are melting into tsunamis of mediocrity, flooding the shores where news on television once lived. There will never be another Edward R. Murrow or another "Sixty Minutes" but there will be plenty of hucksters turning the once-free, public airwaves into living proof the nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public of Mr. Mencken. The NewsHour, Washington Week and all of the documentary and long-form programs never existed in the previous commercial-only network television world and they never will. The public service, issues oriented broadcasts of yore are now Sunday morning shouting matches modeled after the moribund "Press the Meat", as I call it and are best used to demonstrate examples of bad manners to your children. No cable outlet or a network would have ever given Charlie Rose, Judy Woodruff or Gwen Ifill the chance to bring us interviews where people not normally seen on television speak at length; far above the threshold of "happy talk" drivel which every morning network show is now awash in. Frank Zappa once said "'Rock journalism' is people who can't talk being interviewed by people who can't write for people who can't read." That sounds precisely like Mr. Murdoch's neighborhood today if you climb down from the pristine peaks of PBS. Thanks always.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 02:02 AM	sally miller : Our family has been watching PBS for thirty years. The News Hour has, without fail, provided an inteligent, balanced, big-picture, long-term view of the events of the day. It is a spot of hope and sanity in an increasingly chaotic and dangerous world. Other programs such as the Nightly Business Report, Frontline, and Nova enlighten faithful viewers with information and ideas across a broad spectrum of subjects. Inspirational programing such as Masterpiece Theatre and American Masters highlights our creativity and humanity. Though we watch network and cable programs, which are in the moment and graphically and technologically striking. They are not satisfying in the same way as PBS has always been and c9ontinues to be in spite of funding cuts.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:53 AM	Don McCurdy : All the posted coments reflect my feelngs on the importance of PBS - Newshour, Washington Week in Review, Nova, Great Performances, The British Comedies, etc. - to say nothing about the children's programs, and other educational programs are so very important to everyone. One thing not mentioned was the importance of PBS in tying together our great nation, extending over five time zones (counting Hawaii and Alaska) and 3000 plus miles of land. We need to keep Public Broadcasting to knit together all the elements of our country. I hope the coming elections will even strengthen PBS with more support, financially and philosophically.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:48 AM	kitkatgirl : I wonder seriously about Mr. McGrath's perception of the value of public television. Who is his intended audience? Who put him up to writing such an article? I can only hazard a guess. I will state emphatically here, that when searching for interesting, intellectually stimulating, balanced news, I always look toward PBS. Be it "The News Hour", BBC news, "Frontline","Frontline World", "Independent Lens", Expose or "Foreign Exchange" with Fareed Zakaria, I am very grateful for the well-rounded approach to topics of national and international importance, an approach seldom, if ever, found on either mainstream network programs or on the likes of CNN and Fox. "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Now", "The News Hour" and "Frontline" alone, justify maintaining, and yes, even upgrading, financial support for public television. My children watched "Sesame Street" and "Reading Rainbow" --shows not improved upon by any of the copycats on cable. I enjoy the many nature programs on PBS and some of the mystery series. In my opinion, no one outdoes PBS! Even "Animal Planet", which I like immensely, suffers from too many, lengthy commercial interruptions. The Discovery Channel and The History Channel do offer interesting fare. But, they are also very repetitious and not all of their offerings are stellar. It's rather a dirty trick, as others have noted, to slash funding for PBS practically to the bone, then denigrate it for being substandard. There is a strong anti-intellectual current in the USA. How ironic in the land of the free and the home of "The Education President!"

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:41 AM	Mr. and Mrs. M. Rees : We are very fortunate to be able to watch the News Hour on our ABC1 (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) station, even though we get it a day later. As watchers of the News Hour here in Australia we value that service greatly. Whether watching from our Alaska home or from here we have long felt it to be the only US news we trust. Wish we could also watch Washington Week in Review and other current affairs programs here in Australia.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:28 AM	Ken : Eat your heart out commercial stations! Jims got the best news in the world.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:27 AM	B. Rose : It will be a sad day in American when we can no longer watch Jim Lehrer's News Hour. It is the only news show that my husband and I watch, and we watch it every weeknight. There have been times in the past few years when I've seen bits of network news at other people's homes and I am always amazed at how trivial and superficial the reporting is. I remember when the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour was changed from a half hour to an hour and Mr. McNeil quipped "I wonder if now we will be twice as boring?" I am so thankful for the News Hour and its "boring" news, which is, in fact, news with some depth instead of snippets chosen for shock or entertainment value rather than importance and content. The News Hour covers stories that don't seem to be important to the networks - the continuing problems on the African continent, for example. I agree with the people who have commented that funding for PBS should indeed be increased, not decreased. Programs like Nova (not the newer 20 minute segmentized Novas - the full hour productions that have some depth) and Frontline, as well as the many musical specials and concerts should be continued. Those of us who remember Playhouse 90 would like to see productions of plays appear again on television. It is astounding to see the garbage that passes for entertainment on network television today. I am also a fan of Public Radio, and I am very glad to hear All Things Considered when I'm driving. I like that news program for the same reason that I like Jim Lehrer so much - calm, even, fair informative reporting. I lately learned that my 35 year old son also listens to Public Radio on his way home from work and it is great to be able to discuss what we've heard. (I have friends who discuss what someone last ate on Fear Factor with their grown children - what a sad situation.) Years ago when television began many people recognized its potential for educating and informing - PBS seems to be the only station that does that with any consistency. I live in an area where we must pay to get PBS - it isn't available here over the airwaves and with satellite we must pay extra for the PBS channel. It is money well spent.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:26 AM	Bonnie Borton : I listen to PBS radio and watch PBS TV because the programming is sensible and informative. No commercials and a variety of comedy,drama and mystery shows to entertain. Please do not think of discontinuing these stations!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:22 AM	Ann Colonna : I am a 33 year old woman living in Portland, Oregon. I can tell you PBS is really the only channel I trust and I watch PBS daily. My favorite programs are Bill Moyers Journal, Frontline, the News Hour, Foreign Exchange, NOW and Oregon Field Guide. I don't know what I would do without PBS, NPR and OPB. Thank you!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:17 AM	bigbobby : The fact that the Times has even chosen to attack PBS only illustrates their contempt for ethical, unbiased journalism.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 01:02 AM	Susan Brayton : Well, if there was no PBS I would get rid of my television set, which may be a good thing. Tonight I hurried to watch Washington Week after dinner. Just about every evening I watch the Lehrer News Hour. My 103 1/2+ (yes one-hundred and three plus eight months) year old mother asks "Is Jim on yet?" And prior to Jim, watch the BBC news which gives non-American coverage of world affairs. What a relief not to be blasted (as does CNN) with their exaggerated news stories and overblown pundits, and then get them again & again (with commercials). Bert and Ernie in VA say it all (look at their comments).

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:52 AM	Edward Harkins : PBS is reporting the most relevant investigative journalism on TV today. The Newshour and Bill Moyer's Journal are a couple of examples. PBS has good, responsible programming in general,as opposed to the dumbing down of America junk on network TV.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:51 AM	norm moore : When the commercial 24/7 news programs prefer to cover stories about a dead model (Anna Nicole Smith) and/or the lifestyle decisions of Brittany Spears during an election year then it is simply absurd to question whether the News Hour is relevant. What reality are they living in? Do they live in the same country I do? Did they just land here? The News Hour is the only conventional media source that makes any attempt at helping their viewers understand the issues of our times and doing it concisely. It costs each taxpayer next to nothing - a combo meal at McDonalds is equivalent to 5 years of PBS. The remainder of PBS budget comes from grants and the donations of viewers like myself, without the false infusion of money filtered through advertisers and doled out to the extent that they alone determine. I haven't watched commercial television since PBS came to our city. The gulf in quality of programing is staggering. It's like comparing the Grand Canyon to a ditch at the side of the road - one I'm awestruck by, and the other is handy if my children are car sick or to divert the rain.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:45 AM	Stan Buckman : I watch The News Hour whenever I can on Sydney Australia's SBS it gives a view on major issues of world importance without carrying too much of the local only issues. It seems to go too far in being balanced, but thats better than a one sided diatribe. Perhaps one could ask( tongue in cheek) about the N.Y.Times's relevance as I have sighted very little of their work.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:44 AM	bbishop : I can't imagine television without PBS. I never watch anything else, except Bill Maher! Keep up the good work. Sometimes I feel like the PBS reporters have become too cautious, tho.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:41 AM	darrell drake : Lock Charles McGrath in a room with a television that cannot be turned off and only Fox channel playing. This may be against the Geneva Convention on torture.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:40 AM	Hu Barnes : There is no other TV program that covers objectively and in depth the crucial news stories that I hear every evening on the Jim Lehrer program especially with the Woodruff segments. That is a chief for my supporting our local PBS channels.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:36 AM	Harald Wyndham : PBS remains the best thing on television in America. It is the only source of programming by the People and for the People, without being leveraged by commercial self-interest. And it is always intelligent, engaging, informative and as fair, balanced and unbiased as any media can be in this world. I like it and choose it over other options for daily viewing. Don't let "Them" do anything to take it away. It is our Freedom.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:34 AM	John Witherspoon : While I agree with the comments about the well-deserved rise of NPR, there is nothing on commercial broadcast or cable comparable to Jim Lehrer's NewsHour -- the most evenhanded yet insightful news/public affairs program on television -- nothing comes close. And it's well-known that times are tough for public television fundraising, but to suggest that the credits approach the effect of commercials is to overlook the restrictions in their content (no prices, no competitive comparisons) and their placement -- no interruptions within the program. The Discovery or History Channels will never match Nova or Nature. The current black history genealogies, our local station's (KPBS) special on Alzheimer's, or many other could be cited. It has been awhile since our kids grew up with Sesame Street, but public television remains essential. Public broadcasting has had a funding problem since its earliest days. I understand that, especially for television, times are increasingly tough. Overcome by the tedium of fundraising, people may ignore it. They do so at the risk of undermining a major national resource.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:28 AM	Judy Kayir : Is PBS still relevant? Living in Okinawa with Armed Forces Network news, The News Hour is our antidote to CNN and the big 3 network newscasts. The problem with the News Hour here is that it is shown at l p.m. so we need to tape it to watch it a better hour. Unfortunately we have few other PBS shows--Sesame Street of course and Nightly Business Report are the only others I know of. When I am back in the states I don't find any other news program to rival the News Hour. What was the New York Times writer thinking? Perhaps you were a bit edgier in the old days. Your article about the improvement in care of the war injured sounded too much like the military news we listen to each day. On the whole however, I haven't seen an alternative to the News Hour. When other channels have the audacity to call a one minute report "News in depth", there must be a place for NPR. Keep doing what you are doing. I only wish I could watch more of your programing.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:23 AM	Mark Kusanovich : The Newshour is a important part of our daily lives. There is the appreciation that what is presented is based on a higher standard. The Bill Moyers Journal is another program that deserves high praise. In general all PBS programs are considered to be beneficial to our family, young and old.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:11 AM	Virginia : Yes, PBS is still relevant! Where else on TV can I find balanced news coverage with in-depth reporting on issues and events I consider timely and important? Where else can I find Masterpiece Theater? Mystery? Nova? Antiques Roadshow? And so forth!

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:10 AM	I E Robson : PBS programs have a level of seriousness and elegance and sometimes even edginess that commercial tv has yet to attempt. I do find that the creeping in of corporate feel-good ads touting all they contribute to the general welfare a bit disingenious and that public tv shouldn't be depending on this as a source of revenue. It takes the shine off.

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:10 AM	Wanda Auerbach : Dear Online PBS News Hour: My husband and I almost never miss the Daily News Hour. We are grateful for its fair and broadminded coverage of the news. Moreover, although we have access to at least 50 channels, virtually all we watch are PBS programs: American Experience, NOVA, Nature, Independent Lens, POV, etc. We also contribute to PBS financially each year at the time we give to organizations meaningful to us. Please continue these wonderful programs. Sincerely, Wanda Auerbach

Posted: 02/23/08 at 12:01 AM	Gene Sentz : PBS is the very BEST channel anywhere on television. The Jim Lehrer News Hour is the very BEST news anywhere on television.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:55 PM	Michael H : next weeks article: Is the printed newspaper still necessary?

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:54 PM	Jean B : Add another 2 votes to those who think PBS plays a very important role in informing and entertaining the public. Though we have available only PBS and one other (commercial channel), I never feel deprived. When I have the opportunity to view cable channels, I always come back to PBS (CSPAN sometimes has interesting things, but that's hit and miss). I would feel very saddened were the opportunity to view the News Hour, Great Performances, Mystery, Masterpiece Theater, Bill Moyers, Now, Wash Wk, To the Contrary, McLaughlin Group taken away. Hang in there.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:50 PM	jeff ryan : PBS is the alternative[period].

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:45 PM	Hime Fuentes : The news hour on PBS is only one of a few which is independent of all the other commercial news sites that have a propagandist agenda. I'm sick of these commercial news broadcasts and their lies. PBS is at least honest in it's coverage!

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:45 PM	G Babb : I would be lost without public television--I don't believe any other news source provides the same depth. I structure my whole day around the Newshour, and look forward to the series of political programs on Friday night. Thanks to everyone who makes these programs happen!

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:45 PM	Dick Donaca : In our home we have radio, the internet, cable TV, satellite TV, the newspaper, and several magazine subscriptions. We can't read and watch and listen to everything, so to insure we're always "up on" everything, we make sure we see the PBS topical shows - The NewsHour, Washington Week, Foreign Exchange, Bill Moyers, NOW, etc., plus . . well, everything else. It's always such a relief to watch shows without having to put up with polemics and viewpoint mongering. Long live PBS - and we love our OPB, too.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:44 PM	Clara Coen : PBS is just about the only place where I can get in depth news about the world thanks to the News Hour, Front Line,Bill Moyer Journal, etc. and where I can listen to civil discourse.It is basically the only station I watch. Their programs on science and nature are excellent.Most of the main media station provide nothing but fluff...

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:43 PM	JB : Jim Lehrer is 73?! First, mentioning his age is ageist; second, he might as well be 21. It's all been said, but I just want to add my two cents, which as far as I could read, has not been said. And that is, even though PBS has ads, they all appear at the beginning, so I can enjoy the program without interruption. Second, Cable Schmable. My household pays $70 (and counting) a month for -- how many? -- who cares how many channels that don't, for example, produce enough programs to keep me away from submitting a comment on this website instead of watching something WORTH WATCHING on Friday night, February 22, 2008 (after, I might note, having watched the News Hour). And it only gets worse as it gets more costly. The New York Times should have better things to do. Thank you for listening.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:40 PM	Irma West : I believe that PBS is more important than ever before. It is more informative and entertaining with intelligent programming not found on any of the other TV stations. The N.Y. Times should be discussing the relevance and value of commercial television which is riddled with junk. Our democracy,if it is to survive,is in great need of PBS which educates the public about the serious problems of the day and provides quality entertainment.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:32 PM	Thomas Everett Davis : I used to think that a writer for the New York Times could not be sanctimonious. I certainly was wrong. I no longer go to the Times Web site for my news. I'll stick to the Washington Times and PBS.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:31 PM	Carol in Olympia : PBS is our life line. It is the ONE place, my husband and I can depend on to offer educated and informed discussions about the world. We have spent our 40 years of television viewing together watching PBS programming because it is intelligent and probing; entertaining and educating. It reflects "real America". The millions of American viewers within our borders and those living outside our borders, will never allow anyone to take the public broadcasting voice away.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:30 PM	Ron Morra : I could not beleive what I read Sunday Morning. It was so early in the morning I could not comprehend what the Times was trying to say. I don't want to live in a world without PBS. Total TV audience has declined only because the programs are all so bad and stupid and MUST appeal to the lowest common denominator of viewers so be revenue producing. There seems to be no commercial TV programs that expand a viewers knowledge on history, as The Medicis, literature as I, Claudius, news, as Frontline, the News Hour, drama, as Wives of Henry VIII, American Masters. It is a very sad state of afairs when a small group of people, with nothing better to do than to petition, demand, and legislate mores, morals, and quality of life matters which they subscribe to and want everyone else to be subject to.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:29 PM	David French : I was incensed to learn about the article in the NYT. The question in the title (Is PBS Relevant?) by itself made me jump to the conclusion that the NYT has done it again...ravaged my own sensibility by making a value judgement that this wonderful organization, that survives in good measure through the support of the loyal public, isn't. On reading the article, I'm glad that I did not immediately respond to the call by Jim Lehrer for comments, for I would have been very harsh indeed. The article does mention a good number of the programs that I have watched so loyally, and now am pleased to share with my grandchildren (PBS Kids's George, etc.). However, I do sense some jealousy permeating the article, that this virtually commercial free service (save for the sponsor's messages which I can live with far more easily than the trashy pharmaceutical ads with which we are bombarded)recieves such large audiences. We are maybe not in the majority, but the offerings of the commercial TV "entertainment" programs are, simply put, mostly DRECK. Or Schmaltz. Or worse. Whatever happened to the good sense of TV programmers? Some of the ads are even trashier, and even broadcast uncensored during prime viewing time by many minors. There seems to be nothing that challenges higher aspirations than made for TV "reality?? programs. I'm convinced that the major networks have reached the tipping point of no return, with so many ads between short sound/video bites of questionable news. Thank God for Tivo and DVR ability to help viewers bypass the ads. I think having quality programs with fewer ads, for which advertisers would likely gladly pay more for a higher quality viewership that would result, could benefit us all. It PBS Relevant? INDEED it IS.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:27 PM	Mike : Mr. McGrath made some good points in his article. There is advertising on PBS. The fundraising, although I am sure it is not even close to waterboarding, I do find tedious. With presidents like Bush this may become even more vital to keep PBS going. I disagree with McGrath that cable TV can supply what PBS provides. Getting quality reporting of news is different than watching C-Span, as he suggests. I find it very difficult to be well-informed regardless of our second-amendment freedoms. There is so little quality on TV, except for PBS, but a lot of quantity.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:26 PM	dutchgirl1 : PBS is essential.May it go on forever. Where else would we have Great Performances, The News Hour (with Mark and David -- a Republican even I can love), Mystery, etc. I could go on and on.And may PBS go on forever.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:25 PM	Debbie H : Just ask the families of Central Illinois. When the bank decided to call in WTVP's loan and we were faced with the real possibility of losing our local station, the community rallied and called in their SOS (Save Our Station) pledges. WTVP needed to come up w/ something like 8 million dollars. With a February 27th deadline, they are only $50,000 away from saving our local PBS station.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:24 PM	Ron Hylen : Got to hand it to NY Times. Fouled up twice in one week. (McCain and PBS. It does not take a scholar to know the value of PBS. In fact, what would we do without it? I fear to think of the answer! If you are hooked on sports or crime shows, the commercial news is ok. But if you care about what is going on, you must watch PBS, Shame on you, NY Times.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:24 PM	Judy : PBS is more important than ever! The Bush appointees to the FCC have been increasing consolidation and decreasing diversity for 8 years. Before that, commercial channels decided their news shows should generate revenue, decreasing the quality substantially. PBS is the only broadcasting system where I can usually hear both sides of an issue and decide for myself what I think about it. The childrens' programming is still far superior to commercial TV. As a cable subscriber, I watch C-SPAN, History Channel, and Military Channel in addition to PBS, CBS, ABC, and NBC. So many of the cable "news" and political channels are about the egos and celebrity of the hosts, anchors, and reporters. PBS serves as the nation's cultural and historical memory. Vive la PBS!

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:23 PM	Constance Bay : I love watching PBS. I watch it everyday. I get upset if I can't watch it. I try to get home to watch the NewsHour every workday. I feel that I am missing something if I don't see it. At my job they have CNN or some other news program on in the lounge, I only have lunch for a thirty minutes and it seems that every day I have to hear about Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, I really do not care to hear about their meaningless lives. It does not effect me what is happening to them, so why am I force to hear about them on a news station. That is why I watch PBS!!!! I love everything, Washington Week, Now, The American Test Kitchen, The Children's Programing (well I do wish that they would bring back Wishbone, I think my neice and nephew would love it and it would make them want to read more). I love Mystery, Masterpiece Theater, The History Detectives, well I could go on and on. I wish I could get more than one PBS channel where I live. Thank you for being there.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:20 PM	Jerry Kirk : Let me put it this way: PBS is my refuge from the shallowness of commercial television which is a mile wide and an inch deep. Commercial TV is perhaps the biggest contributor to the dumbing of America. Whoever messes with PBS will have a whole bunch of Me's to contend with.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:18 PM	Damaris Fish : I think PBS is still necessary because it fills a niche that is still not served by commercial network interests. HOWEVER I want to weigh in on the side that I think that some PBS programming is very biased, innapropriately so, and that the mission of PBS of not working off a political agenda, but having the public interest at heart, has been strayed from. Some of the several programs touted this evening on the NewsHour comment at the end of the broadcast (Friday, 22 Feb) as being the most popular were just the ones that I roll my eyes at sometimes. Bias - It is probably unavoidable, in a producer of programs. The problem lies in trying to pass yourself off as unbiased if you are not; that is deceit. That is what PBS was supposed to be reacting to at its inception. For instance, I thought the Frontline/American Experience program, The Mormons, was not professionally done; that has colored how I watch further episodes of Frontline & AmEx. PBS has a public trust at stake. Where are the PBS professional and ethical journalistic standards these days? Does credibility and public trust matter to PBS? I think that is the crux of the issue - whether PBS is still necessary - is PBS different, rising Above the crowd of commercial broadcasting? Or is PBS sinking to the content and marketing tactics of other media options? KBYU is still our favorite PBS affiliate. Damaris Fish, Central Point, Oregon

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:18 PM	Brendan : As a 23 year old and avid viewer of the NewsHour (as well as Frontline, Nova, NOW, Bill Moyers Journal, and other shows) I am petrified of a world without PBS programming. While I think it's fair to debate the need for pure "entertainment" programming on PBS, the debate on whether PBS should offer educational programming (including news, documentaries, etc) begins and ends at the same point: it is absolutely vital that PBS continues to offer these, forever. Unlike entertainment, these informative programs not only educate but also provide a vital public service. The quality of "similar" cable offerings is so poor that, without PBS, the knowledge and serious debate and discussion of issues covered by PBS would like disappear from the public sphere completely. It's painful, I mean physically painful, to watch cable news networks. The current generation (hello Baby Boomers!) has already robbed many in my generation of a quality primary and secondary public education, and have made college studies financially beyond our reach. You have mired my generation in wars that have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and have soiled the image of America that you are handing off to us. Finally, your "me-first" attitude towards spending, both private and public, have created the possibility, for the first time in American history, that the succeeding generation will have a worse material life than their predecessors. So, on behalf of the so often maligned "Millenials" -- also known as your children -- thanks. Those of you who complain about PBS, about it's mustiness or dullness, take a step back and think of the consequences for my generation if PBS disappears. Considering the damage you've already done to our future, PBS may be the only (positive) legacy you leave us.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:16 PM	Molly Bowman-Styles : I've been a fan of PBS for years. What would I do without the News Hour's in-depth news coverage and Frontline's searing investigative reports? I also look forward watching to Masterpiece Theatre, NOW, Bill Moyer's Journal, Washington Week in Review, and American Experience every week. On the other hand, I've grown weary of National Public Radio. Although I still tune in during my morning and evening commutes, I find myself increasingly frustrated with the superfical way NPR frames its radio newscasts. If there is anyone to blame for the "mustiness" of PBS ... and the triviality of NPR ... it's the Bush Administration, whose appointees are determined to undermine the relevancy of public television. What other medium brings Americans together so compellingly, while inspiring us to look beyond ourselves to understand the often complex world we live in? I'm counting the days when a new administration takes the reins of PBS and NPR, and ushers in a brave new era for America's Public Broadcasting System.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:15 PM	Michel Laporte : For more than 20 years now,I have been a reader and listener of The Newshour.No better knowledge of the US can be obtained otherwise by books or university courses.It is there that you can have a glimpse of the best american minds on a panorama of subjects and in depth,time passing.I do not know,on cable television a public performance that gives equivalent understanding and explanation of all kinds of subject.Better than Great Books for a general education.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:14 PM	Tom Madden : Programs like the News Hour are needed and are relevant. It goes in depth and covers pertinent subjects.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:14 PM	Caleb Carr : I originally didn't think I should write anything in this forum, as I've been interviewed by the NewsHour and thought it might be viewed as biased; but now I have to say: Several years ago, I published a book on terrorism. Some critics said it was important, some said it was off-base, but EVERY review or discussion of the book, ESPECIALLY in the New York Times, was based on political bias: EXCEPT the interview I did on the NewsHour. In a segment with Ray Suarez, I was asked questions that were meaningful, insightful, and most of all, genuinely impartial. It was quite a relief, to have this great experience come in the middle of what was my own little firestorm of controversy. I have been watching PBS, especially the Big Five -- the NewsHour, Masterpiece Theater, Mystery, Frontline, and Nature -- since I was a child: and had it not been for the shows I saw there, I would have turned out a very different person, which might have pleased some people, but no matter: the simple truth is, I owe PBS far more than I can express. Ten or fifteen years ago, I could have said the same thing about the NY Times, my home town paper; but having become the partisan, and journalisitically shabby, paper that it has, since the creationg of the NY Times Corporation, I think this entire debate should be rephrased: Is the NY Times any longer relevant? In a world where we need journalistic integrity, is a newspaper that prints salacious rumors about presidential candidates based on unnamed sources anything but another version of Rupert Murdoch's biased empire? PBS was, is, and will always be relevant. The Times has a lot to be ashamed of, this week, and this insane debate is part of that truly deplorable trend. My grandfather was foreign editor of the Times, back in the fifties; he died too young, and about the only good thing I can say about his death is that he didn't have to live through Bill Keller's dismantling of what once was "the newspaper of record," and is now just another tawdry testament to "investigative journalism." Keep it up, NewsHour and PBS: you stand alone. - Caleb Carr

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:11 PM	Kate : I truly admire the work and time invested into the programs on PBS. Especially the News Hour, because it is perhaps the only place where heated debates can transpire, but maintain a balance of integrity and civility. Even though PBS competes with cable networks, intellectual programs and in depth discussions of various topics shouldn't be limited by those who can afford cable, but be avaliable for everyone to learn and enjoy. To address the issue of PBS being chipped away by advertisements, at least it is not another report of the weather.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:10 PM	Louis Derrico : I have expanded cable and it falls short of PBS. All of the commercials repeated endlessly along with channels I never watch. None of them give me any news with decent international coverage or indepth reporting. What is obsolete? The networks, Neilson ratings system, and cable tv. Give me a al carte cable pricing. Shows on PBS that last over 30 years? Sounds like a big complement to me. 10,000 more years of PBS! I am so lucky where I live that I get two PBS stations. I also watch podcasts of other PBS stations on Itunes. Without PBS I would need to double my cable bill and get a converter box to get by.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:10 PM	Dan : My wife and I still call this show "MacNeil Lehrer" since we have been watching it that long. It is the thinking person's news. I appreciate your in depth articles that cannot be found elsewhere. And I love Shields and Brooks. Keep up the good work!

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:09 PM	Max Fink : As an American living abroad for the last 7 years, I have watched with mounting concern as the vast majority of American news channels broadcast worldwide have seemingly collectively slipped into a kind of journalistic coma, providing vacuous entertainment (or political demagoguery in the most offensive cases) clothed as “news”. PBS’s Newshour and its Online Newshour counterpart are exceptional in every way. I consider the program a rare bastion of unbiased, penetrating, truly insightful journalism. I think the Newshour provides a unique forum for the best of our national dialogue to be broadcast both within and outside of our borders. For millions of people like me, who value integrity in the News and see it as a contribution to a better world, I don’t think the Newhour’s importance or that of PBS can be underestimated.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:09 PM	Peter Letchford : I am 91, and trust that Jim Lehrer will still be going strong when he gets to that age. If he were British, the Queen would make him a duke, or dook as we call it over here. The Newshour of course is only one of many great programs on PBS, though one has to admit that, when lighting a camp fire, the New York Times does a better job under the kindling than the Newshour.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:08 PM	Denise Galligan : I cannot imagine life without PBS. It's the only literate connection that I have with the world. Bill Moyers sends me to Amazon every Friday to buy books. Nature, Nova, Masterpiece, Frontline, American Masters and Ken Burns' documentaries, the latest of which was The War just wouldn't exist without PBS. Where else can one go for in depth reporting like the News Hour? It is a needed respite from broadcast TV and support must continue for it.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:07 PM	John Beaver : When anyone questions the relevancy of PBS and our local KPBS I can only assume that they do not watch much of the programming. PBS and its' affiliates are the last bastion of complete, thoughtful and unbiased reporting. There are NO programs that stack up against The Newshour, WW in Review, Nova, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Now and the host of entertaining series. We've turned into a sound bite, video streaming blog world and fuure generations will not know what they have missed when your formats go away. I will do whatever it takes as an individual to maintain your programming. P.S. as this sounds like a Bush/Cheney conspiracy. Thank you, John Beaver

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:07 PM	Leslie Baird : Hi, I was just watching the Newshour, and wanted to comment about this article in the New York times. Of course, PBS is absolutely and positively still necessary. I am a devoted Oregon Public Broadcasting member. I think none of the programs on commercial networks, do compare with my favorite Friday night programs: NOW, Bill Moyers' Journal, the Mcloughlin Report (which by the way, I think is very inciteful, and hilarious at times, the way the debaters talk over each other trying to get a word in edgewise, and where else would you see Pat Buchanan duking it out with wonderful liberal spokespersons!). We watch the Newshour every night faithfully, and very much appreciate the fact that we don't have to see all of those commercials and the fact that we can watch very in depth news coverage without soundbites and distracting graphics. There is just nothing like Public Broadcasting on the air. I just wish our government would support this wonderful set of stations again, as OPB needs to have membership drives so often (about every month and 1/2) in order to stay in existence. Why can't Government "pony" up some money as it did in the past? Thanks for your efforts! Leslie Baird, OPB member and supporter, Portland, Oregon

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:05 PM	Judith and Gerald Farrington : We cannot imagine a world without the perspective of PBS programing from the News Hour to Sesame Street. Network and cable news programs are focused on entertainment and are quite biased. We need the balance of the News Hour. We rarely miss it and Friday evening is often dedicated to the entire series of news and investigative programs. We need this sane alternative to commercial television and cable.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:03 PM	eli s. : we live in fresno which was a vast wasteland until years ago when i discovered that by adjusting our antenna we could connect with kqed in san francisco, a connection that not only changed our viewing habits but our lives because we were getting news we could not get anywhere else. we couldn't wait for the evening news. in time - too long for us, actually - fresno got its own pbs station. we have been hooked ever since. if there is any problem, it's the effect it has had on our octogenerian way of life. we stay up longer than we should because of moyer. delay cocktails until after the news hour. without exception, the information and insights delivered by pbs are the best, intriguing, lively, most important - and, i will argue the most unbiased. give us pbs or give us death...

Posted: 02/22/08 at 11:01 PM	EMM : I have watched or listened to the NewsHour for years, usually while fixing dinner. Obviously, I'm a dedicated fan and right for your demographic. But I do have some issues to raise. 1) I honestly feel the NewsHour provided the paradigm for Fox News and their "fair and balanced" mantra. Regardless of the subject, there are always two viewpoints even if one is far too trivial to be given a voice. This tends to legitimize or create issues and stories where none really exist. Politicians, as well as other people make use of this format to spin and set false narratives into the public dialogue. 2. The NewsHour may be cutting edge now in terms of graphics and high definition pictures, but it is often naive in the way that it trusts institutional voices. If it's been criticized for stuffiness, I think this is at the heart of that issue. 3) As a news show, the NewsHour often runs well behind the stories. For instance, tonight's news summary said that the Pentagon criticized Senator Obama's anecdote about troops in Afghanistan being ill-equipped, saying it was improbable. Earlier in the day, Jake Tapper of ABC News had confirmed the details of the story with the captain who reported them to the Obama campaign and had posted that information on his blog. Does the NewsHour have someone checking stories not just from the wires but on the reliable blogs? Often I feel more informed than either the news headlines or the guests or commentators. Basically, my gripes run toward what seems to be a stultified mindset on the NewsHour when it comes to what news really is. But I still listen because of the wide-ranging nature of your reports. Thank you for them.

Posted: 02/22/08 at 10:59 PM	Edith Hedgecock : PBS is my companion every day. I appreciate the clear news broadcasts on PBS Radio during the day, with All Things Considered, as well as the wide variety of informative guests on Fresh Air. Weekends bring me Sound and Spirit, The Metropolitan Opera broadcasts and the Commonwealth Club. Evening PBS television programs that I watch regularly are The News Hour , Washington Week, Bill Moyers, and many more. I can't say enough about what PBS means to me. Thankis for being there!

Posted: 02/22/08 at 10:57 PM	charlie : Necessary? Of course. And the best balance is NRP radio with PBS together, what at team! Jim, Judy, Gwenn, R