PBS | Ombudsman | Archive | October 2011 Archives

October 28, 2011

The Mailbag: New Takes on Old Business

As often happens, viewer comments on programs—and on the comments of other viewers—continue well after the program has been the subject of an ombudsman column or mailbag. Posted below is a sampling of new letters about several earlier offerings and... More »

October 20, 2011

Frontline: Pushing the Hot Buttons

I write a lot about Frontline, PBS's venerable and, in my view, indispensible, weekly investigative and documentary series. It is, as its name suggests, almost always on the frontline of issues confronting many Americans in their daily lives. But when... More »

October 14, 2011

Catholicism: A Religion, but NOT a 'PBS' Series

It was a dark and stormy Friday here at PBS headquarters, and I was thinking about maybe going home early. But at midday, messages started pouring into the ombudsman's mailbox. "Dear Brother Getler," wrote Linda Rosa from Colorado, "Damnation, who... More »

October 13, 2011

The Mailbag: Promo Still No-Go; Fall Edition

I've written several times in the past few months about PBS's new on-air and online "experiments" that involve using a lot more on-screen promotion of programs and brief paid commercial sponsorships during broadcasts, rather than just at the beginning and... More »

October 6, 2011

The Mailbag: Curious About George

The PBS program Curious George is among the top-rated television shows in the country for pre-school age children. Based on a classic series of children's books that dates back to the 1940s, it has been a favorite on PBS since... More »

October 4, 2011

'Occupying Wall Street,' but Not the NewsHour

I've mentioned this before: News that breaks on the weekend, which is fairly often, won't be on PBS until the following Monday evening. That's because the venerable, hour-long, flagship national news program—the PBS NewsHour—is a weekday-evening-only affair. That's not the... More »

Archive

October 2011