Now, the venerable Sesame Street is suddenly and surprisingly (for me) in the crosshairs. The question is this: Did this icon of public broadcasting and gold standard for high quality educational broadcasting for children for 40 years stoop to take a camouflaged shot at Fox News?

The letters from complaining viewers are printed below. There are not many of them, but as is often the case, even a single viewer can make an important observation worthy of reporting and discussing. My eagle-eyed assistant, Marcia Apperson, reminds me that we have received the occasional complaint about this particular episode before. It aired for the first time two years ago and a couple of times in 2008 and this year. But I confess that this is the first time it caught my eye and the first time we heard from a number of viewers.

The episode, which aired Oct. 29, involves one of Sesame Street's scores of colorful creations, the Grouch News Network, in which muppet Oscar the Grouch is the host, pursuing GNN's dedication to "all grouchy, all disgustin', all yucky" news. But another character feels that the Grouch is not grouchy enough and threatens to switch to "Pox News, now there's a trashy news show," she says.

Everybody who wrote to me heard this as "Fox News," and I can't really blame them. When I went and watched the tape for the first time, I thought I heard "Fox" as well, perhaps because of the association one assumes when you hear "news" right after the word. However, when I watched and listened more carefully a second time, it was clear that the character said "Pox" and not "Fox" and the closed captioning that runs across the bottom of the screen when the sound is muted also stated "Pox News."

Now, on one level, Pox News as an alternative and competitor to the Grouch News Network would seem to be a clever and appropriate title. But you would have to be anesthetized as a producer not to assume that many parents will hear this, or assume this, to be a clever shot at Fox News. It's a parody, a play on words, and has a timely feel to it at this time, especially, because of the battle now going on publicly between Fox and the White House. So it's probably not surprising that last week's showing got more people's attention.

I don't know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn't do it through the kids.

Here are the letters, followed by a sampling of mail from viewers about other recent ombudsman columns on Sid the Science Kid and on Frontline's "The Warning."

What Did I Just Hear?

I just wanted to write and let you know that I was both surprised and extremely disappointed in PBS this morning. My children were watching Sesame Street and Oscar the Grouch had his own TV news show. There was another grouch character that kept threatening to turn off grouch's show. In the end she finally states that she will turn off grouch's show and switch to Fox News "because that is a real trash news station!" I was shocked that PBS would enter into this type of ridiculous behavior especially on a children's television program. You state that you depend greatly on public support for your broadcasting, with this these type of statements made on children's programming I know that I can no longer support PBS in good faith.

Christine B., Albuquerque, NM

You may not be the proper person to direct this complaint to, but I was very disturbed at the reference to Fox News as "trashy" in an episode of Sesame Street that recently aired. The show is for teaching children their letters and numbers, not the producers' political view and biases. As a taxpayer, I am deeply concerned about PBS allowing such nonsense on a children's show.

Parkersburg, WV

I was incredibly disappointed in PBS and the Sesame Street episode aired on October 29, 2009. The parody of Oscar acting as an obvious Fox reporter was truly a new low. Even more shocking was the mention of Fox News as "trashy." I will never watch Sesame Street again and find it pathetic that you would use it as a platform for pushing the White House message and apparent conflict with Fox. I am a Fox News watcher and PBS children's show watcher. Some things should not mix. I refuse to let children's programming brainwash my child into certain political views. It is not right and should be addressed. Having conservative views is not a bad thing and I plan to raise my children to think for themselves and not listen to radical liberal thought. It is not right. Save it for the NewsHour and not Sesame Street.

Andrea Tarr, New Boston, NH

Hello: Where is the editorial integrity? My husband & I are grandparents who help take care of our 20-month-old granddaughter while her parents work. We have Sesame Street on the tv — there was a comment (channel 15 8:15am) — the characters said "Fox news, now that's trash or trashy (couldn't hear that well) tv". Why is it necessary for such a wonderful learning experience for very young children to be corrupted by the political leanings of the production staff. I love pbs's children's programming, British mysteries, McLaughlin report, etc. but keep the political brainwashing away from my children.

Linda & Pasquale D'Aguanno, Palm Coast, FL

More on Vaccinations

It is clear from the anti-vaccine lunatic letters that even more science programs than you usually provide are needed. Hang in there and keep on providing good science programs.

Hattiesburg, MS

As the friend of someone who was paralyzed by Guillain-Barré after a swine flu shot in the 70's (not sure of the year) I can understand the hesitations that people are having. They said then that the vaccine was 'perfectly safe' but one may be forgiven for having doubts. The first family children have gotten their shots, so we can only pray that indeed, this time the vaccine IS perfectly safe.

Karin H., Kona, HI

I understand that 20% of Americans have gone bonkers and are dedicated adherents to the Faux Noise network and its loony on-air "entertainers." I also understand that the rest of us in the 80% should not have to put up with the insanity cultured by the far right for profit-making purposes. Kids' science shows should be off limits to parental misguidance and should remain in the hands of the obviously responsible. Do occasional bad things sometimes happen as a result of generally good things? Yes. Everyone is sorry about that, except maybe trial lawyers, but let's not inject the carefully cultured craziness currently infecting some in the U.S. to color the quality production values of PBS programming.

Dwight Bobson, Washington, DC

I am appalled that pbs chose to weigh in on the vaccination debate this week with a special program targeting preschoolers. Sid the Science guy was more than scientific in his study of vaccines. The message was also strongly motivational, implying a response: go get vaccinated. Parents not preschoolers should have been the recipients of this message. Going forward I regret that I am not able to completely rely on and stand behind pbs' children's programming.

Jamie M. Chicago, IL

All of those who protested the vaccine-oriented children's program are "anti-vaxers". They are science illiterate and get their science information from the University of Google. Vaccines are NOT "controversial" including H1N1 in the view of anyone credible in the science/medical community. If parents "choose" to not vaccinate, it threatens to destroy what is known a herd immunity, so their decision affects more than their own children. If the "choice" is based on ignorance or pseudo-science and defies reason, I don't see why this is held sacrosanct as a parental privilege.

People are free to "believe" (in the religious sense) that there is a vaccine-autism link, but science is right to advise us of their belief (evidence based) that this is not true. PBS should not be cowed into offering unscientific views in the interest of "balance". Criticism in the form of personal anecdote (my baby and I were injured . . .) is hardly a reason to curtail information that will inform young minds.

Janet Camp, Milwaukee, WI

I just watched Sid the Science Kid with my son yesterday. Normally, I love this show. It's fun and educational. But this particular episode was about the flu shot and I found it quite concerning. It was very one-sided and didn't present the fact that there are side effects for every vaccination. It also didn't mention that they don't know the long-term effects of this vaccination or that many flu vaccines still contain thimerosal (which contains mercury) and other potentially harmful chemicals. They also didn't mention that many times the flu vaccine doesn't even protect against the flu because scientists who formulate the vaccine have to make educated guesses about the particular strains coming out each year.

All that was presented was that we all need to get our flu shots to stay healthy. And then they danced around and the worst anyone had to worry about was the little prick of the needle. They did mention hand-washing and coughing into your arm. However, they didn't mention that eating healthy diets, getting plenty of rest and exercise and vitamin D are other more natural ways of boosting our immune systems. I think the natural methods are preferable to injecting our children with dangerous chemicals with questionable effectiveness. If they are going to deal with controversial topics, they need to at least present both sides. I was very disappointed with this episode. I trust PBS to give my child educational, unbiased, intelligent programming or I used to. I'm not so sure anymore.

Cheryl Johnson, Sellersburg, IN

I was watching Inside Washington. I tape it every week and I was so upset at the true spin and lies being spewed, that I've deleted that show from my programming. Specifically, the intro claims that people are "upset because there's no swine flu vaccine". Everyone I speak to have no plans on getting the shot or letting their children get it.

I'm shocked at the brainwashing, convince everyone there's a shortage of something that could leave them with lifelong debilitating effects that hasn't been tested . . . only for efficacy . . . and not for side-effects. What makes this even worse is that your own reply to the "Sid" episode outrage means that you know that most Americans aren't going to get the shot . . . yet the spin was that "people want it but can't get it". Most of us have learned not to trust our Gov't anymore and when it comes to vaccines, the veil of deception is coming off.

Gerri L. Bunnell, Blasdell, NY

And More on 'The Warning'

The Frontline WARNING was not just excellent journalism but the 1st time in a year that I learned the real story. I hope you will rebroadcast this so I can tape it. Thank you.

Cornelia Cree, Farmers Branch, TX

I'm the Sunday Business editor at The New York Times. I was also interviewed extensively for "The Warning," the Frontline piece you examined on your site today, and I appeared in the documentary as well. I also assigned and edited many of the pieces in the Times' series last year on the financial crisis, "The Reckoning." A couple of thoughts:

1) Frontline did a wonderful job with the program and none of us at the Times have any great concerns with how they marketed the program (i.e., unearthing the "secret history" of the financial crisis, etc.).

2) You credit The Washington Post with actually unearthing the tale of Brooksley Born and the roots of the crisis in a piece they published on October 15, 2008, titled what went wrong. The Post piece was strong and smart but . . .

3) The Times published two lengthy pieces, both of which I edited, on the cover of our Sunday Business section on April 27, 2008 and on our front page on October 9, 2008, that detailed, among other things, Ms. Born's failed efforts to regulate derivatives. And . . .

4) The Wall Street Journal wrote a long cover story, on an even earlier date that I can't recall off the top of my head, about Ms. Born's travails in Washington.

So I don't think that the Post was, indeed, the first to "unearth" the Born episode.

Tim O'Brien, New York, NY

(Ombudsman's Note: Here was my response to Mr. O'Brien: I hope the following doesn't sound too defensive, but I did say that I thought the Post, "and maybe others that I'm not aware of," was way ahead and deserved some mention somewhere in the script. The two NYT stories you refer to were fine pieces but they are both quite long and don't even mention Born until what looks like a couple of thousand words into them. The Post piece stood out because it focused on her at the center of the drama and, when you take a second look at it, is absolutely the closest thing to a template for the Frontline program. It is also the only piece referred to in the "essential background" section of the program's Web site. I didn't credit the Post with actually unearthing the secret history. I know that she has been written about even in the late '90s. The point of the piece was to call Frontline on their promotion, which is widely distributed and quoted and clearly suggests that Kirk unearthed this. I thought it was worth doing that, even though the program, as I said, was excellent.)

Mr. Getler, I enjoyed "the Warning," but I was deeply disappointed by the distorted impression it gave that the financial crisis was caused by OTC derivatives. Frontline either didn't understand the role derivatives played (and didn't play) in the financial crisis or was intent on forcing the facts into a pre-set storyline in which the noble Brooksley Born took on a trio of obtuse curmudgeons who were, for some inexplicable reason given their differing political affiliations and backgrounds, united by a blind obedience to Wall Street.

True, some types of (but not all) OTC derivatives exacerbated Wall St. risk-taking in the mortgage market by providing a false hedge against losses. In this respect, Born accurately foresaw the danger of allowing the swaps market to continue growing without imposing some transparency. The $85B bailout of AIG is a testament to that danger. But the swaps market was neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of the financial crisis, which was rooted in a housing bubble fed by cheap credit, lax mortgage underwriting, a boom in securitization, and rating agency failures, among other things.

Moreover, Frontline utterly failed to explain WHY Greenspan, et al. were opposed to regulation of OTC derivatives. Right or wrong, their reasons were defensible: it wasn't clear the CFTC had the legal authority to regulate private contracts (as all OTC derivatives are) and tossing around the idea of doing so without adequately defining what form the regulation would take was casting a pall on the enforceability of existing contracts. It's not farfetched to suppose that if Born had pushed forward without first getting buy-in from other regulators and market participants, she might have precipitated a major market dislocation in the process.

Frontline also did a major disservice to Greenspan by portraying him as a dupe of a dead pseudo-philosopher (Ayn Rand). I laughed at the ominous music that played toward the end of the piece as Greenspan sits before a Congressional committee purportedly confessing his sins. If Frontline had bothered to read his remarks, they would have known that the errors in judgment Greenspan refers to involve banking regulation, not his spat with Born, which was a pretty peripheral event in a long and significant career as an economic policymaker. In short, I consider Frontline first-rate broadcast journalism, but in this instance, the program fell victim to the shortcomings that afflict much of TV today, namely a myopic focus on personalities and lessons writ large. Such an approach, while it may be entertaining, inhibits informed public discourse on important and complicated issues. PBS viewers expect and deserve better.

Brett D., Yonkers, NY

A couple of qualms about Michael Kirk's film, The Warning. First, the piece strongly inferred that Brooksley Born endured resistance from the WH Working Group because of her gender. But no evidence was presented to support that disparaging idea. Greenspan, Summers, and Geithner are sexists? Really? How exactly does Kirk know this?

At the beginning of the film, Greenspan is described as a protégé and admirer of a woman, Ayn Rand, who is one of the preeminent thinkers in modern economics. Summers and Geithner, viewers are told, are also followers of Rand's free-market philosophy. That seems strange indeed for gentlemen who are supposedly hostile to economic ideas that come from women.

Also, there didn't seem to be any voices in the story that spoke to the virtues of free-market economics. Sure, Greenspan and the others declined — but could no one be found to advocate for the ideas of the free-market philosophy? Are viewers to assume that there is total consensus that Brooksley Born was entirely correct and that her approach is without consequences or risks of its own?

Jim McCarthy, New York City, NY

The episode dealt with youngsters getting vaccinated, something that is depicted as good for them and good for their friends and community. It very carefully, it seems to me, focused on the flu vaccination and did not mention swine flu by name or H1N1, although it does mention at two points the "new flu virus" and the "new flu vaccination." Rather, its central melody sung by the animated Sid and his pals talked about "stopping that virus, that's our goal." They go on to sing, "The virus won't spread if we don't let it, so roll up your sleeve and come and get it" and then later add, "this vaccination is a great opportunity."

Those viewers who wrote were, for the most part, objecting to flu vaccinations generally and the message for children and parents that they felt was conveyed by the program. Given the timing of the program and the enormous publicity being given to the spread of the swine flu and the considerable controversy surrounding the use of a vaccine for that specific strain, the program also struck me, and at least one of those who wrote, as also meant to boost the use of that H1N1 vaccine. This is not a series that I would ordinarily watch. I did so because of the viewer letters and I did come away feeling that certainly one unstated message was to encourage vaccination against H1N1.

When I asked PBS's director of children's programming, Paul Siefken, about this, he said the episode is not an advocacy film about getting the H1N1 shot but rather educational in the sense that the concept of the series is to explore the science behind relevant experiences for many children and the vast majority of kids get vaccinations of all kinds. And, of course, the topic was timely since it is also the annual flu season. So it turned out to be an interesting way and time to talk about vaccines. Siefken adds that the program is never presented as anything but parental choice.

The episode must also have struck others as linked to the battle over the swine flu vaccine. Among the sponsorships for the program is a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. The HHS grant to "Sid the Science Kid" was also pointed out in a lengthy Newsweek magazine article this week about the government going on "an unprecedented multimedia information campaign" to fight back against "both H1N1 and the lies and misperceptions about the disease."

The magazine reports that the show's executive producer, Lisa Henson, said that she and her colleagues were already interested in doing a show on the topic, but it was HHS's sponsorship that allowed them to produce it on a pushed-up schedule in time for flu season. Siefken said that funding for the program is sought by the producers but that he was not aware of any pressure to mention the H1N1. "There is a flu season every year and vaccination is extremely useful to the majority of parents out there," he said.

That may be so, but perhaps because of the novelty and publicity about this particular strain, polls show that half the population of parents with young children may be choosing not to take this shot even though the overwhelming majority of authoritative information about it from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources is that it is safe. The respected FactCheck.org says "claims that 'swine flu' vaccine is dangerous range from seriously overblown to flat-out false" in a detailed and up-to-date analysis posted this month.

On balance, I thought this program was a good, smart and timely public service, but perhaps too clever, at least as I viewed it, in trying to get a specific message across without being specific about what that message was. Perhaps it is precisely because the Sid series is widely viewed as good and educational, and because it is on PBS — which seeks to engender trust among kids and their parents — that you can understand how at least some parents feel as though they were ambushed by a message they perceived as going beyond getting a flu shot.

What follows now are three segments. The first includes the letters from viewers. Then comes the response to those letters from PBS Viewer Services. Then comes some additional explanation from PBS vice president for communications, Lea Sloan, in response to some questions of mine.

Here Are the Letters

It is shameful that PBS Kids is pushing the flu shot issue and agenda of the CDC on 3-year-old children on Sid the Science Kid. You should let parents make their own decisions and not imply that parents are negligent or do not love their children if they do not vaccinate.

Natick, MA

There was an episode of Sid the Science Kid which featured the promotion of flu shots. My baby and I were injured by vaccines in 2007. I don't appreciate this bogus information being displayed for millions of viewers to see. I feel like we are being assaulted all over again. Vaccine injury and death are very real and for you to pass it off like these parents are vaccinating out of sheer "love" for their children is not only ignorant, but downright dangerous . . . start investigating the ingredients in the flu shot. You'll be surprised to find that one of them (beta propiolactone) has been proven by OSHA to cause cancer in humans. Please get educated!! Read "Fear of the Invisible" by Janine Roberts to find out about the vaccine contaminants and what they are doing to our health. Our government officials are fully aware of it and making a killing (no pun intended).

Dawn Crim, Concord, NH

Has the once impenetrable PBS shield of independent programming finally been corrupted by propaganda seekers? I couldn't believe my eyes when I watched in horror as "Sid the Science Kid" and his made up friends get a flu vaccine. As the parent of a child, and yes, as one of many who believes in the link between autism and vaccines, I take offense to allowing such manipulative rubbish into my household. Either put the superb Mister Rogers' Neighborhood back on the air and quit playing with kids' minds or come clean with your viewers and admit that independent programming and PBS no longer jive.

E. Chin, Sandy Hook, CT

Please do not use PBS to send a message about vaccines to our children. There is clearly a variety of opinions about vaccines, especially the swine flu vaccine. Parents should be educating their children about this themselves.

Marietta, GA

I want you to know that the vaccine pushing on your programs are horrible and I will not be watching anymore. It is against my moral and spiritual beliefs to vaccinate. My children would watch Sid the science kid but not anymore. It is wrong for you to take such a stand not everyone wants aborted fetus tissue and toxic chemicals forced into them via "shot" and getting them does NOT equal immunity or healthy. Please do not force this on anyone.

Anne Z, Liberty Twp., OH

I CANNOT believe that Sid the Science Kid was pushing flu shots on the show. This is the worst form of brainwashing I've seen on a child's program to date. Not only are flu shots a miserable representation of science effectiveness, they are loaded with mercury and formaldehyde. I can't wait to see what Sid is pushing next. Maybe, "Yeah! Let's eat high fructose corn syrup!"

Caro, MI

And the Response from PBS Viewer Services

"We regret that you were disappointed with this episode of the series. We have shared your comments with the producers and with PBS' programming executives.

"PBS understands that not every family will choose vaccination and that this is a decision for parents to make. In the episode, the teacher points out that everyone must have a parental consent form in order to get a shot. This program is about the science behind vaccinations, how antibodies work to immunize the body and staying healthy. As a character who explores the science behind the everyday experiences of preschoolers, Sid is a perfect guide to help children understand the science behind germs, viruses and vaccines. The episode also addresses topics such as sneezing into your elbow, effective hand washing and disinfecting common household surfaces to prevent the spread of germs. During a time of year when children hear a great deal about illness and ways to stay healthy, this program offers age-appropriate answers to their questions, including why some people receive vaccinations. It is designed to be relevant for every flu season or other times when a child may have questions about getting sick or getting a shot.

"All PBS KIDS content is created in conjunction with subject experts. For 'Getting a Shot,' the producers worked directly with medical and educational advisors, including Cyrus Rangan, M.D. FAAP ACMT, who is Director of the Toxics Epidemiology Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Public Health, as well as Moisés Román, who serves as the Diversity in Action Chair for the California Association for the Education of Young Children as well as Curriculum Coordinator for UCLA Early Care and Education.

"PBS KIDS helps preschoolers navigate through challenging life experiences, such as getting a shot. Our series have also covered such topics as divorce, a new sibling in the house or losing loved ones. We recognize that these issues may directly affect a child or that they may have been introduced by a friend or classmate.

"Parents, of course, want their children to be healthy, and they will, and should, choose whether or not their children are vaccinated. Children want age-appropriate answers to their questions, including why some people get shots. PBS wants to help create an informed society, foster dialogue, encourage kids to understand their world and empower parents to make choices for their families. An informed citizenry is crucial to our democracy. It's important that people talk about issues that affect their families."

More from PBS

In response to further questions from me about possible advocacy and funding issues, Lea Sloan, PBS vice president for communications, said:

"We emphasize that it is the choice and decision of parents. The episode was created as a way to help children understand what they or their friends/classmates are going through, overcome fears they may have around getting a shot if their families choose to do so, and answer questions they may have around the flu or getting a shot.

"The Jim Henson Company followed specific PBS guidelines to insure editorial independence. PBS guidelines do not allow funders to drive editorial content, thus HHS did not contribute to or review scripts, but underwriters/funders often actively participate in activities to promote the program.

"HHS is not the majority funder for this episode. SID THE SCIENCE KID 'Getting a Shot: You Can Do It!' is funded by First 5 California, The Boeing Company, The Rose Hills Foundation and The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and The Association for Prevention Teaching and Research."

Also this week, I began receiving some early comments about the next Frontline program that aired on Oct. 20. It was called "The Warning." It was about the smart, courageous but unheeded former chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born, who warned, in the late 1990s, of a coming economic disaster because of the hidden and unregulated markets in derivatives and other not well understood securities.

This was, in my view, an excellent and powerfully presented program, shedding light on a rare and what turned out to be extremely high-stakes confrontation at the highest levels of government during the Clinton administration in which the woman who lost, Ms. Born, might have helped avert our recent financial calamity had the outcome been different.

One Troubling Aspect

But there was one slightly troubling thing about this, less about the broadcast itself than about its promotion and description by Frontline. In introducing this film online, Frontline says this: "In The Warning, veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk unearths the hidden history of the nation's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born, who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multitrillion-dollar derivatives market whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008."

It's the "unearths the hidden history" part that I take some exception to, and that's because anyone who reads The Washington Post may well remember a major, triple-bylined, 4,400-word front-page story exactly one year ago, on Oct. 15, 2008, headlined "What Went Wrong."

Here's the way it began: "A decade ago, long before the financial calamity now sweeping the world, the federal government's economic brain trust heard a clarion warning and declared in unison: You're wrong.

"The meeting of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets on an April day in 1998 brought together Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. — all Wall Street legends, all opponents to varying degrees of tighter regulation of the financial system that had earned them wealth and power.

"Their adversary, although also a member of the Working Group, did not belong to their club. Brooksley E. Born, the 57-year-old head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, had earned a reputation as a steely, formidable litigator at a high-powered Washington law firm. She had grown used to being the only woman in a room full of men. She didn't like to be pushed around."

When I asked Frontline producers how come the Post story didn't get some mention or reference in "The Warning," they pointed out that there were links to it in the Analysis and Readings sections of the Web site. That's true, and it's also true, I would add, that Born had declined to talk to the Post last year but was interviewed in-person on the Frontline program. Nevertheless, I don't think Frontline, as good as this program was, "unearthed" the hidden history of this crisis nor Born's role at the center of it. I think the Post, and maybe others that I'm not aware of, was way ahead and deserved some reference somewhere in the script.

Now, back to the letters about last week's column on the controversial footage in "Obama's War" and some early letters about "The Warning."

About the Footage on the Fatally Wounded Marine

Thank you for your input on this topic. I started reading with very mixed feelings and no strong opinion in favor, but leaning a little to "poor taste." I didn't watch the program because I read a lot and am "war weary" at this point (health care weary as well). Your column succinctly makes the case for public informedness with appropriate guidelines. I might still favor letting the family have the final say if the person in question has been publicly identified as being the person in program-specific footage.

This reminds me of something similar. I read of the dead soldiers and feel sad, I see their pictures at the end of NewsHour, when they are shown, and tears well up. The impact is much greater with the image. Impact matters if those of us who aren't personally involved are going to understand the consequences for those who ARE involved.

Janet Camp, Milwaukee, WI

Thank you for the article on the Frontline presentation of Obama's War. I've lived through WW II and all the wars since, so I did not choose to watch it. In principal, though, I totally agree with you that reporters should show us the horrors of war. It is not pretty, it is not as clean as it sometimes appears today and people need to know that death in war is horrible. Sometimes it becomes necessary, but we would be far better served to avoid commitment to wars that are not required to defend the safety of our country. As to the title, how could anyone dispute the obvious fact that it has become Obama's war to oversee?

Olive Lohrengel, Buda, TX

I agree wholeheartedly with your judgment on this. I also agree that our recent wars have been much too sanitized. War reporting must include the deaths on both sides, it seems to me, or the public is not being fully informed or properly served. The Marine's father says it well.

Bruce Nelan, Rockville, MD

Here, Here to everything you wrote. If anything I would strengthen it. This is war. It is awful. It is horrible and brutal. It is the truth and it is reality. Not to show it is a lie. I'm so sick and tired of this war pornography that makes war look like a video game. And what about the victims, the tens of thousands of people we murder and maim? It's gotten so bad you will see more violence watching NFL football on Sundays.

Tom Felt, Tucson, AZ

Explicit images of a soldier dying have absolutely nothing to do with mislabeling a war. One is a lapse in common decency, and the other is a lapse in intellectual honesty. What's the point of being an ombudsman if you're just going to defend this kind of junk? Frontline has hit plenty of home runs over the years, but it has also struck out in pretty spectacular fashion. Unfortunately, the show fails to grow. I suspect that's because all the pieces are farmed out, and in fact, Frontline is actually just a front for several independent production companies. I doubt you'll be writing about that.

Dave Parks, Birmingham, AL

And on the Title and Other Aspects

I couldn't disagree with you more about calling this episode OBAMA'S WAR. It makes it seem like PBS has just been taken over by Fox. Certainly it gives the impression that it's President Obama who's guilty of creating this nightmare and then making it worse by ineptitude that further botched it up. The program should have been called something like, "BUSH'S WAR, OBAMA'S HEADACHE." You may think that by trying to undo the damage, President Obama is "owning" this war, but he's just trying to clean up the mess that should have been his predecessor's responsibility. I could hardly believe that PBS would use such an inappropriate title. NOW where do we turn for "fair and balanced" reporting?

Holly Helmstetter, Antwerp, NY

Re: President Obama's War: The title of this piece is poorly chosen. It implies that he started the war. As he has only been in office for 10 months of the over 8 years and he has not announced his new strategy or goals, it is misleading. I will definitely watch it. But what about the people who do not and those who do not have the journalistic ethics that PBS has had that will be more than happy to use the title to blur history and the mismanagement of the start of this war and the back burner that it has been put on so we could invade Iraq?

Donna K., Berkley, MI

It appears to never fail that when a new President takes office all of the blame for the previous administration gets imposed on him. Obama did not start this war. Cheney and Bush and his minions have dropped the ball and put this country in such a deep hole, it is more like a chasm. It will take more then one term to try and undo or remedy the disastrous condition Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and that good ole boy network left this country.

Ginger Ferrer, Manchester, NH

FrontLine always reminds me of what journalism should be and how much is missing from the media networks. I had the privilege of watching two great shows, Obama's War and The Warning, in just a few short days. If only Frontline were H1N1 it might infect the other media outlets with their virus of intelligent investigating and reporting. Will it ever happen, or is Fox the rabid carrier of our day.

Michael Sheridan, San Diego, CA

I was watching PBS last night, the program about the current situation with Afghanistan and Pakistan. I was greatly disturbed that the f-word was left in, clear as a bell, THREE times in less than thirty seconds. I reported it to the FCC (because I doubt PBS's elitist leftist program managers would care to do anything about it otherwise). Normally, I allow my children to watch SOME of PBS's programming, but it's falling on my popularity list. I can tolerate some of the socialist indoctrination, but I will not tolerate profanity of that magnitude.

Daniel Hennis, Kuna, ID

First, Frontline is my most favorite program on all of television. I'm not sure of your political party interests, nor do I particularly care. But I'm sure you know that way back when the severe left wing liberals at one time controlled PBS. As of lately, the last 10 years or so, programming on PBS changed, very much for the better. Before the last decade all that was on PBS was music shows and other "crap" that nobody could care less for, except for the deep hearted liberal interests. Well now I can usually find something on PBS, almost every night that I find interesting.

All I want is unbiased, center of the road reporting to be done by Frontline reporters. Let's take the last report, "Obama's War," for example. When Frontline covered "Bush's War" last year, he was dragged through the coals! In this past report, there was no mention of the billions being spent each month, like in last year's report. There was no mention that Obama promised to get our soldiers out of Iraq, nothing at all was said that was contrary to Obama's policies. Don't be afraid to tackle Obama. You didn't mind doing the tough reporting when it came to Bush.

Hutchinson, KS

Well, how long did it take Vietnam to become "Nixon's War"? My recollection is that it was Nixon's war by the time of the November 1969 "Vietnam Moratorium" marches given much press coverage at the time.

Mark Richard, Columbus, OH

The Perceptive Ms. Born

My hat's off to PBS for broadcasting on Frontline — "The Warning." Brooksley Born is a true American hero to have the knowledge, integrity and foresight to challenge the debacle of the derivatives market. Great viewing — keep up the good work.

John Robitaille, Glastonbury, CT

I'm a longtime PBS supporter and would like to strongly commend the Frontline report on the financial meltdown and Brooksley Born. First-rate reporting.

Cedar Rapids, IA

I just finished watching Frontline's special "The Warning" and wanted to provide my feedback. This type of journalism is what has assisted the collapse of this country. You guys were either afraid or lacked the balls or possibly were ignorant of the facts behind this story. Greenspan is part of the Global Elite and the New World Order and he along with his . . . comrades in government intentionally have played out a plan of collapsing the American Empire. You failed to go to this level of reporting. Our country will collapse within the next two years and you guys are partly to blame. Did any of the reporters make the connection about the Bankers Trust and who had control of this Bank? Of course not.

Moyock, NC

Rather, the tough but proper decision, in my view, was to include footage of the fatal wounding of 20-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Charles S. Sharp early in July while on patrol with his company in Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan that is one of the most dangerous areas in the country. The footage appears just minutes into the film as freelance photographer Danfung Dennis, joined later by veteran Frontline correspondent Martin Smith, travels with the Marine company that was part of a big build-up of U.S. forces there this past summer.

In mid-September, a relative of the young Marine wrote to me expressing "concern" about the footage to be used in the then forthcoming documentary and its effect on the family. I passed this along to Frontline producers at PBS-member station WGBH in Boston, and this was followed up, according to a chronology supplied by Frontline producers, by a series of contacts between the producers and the family.

The chronology also lists earlier contacts in August with Marine Corps press officers in Afghanistan and at Camp Lejeune, NC, the home-base for Sharp's unit, informing them that Frontline "would like to air the Sharp footage." Officers in Afghanistan, the chronology reports, expressed no opinion about the footage and at Camp Lejeune, public affairs officials said they had informed the family about Frontline's intentions and "there was no indication of any objection from the family," according to the chronology.

Then on Tuesday, just hours before the Frontline broadcast was to be aired, I received a copy of a letter sent to PBS President and CEO, Paula Kerger, from Marine Corps Col. B. F. Salas, Director of Public Affairs.

Here, in part, Is What Col. Salas Wrote:

"I wanted to write and urge you to remove the explicit imagery of Marine Lance Corporal Seth Sharp in his dying moments from the PBS report 'Obama's War.' It is without question the right of PBS under the rules of embedded journalism to include this imagery in this program and distribute it globally and inform the public. There is no disagreement on this count, and we in the Marine Corps' public affairs community share your mission.

"However, I would appeal to you on the basis of journalistic good taste not to include this imagery. The media does not show graphic imagery of drunken driving victims, much less use material accompanied by their name that shows their face and the horrible circumstances of their vulnerable moment of loss. This should be the standard applied also to this case. War and combat operations like the one Lance Cpl. Sharp and his unit were involved with involve daily exposure to horrors and abject terror that is unspeakable.

"America counts on journalists to inform them accurately of these realities, and to convey in some measure by their reporting, the courage of those citizens who seek to protect the innocent and defend our interests. An accomplished storyteller can inform us without resorting to graphic imagery or what might be termed 'combat pornography.'"

Here's Kerger's Reply, in part:

"The footage documenting the mortal wounding of Marine Lance Corporal Seth Sharp is an extraordinary reminder to viewers of the remarkable sacrifices made by American troops and exemplifies the formidable challenges on the ground in Afghanistan at a time when coverage of the war is dominated by policy arguments in Washington.

"These images were captured in accordance with the military's guidelines for embedded media, which read, 'Photography from a respectful distance or from angles at which a casualty cannot be identified is permissible.' In the battle scene, the camera is not intrusive; it stays at a respectful distance, and Lance Cpl. Sharp's face is completely obscured.

"On October 13, Rick Sharp, Lance Cpl. Sharp's father, appeared on 'The Takeaway,' a Public Radio International program, and said he did not object to this footage being shown. When asked why, he answered, 'Just so the story could be seen of what our men and women are having to do to give us our freedom, the stuff that we take for granted every day, that it's not an easy job that they're having to do.'

"In telling its story of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 'Obama's War' is meant to honor all the men and women who are risking their lives each day and to give the American public a sense of their exceptional courage. I greatly appreciate your sharing your concerns with me, and I thank you for your service to our nation."

My Thoughts

I'm with PBS on this. The showing of mortally wounded American servicemen and women has been a vexing problem for news organizations for a long time. Just last month, there was considerable controversy over a photo of another young Marine fatally shot in combat in Afghanistan that was distributed by the Associated Press. Defense Secretary Robert Gates even got involved in that one personally and publicly. Some news organizations ran it, others did not. Some others published it only online rather than in print editions. My colleague and fellow ombudsman at Stars and Stripes, Mark Prendergast, wrote what I felt was a thoughtful column about that episode at the time.

Col. Salas, in his letter, agrees that the Frontline correspondents were acting under established rules, but he makes his appeal on the basis of "journalistic good taste." I don't agree with that, and I think Salas's use of the phrase "combat pornography" is not helpful or appropriate. I don't think there is any way that you could put Frontline's treatment of this tragic moment in that category. As a viewer, one suffers for the terrible fate of this young Marine three months ago. But you don't see his face and wouldn't know his name except for his buddies calling out his nickname in an effort to keep him struggling to survive long enough to get him evacuated.

Death is part of the story of war and, if anything, America's battles in the last 15 years have been far too sanitized, in my opinion. Those battles, ever since President Nixon moved the country to an all volunteer force in 1973, have been fought by a tiny fraction of Americans. The idea that your son or daughter might have to serve has been taken off the table for the overwhelming majority of American families, shielding almost all of us from the real costs and emotions of the battlefield.

In the first Gulf War in 1991, and in smaller earlier skirmishes in Grenada and Panama in the 1980s, U.S. defense and military officials did their best to keep reporters and photographers from seeing anything, especially at the beginning of these operations. There were rules for many years preventing photographing of returning flag-draped coffins at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and there has actually been very little photographic record of U.S. combat fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan published in the American press.

Nobody is advocating not playing by the rules of notifying next of kin first, not using visibly identifiable images, and being respectful of families. But just as the military has a serious, and often dangerous role in our society, so do reporters and photographers in recording the wars that our government has committed us to. And it is the news organization's decision whether to publish these.

You can argue about whether the all-volunteer force is a good idea, or whether it is too small, or whether it makes it easier politically to commit troops to battle. Personally, I think it does make it easier. But I don't think the press ought to shy away from recording, in full and with respect, what this means, nor to contribute to further shielding American readers and viewers from the realities of combat.

As for 'Obama's War'

Several viewers in recent weeks, having seen the promotion for the Frontline program, have written to complain about the title. After all, the argument goes, it was President George W. Bush who invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks but who rather quickly switched focus and resources to attacking Iraq, a country that did not attack us, without finishing the job in Afghanistan.

I think that is a valid argument. On the other hand, President Obama has steadily affirmed the importance of the war in Afghanistan and quite recently described it as a "war of necessity." That is a strong term. He has appointed new diplomats and military leaders and adopted a new strategy, and he now faces crucial decisions on the future size of the U.S. military commitment. So I think it is fair to say that it now has become Obama's war and the public generally understands how this has come about, although the documentary falls a bit short when it comes to the history of foreign powers in Afghanistan.

That, however, seems a minor flaw, in my opinion. This struck me as an excellent film, in keeping with Frontline's tradition of strong examinations of frontline issues. As the eighth anniversary of the war came and went, there has been a step-up in reporting from and about Afghanistan in newspapers and on television, which is all to the good.

But this hour-long Frontline exploration struck me as uniquely valuable: solid reporting and analysis on all sides that conveys the almost maddening complexity of any approach; a sizable segment devoted to Pakistan's involvement-without which it is impossible to understand the challenge that the war presents; especially timely because of the decisions now awaiting the president, and the luxury of an hour of uninterrupted, logical presentation that allows one to make more sense of this than you can get by short bursts of reporting elsewhere.

Most of the letters about the series are very positive, which is not surprising since Burns is perhaps the premier television documentarian of our history and culture, and certainly the most productive. A fair number of those who wrote, however, found fault, especially in what they perceived as an excessive element of religion that co-mingled with the narrative of natural beauty and the struggle to preserve it within a national system. There were other criticisms as well. Any project of this scope and duration will naturally attract differing points of view. As a viewer of Burns' projects over the years, I've always felt that whatever flaws they may contain, it was far better, in the end, to have had these documentary projects than not to have them; they represent an extraordinary body of work that will endure.

The shortest of all the letters printed below comes from a viewer in Detroit who says that the series was too much in too short a space; jamming six two-hour segments back to back for almost a week was just too much forced viewing. I had the same feeling. It would have been better, I thought, to have spaced these out more to once or twice a week to help make each segment stand out, especially because the tone, pace and style of every nightly offering seemed similar, hence a sense of repetition. There is no doubt that this had very high viewership at the start, but it made me wonder how many people actually stuck with it. PBS officials say they hope to have some stats on this by the end of the month.

The Good Stuff

I am writing to express my gratitude after watching, Ken Burns' documentary. I am not sure how to express my charmed delight in this film series. I watched each night and then on Sunday to once again partake of this extraordinary footage. It is as though someone handed me an intricate connect the dots drawing and then magically connected them before my eyes adding color and dimension to reveal a landscape so rapturous that words cannot describe. I have visited 18 of the 58 parks. My husband and I hope to visit all of them in this lifetime.

Kathleen Edwards, Tampa, FL

I just wanted to express my profound gratitude for the National Parks series. It was probably the most dazzling and emotionally stirring program we've ever watched, and PBS has had quite a few of those. Thank you for letting us experience such beauty interwoven with such an exciting history of the evolution of our National Parks. I would have liked to have sent a personal note of thanks to Mr. Burns, but I am sure you'll convey to him our eternal gratitude for the lovely program.

Katy, TX

The National Parks series was a wonder to behold. The beauty that each park brought to the series was nature at its best. To bad that there were so many narrow minded people at its onset of creation (Park Service). Finally PBS has brought back memories of what PBS had started sooo long ago. I remember the nature series, the science series the most. Hope to see more (Nova) style programming. Again kudos on the Park series, and thank you for taking the time to read this.

Bernard Brodeur, Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada

I want to thank Ken Burns for a wonderful series. What would Muir, Mather, Murie and other pioneers think now I wonder, especially in Alaska where wolves are being shot by hunters in helicopters. I think this film should be shown in schools. Also Peter Coyote was a great narrator.

Norma Harris, Warminster, PA

I love the Ken Burns series — I have been glued to it long after I should be in bed. I was especially taken with the short segment on the work of Chiura Obata. When I search for his name online I find very little: I hope someone out there will produce more for the public on this amazing artist.

Trenton, NJ

I thoroughly enjoyed The National Parks series this past week and recorded it so I can view it again and share it with friends. It prompted the following question/suggestion: Are PBS programs available via the Armed Services TV network? My son is serving in the Air Force in South Korea, and he and his colleagues deserve to be able to see the many marvelous programs PBS offers. I could find no way to contact either the AFN or Ken Burns in this instance to make this suggestion to them. I hope you can either tell me that PBS programming is already available to the military deployed abroad or that you will take steps to move the suggestion toward the desks of appropriate people at PBS and the AFN in hopes of making that a reality.

Barbara Blomgren, La Jolla, CA

(Ombudsman's Note: It's on AFN. Here's a link to the schedule.)

The Not So Good: Keep Religion Out of It

I have visited many of our national parks and was looking forward to this week's series. I have been absolutely appalled at the plethora of totally unnecessary religious references to the mythical Christian deity and savior. I have always thought that PBS should be a place that is grounded in science and reality. When did the Christian cult that has taken over our government and destroyed our country's economy also gain control of PBS?

Richard Feldman, Pomona, CA

When I read about the series on our national parks, I asked my husband to record the series. We watched part of episode one, and I got so annoyed I had to quit watching! I wanted to see the majesty of our parks, not hear religious sermonizing. My husband deleted the rest of the series from our recordings. What a huge disappointment!

Susan Robinson, Modesto, CA

The Ken Burns series on national parks really got carried away emphasizing religion in connection with geology and beauty. I realize some do believe in the supernatural but many do not and it became apparent that they were emphasizing this connection every time they could. Sad.

Ramona Memmer, Seattle, WA

To reiterate: "Many famous environmentalists, unlike John Muir, felt the natural world was enough for them: 'above us only sky,' as John Lennon put it. Environmentalists such as Aldo Leopold roundly rejected religion. We hope as your series continues that there will be an acknowledgment of the many of us who treasure and support our national parks who are not religious, who have a devotion to this world, our only world, instead of to some unseen, speculative afterworld and its 'creator.'"

Ruthe Milan, W. Bloomfield, MI

I would very much like to know why it is that a documentary mini-series about our national park system has to include offensive sectarian comments and lyrics. We are living in the 21st Century and comments in favor of any particular religion or favoring religion over irreligion demonstrate intolerance and a complete disregard for the rights of the viewing public. Maybe Ken Burns should just limit himself to producing materials for religious organizations.

John Ross, Washington, DC

The Bad

This Burns doc is a complete waste of time and an embarrassment to him and you. How much did you pay for this overwrought garbage? He easily could have shrink this doc-by-the-number from what, 30 hours, to one or two hours. Boring, self-indulgent drivel. I mean, who cares? Using up Tivo space for what? I'm sure this 30 hours of programming could have been much better used for actual docs that say something to us, not two hours on John Muir and endless photos of people driving through towns on buggies or nature shots. A total commentary on the irrelevance of PBS as well as the lack of self-restraint on Burns' part. Guess he has read so many overflowing with BS praise about himself he thinks anything he throws out there will be fascinating. It's such a waste of time and resources. He should give the money back and you should give your self-praise back. Real mediocre crap and so much of it. Who do you think you are, Bush?

Frank Fong, Yosemite, CA

What an extraordinary series. Until the last event. Why, Oh! WHY did you have to insert the black propaganda into this exceptional series. It just destroyed the last Chapter and left me unsettled and took away the perfectness of the program. These poor people . . . who have made unbelievable strides in the last 50 years to be normal like everyone in the USA . . . and you insert all that repulsive derogatory nonsense. What in God's name did their morally repugnant past have to do with the beauty of the Parks? What possible motive did the Editor have for allowing such unrelated footage to be inserted into something so incredibly beautiful. That section completely eliminated my desire to purchase the series for my grandchildren.

Frances Smith, Knoxville, TN

While I like the National Parks feature by Ken Burns, I do not like his anti-white and anti-American position and I like it even less when he spews his discriminatory anti-isms in his films. Criticizing what people did to other people centuries ago without the benefit of having walked in their shoes in their time is stupid and meaningless. Criticizing only whites is discriminatory. Insinuating that America is the only bad country to have ever existed is hypocritical. If Ken Burns does not like whites and/or America, why doesn't he move to the Congo? The answer is freedom and money. That is why I do not voluntarily financially support Ken Burns or PBS.

Fred Tessier, Las Vegas, NV

I must say, the "Parks" is a good story, except for the last part about "Civil Rights." I am sick and tired of every production on PBS to be centered around civil rights. If you see and listen to anything educational like a documentary as The National Parks, racism or the thought of racism is invoked into the story. Why can't we tell the story, and let black, white, Asian be who they are. It's time to drop the civil rights movement. Let's start the American movement.

Paul W., Spanish Fort, AL

I would prefer the National Parks programs to have been more widely spaced apart/out . . . perhaps one or two a week rather than jammed in on one week . . . I simply don't want to devote a week to full time TV viewing.

Detroit, MI

I am watching National Parks. I also work at Historic Mill Creek, which is part of the Mackinac State Historic Parks in Michigan. I think it is a gross omission of the program that no mention has been made of the fact that Mackinac Island was made the second national park in 1875 only after Yellowstone and maintained by the Department of War or that there was a concerted effort by islanders and vacationers there to preserve it as a park when the Army planned to leave Fort Mackinac in 1895 without regard for its uniqueness. It was only then transferred to Michigan as the first State Park before there even was a Michigan State Park system. Even most Michiganders do not know this history.

Richard Amacher, Rochester Hills, MI

Unable to visit the Parks due to financial and time limitations from farming, I was in high hopes of seeing the much hyped program. Repeatedly, the previews showed beautiful panoramic photography of amazing places beyond my comprehension. Those photos though, must have been the compilation of all the color photos in all the segments put together! I patiently wait through all the black and white stills, repeated shots of narrators, and history of Yellowstone and Yosemite, for a 30 second glimpse of a park in color, every half hour or so, as I thought the program would highlight! It is torturous. Even my old book of Yellowstone shows more colorful beauty than hours and hours of Ken Burns' take on this treasure. Even his choice of music is wrong. Music suitable for the Civil War does not cross over to the 30's and WPA projects in parks.

Dee Marie Moore, North Manchester, IN

Pop-Ups and Credits

I am watching the final part of Ken Burns' The National Parks. This is so awesome that I cannot find words to express my appreciation for this work. Part 5 got to my period of recognition: CCC & FDR. I felt more comfortable with that one. It is being repeated each night, so I have often watched twice on the same night. I was wishing for more about wildlife, but the Florida everglades with the incredible birds and now the wolf in the snow have gotten to what I was hoping to see.

I am one of those people who does not need to see my local station identified or be reminded of what I am seeing. Thank you for publishing some of the mail with the same complaints. Other than that, Nevada Barr, one of my favorite authors, showed up in one of the segments, and they didn't even mention that she was the author of several books set in the parks where she had served — Mesa Verde, Big Bend, and others. If you read her novels, you almost feel like you are there. The park rangers are blessed to be able to work in the parks and their love for the parks shows through in what they say and write.

Olive Lohrengel, Buda, TX

Just another vote against the pop-ups during the National Parks Program. Others have eloquently made the case that we don't need these reminders, they're annoying, detract from the visual beauty and are a reminder that PBS today is not the wonderful PBS of yesteryear.

Marian Grant, Reisterstown, MD

I just found this ombudsman service while looking at some of the searches that found my blog. I recently posted about all six episodes of the National Parks series. I also find the use of this "TV bug" very annoying. It seems to be a common industry trend. Since PBS is not commercial I would hope that our contributions would keep these annoying commercial trends off the PBS screen.

Lisle, IL

Maybe I have become so accustomed to the afore-mentioned "pop-ups," that I no longer even notice them. There is a related topic, however, that I do find to be annoying. It is the habit PBS seems to have acquired from the national networks and elsewhere, of minimizing the end credits of a program and running promos for future episodes or other programs below. You should realize that as the music plays and the credits role, it is an opportunity for the viewer to meditate on what he or she has just seen, while still under its powerful spell. This practice is a disservice to the profound and contemplative nature of a series like "National Parks," and betrays a surprising lack of sophistication on the part of PBS.

Barry Anglin, Oklahoma City, OK

On Other Subjects: How About Other Voices?

PBS is supposed to be neutral and report to the people in a balanced way. There is no balance at all, it is completely under the influences of the establishment and corporations. Every night we are obliged to watch commercials for the oil companies. Every night we have retired generals and political hawks discussing Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Why do we never, ever hear from anti-war leaders? Why is there never a voice of Amnesty or the Peace movement. My taxes go to pay for the propaganda PBS puts out? We get 30 minutes of business news for the rich every night and never a program of 5 minutes about Unions or the homeless or women's rights. There's no integrity at all in PBS reporting. The producers and announcers are lackeys and a disgrace.

John Dunnicliff, Escondido, CA

A Thankless Task, but Someone Has to Do It

Mr. Getler, I do not know why you want this job! It is certainly a thankless task in many respects. PBS needs to do a better job of making it clear that the stations are independent and can run anything they want. I, too, have been offended at programming offered by my local station and did not understand the situation until reading about it here. If PBS can run endless promos for reruns of Sherlock Holmes, and run explanations of the digital changeover ad nauseum, perhaps they could spare some time to make this clear. Of course, if there weren't so many pledge breaks, there wouldn't be so much of this questionable programming, would there?

As to the Jewish person in Maine, I really had to laugh. Ken Burns' programs are run, rerun, rererun and then start all over again for YEARS. You WILL get to see the thing, believe me. Just for the record, I would not have a problem watching a worthwhile program on Christmas; in fact, our family go to a movie on Christmas every year. We have not been struck dead yet.

To the 9/11 people I really do not know what to say but I hope they will all apologize for skewering you for supposedly not watching the film.

About the "bug" thing: I got fed up with all that long ago (and all the reruns and pledge drives) and killed my television. Of course I do have friends and family so I do see television, so that's why I read this column.

Janet Camp, Milwaukee, WI

We were all hypnotized into believing that two commercial aircraft struck the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001. While we imagined the jet fueled fire for over an hour someone responsible for surreptitiously placing enough explosive to bring down the building(s) set it off. A "deceptive controlled demolition." If I understand the claim correctly that is pretty much what is being claimed by the 9/11: Blueprint for Truth group.

No competent engineer would look at the available video of the fire and collapse and form any conclusion regarding the cause. The official conclusion makes sense and is supportable by the facts without a lot of complicated explanation. A large plane loaded with jet fuel struck the building blowing insulation off of the structural steel. The jet fuel and whatever was available as fuel in the building burned until the steel failed causing one floor to drop on to the next again and again!

I reject the 9/11: Blueprint for Truth explanation as too complicated, requiring far too many conspirators with rare even singular capabilities. When, in the real world has a deceptive controlled demolition ever been used? That is the most moronic of oxymorons. An explosion has no need to be deceptively controlled it need only be controlled and you not be caught lighting the fuse and you can effectively deny responsibility leaving open the wink, wink nod, nod option for future threats. A perfect surreptitious explosion demands a new perfect one every time you wish to make a point. One that can be attributed to you but not pinned on you is far more valuable. The ability to create the former does not exist. The ability to create the latter now that is a different story. Come up with one bit of evidence and I am on board.

Keep up the good work! Do Not Resign!!

Michael Knight, Tampa, FL

Nice October column. I read your column as a public television viewer and lawyer. The people who think that the WTC attack was an "inside job" by our government are true lunatics who choose to ignore extraordinary amounts of detailed objective evidence as to what happened. In particular, the assertion that the towers were demolished by explosives is incredible. By coincidence I recently stumbled on an authoritative explanation in laypersons' language as to why that could not possibly have been the case. "Objectivity and balance" certainly does not require that the theories of psychotics and the truly ignorant should be given airtime, especially without contemporaneous rebuttal. Anyway, thanks for your work.

Washington, DC

The sweeping, six-part, 12-hour documentary series by Ken Burns, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," is still running at the time of this posting, so I'm going to save some of this week's mail commenting on the project until it's over and then pull it all together. On the other hand, most of the mail about the series received in my mailbag so far deals with two issues that have more to do with PBS and nothing to do with the substance of the Burns film.

One involves the decision to debut the highly publicized and promoted series last Sunday evening, Sept. 27, which is also the beginning, at sundown, of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

The other is the decision to flash what is called in TV lingo a "bug" on the lower left side of the screen every 15 minutes or so, throughout the entire series. Actually, it's more than a bug. First, the standard, glowing PBS logo appears, which qualifies as a bug. Then, a line appears that says: "Presents a Film by Ken Burns." Then the title, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," is presented. It winds up with a second PBS logo just for good measure.

I'll come back to these two issues in a moment, but first a brief guide to two other subjects that are included in this week's rather long Mailbag.

Not About PBS

One involves viewer response to a half-hour documentary titled "Autism: We Thought You'd Never Ask." All of the mail I got was critical but this was not a PBS program — no logo at all on this one. I haven't seen this film and have no real idea how many member stations have used it. As I've reported many times in this column, PBS's 350 or so member stations are all independent and can broadcast whatever they choose. This film was produced by a company in Boulder, Colo., called Landlocked Films and was distributed by the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA), which is also a membership organization, much smaller (93 members) than PBS, that also serves public broadcasting license holders. I passed along these complaints to NETA, and a representative sampling of the letters and a response from NETA appear below.

The largest flow of e-mail to me this week was aimed at me, specifically for what I said in my column last week about a film titled "9/11: Blueprint for Truth" that also was not a PBS project but that was used by a member station, KBDI, in Denver, Colo., as part of a fund-raising pledge drive. The film, the official description says, "offers evidence that all three World Trade Center high-rises were destroyed not by fire and damage, per the official story, but by explosive-controlled demolitions on September 11, 2001."

The mail I received was all critical. A sampling appears below along with a brief synopsis of my view.

On Yom Kippur and Logos

Now, back to "The National Parks." When I asked PBS about the two complaints mentioned at the top of this column, I was told that they were answering viewers this way:

On the issue of timing: "Since Yom Kippur begins at sundown on September 27, episode one of NATIONAL PARKS, 'The Scripture of Nature,' will air multiple times throughout its premiere day, beginning as early as noon in some areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, Cleveland, Phoenix, Minneapolis and many others. Please check your local listings.

"In addition, PBS will stage marathon viewings on the weekend following the film's debut, and the series will be rebroadcast on PBS World Channel following the original broadcast. A Web page dedicated to the series has been launched at www.pbs.org/nationalparks, and each episode will begin streaming the day after its broadcast premiere through the week following the broadcast of the final episode broadcast, October 2. PBS will rebroadcast the full-six part series in early 2010."

Here's how they are answering viewers who don't like the on-screen displays: "We are sorry you disliked the title and PBS logo 'bugs' in the lower left screen. These on-screen markers are included to let viewers know what they are watching and on which network. We do our best not to be intrusive and appreciate your thoughts on the matter."

My View

I find both situations regrettable and maybe avoidable, although the latter is easy for me to say. PBS officials told me that the date was nobody's first choice and nobody was happy about it. They say that several factors were involved including a late falling Labor Day, the need for on-air promotion time after Labor Day, the Emmy Awards broadcast on another network on Sunday the 20th, and even the baseball playoffs in early October. I also don't know how clear it was to viewers in those cities that this program would air before sundown, or how many are not in the habit of watching during daylight hours. I am sure that anyone who wants to catch up with part one can easily do so. Still, it seems like a strange decision; to pick this one out of all the Sunday nights in the fall to start this extraordinary series.

As for the "bug" explanation, I will share a laugh with all the e-mailers and callers who voiced their annoyance with this tactic. The explanation is actually more annoying than the repetitious on-screen display. Is there any TV viewer on this planet that doesn't know, and hasn't been told dozens of times on every conceivable platform, that Ken Burns produced "The National Parks" for PBS? I, personally, did not find the displays very intrusive, at first, and I guess there is a case to be made that some person isolated in a cabin for the last six months and surfing the screen would come across this and not know what he or she was watching. But after a while, it does get annoying, especially on big screens. It seems like endless promotion. We get it. PBS-Burns-Parks. We know what we are watching.

Here Are Some of the Letters

I am writing to complain about the complete lack of sensitivity by PBS to the most important Jewish Holiday when a decision was made to schedule the first segment of the upcoming Ken Burns National Park documentary. The first 2-hour segment of this exciting program is due to be broadcast the night of Yom Kippur, September 27.

I am a National Park Service employee and I was eagerly looking forward to watching this important series about the agency that I have been working for my whole career. Unfortunately, I won't be able to watch the introductory segment because I'll be participating in the evening service at my synagogue (I don't have the capability of taping the program) and will need to find someone who did record it.

I realize that PBS can't take into account all religious holidays when programming, but I dare say, no one at PBS would ever have considered starting such an important series on Easter or Christmas Eve. Overlooking the start of this important Jewish holiday is so very surprising from such a broad-minded media organization. I am truly very disappointed in the lack of consideration by PBS.

Bar Harbor, ME

Just a note that I am seriously disappointed that you decided to schedule the first episode of Ken Burns' National Parks series on the evening of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. It is probably the one day when the majority of Jews are in a synagogue.
I am curious why the series' launch could not have been delayed by one week?

El Cerrito, CA

I want to express my concern with the scheduling of the National Park series commencing this Sunday night. This Sunday night is a very holy days for those of Jewish faith. This would be equivalent to scheduling on Christmas Eve. The lack of sensitivity is indeed disappointing.

Fredric Meyer, Rochester, MN

PBS Pop-Ups

You are currently running these magnificent films of our national parks by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan and every fifteen minutes up pops your PBS logo with the announcement that this is "A film by Ken Burns," right in the middle of some of the most gorgeous scenery in America, scenery that these films are mostly about and should not be spoiled by this kind of interfering, crass commercialism.

Joe Carder, Tucson, AZ

I am thoroughly enjoying the latest Ken Burns effort. The images are wonderful and the story is engaging. I am thoroughly disgusted with the constant interruption of the images and story with station icons, with PBS icons and with Ken Burns icons. They destroy the magic of the program with "Hey! Look at Me, Look at Me!" I know I am watching PBS, I know I am watching Channel 21, I know I am watching Ken Burns' The National Parks! I tuned into this channel, I desired to see his documentary and I took the steps necessary to do it. I know where I am and what I am doing. I don't need the constant reminders, they distract from any consistent flow in enjoyment. I can't imagine that Mr Burns wants these distractions in his work. Certainly tell us who made the documentary, who supported the documentary and who is broadcasting the documentary at the beginning and at the end. Allow the artists to present their work as they created it! I can't tell you how annoying this is. If you would like I could get a list of 40 to 50 people I know who feel the same way.

Michael Brockmeyer, Madison, WI

The first episode of Ken Burns' National Park series was as wonderful as we have come to expect. But why, oh why, must we see, every 10 minutes or so, a flashing sign in the bottom left of our screen informing us that we are watching Ken Burns' America's Best Idea on PBS. For heaven's sake, we know that! And the constant intrusion of that irritating gaudiness on the beautiful park scenery is all too reminiscent of the commercial attempts to take over the parks being documented in the series. Begone with this!

Don Bishoff, Eugene, OR

Awed and amazed, I've just watched the first segment of Ken Burns's National Parks series. Magnificent work. However, the program and my appreciation of Burns's intent were marred by jarring graffiti scrawled periodically across the glorious imagery. Incomprehensibly, PBS has decided to follow the lead of "artists" of city gangs by "tagging" the spectacular scenery, previously pristine, with its logo and other text. I finally lost it when — in a dark blue-black scene of mountain and river serenely lit by a full moon — a glaring PBS logo, whirling and turning garishly, popped up superimposed over the perfect quiet monochrome beauty of Burns's scene.

W. Balk, Beaufort, SC

The Autism Film: Letters and a NETA/Producer Response

I'm writing in response to the documentary that PBS aired this weekend titled, "WE THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER ASK: Voices of People With Autism." I was disturbed to see a documentary about Facilitated Communication that did not include the facts. As early as 1994, the American Psychological Association put out a resolution on Facilitated Communication due to the mountains of scientific research showing that the facilitator controls the disabled person's response and does so without necessarily realizing it. In their resolution, the APA notes, "Consequently, specific activities contribute immediate threats to the individual civil and human rights of the person with autism or severe mental retardation." The resolution concludes with, "THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that APA adopts the position that facilitated communication is a controversial and unproved communicative procedure with no scientifically demonstrated support for its efficacy."

I have been working with youth with autism since 1994 and have been aware of the research on Facilitated Communication (FC) since then. It's extremely concerning that these documentaries continue to be shown, given the abundance of scientific evidence discrediting FC. The greatest risk of touting treatments like FC is that concerned caregivers may pursue FC at the expense of other, evidence-based treatments, wasting their own and their child's valuable time and resources.

Marla Saltzman, Sherman Oaks, CA

I am the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation. We are devoted to opposing pseudoscience, flummery, and deception. Your program on the "Facilitated Communication" farce is an example of what we oppose. This notion of "FC" has been thoroughly disproven scientifically — even on a Frontline program on PBS! — and is draining federal and state funds, as well as private support, devoted to this nonsense. FC SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK, and though we have offered any and all "practitioners" of the practice, our million-dollar prize if they will simply demonstrate its validity, they have all declined to accept the challenge. Will you issue these opposing comments to those who viewed this very erroneous material? I am not alone in being offended, dismayed, and angered by the misinformation PBS chose to promote, and the parents of the children involved have been deceived and lied to.

James Randi, Fort Lauderdale, FL

I work with children who have Autism and I know the difficulties of teaching them communication skills. I understand the strain that is put on the families of the children as well as the children themselves. Once I saw that the children in your program were using Facilitated Communication (FC) it broke my heart. FC has done such a disservice to families all over the world. Not only does it give the families a false hope, it delays the process of teaching these children skills through interventions that are scientifically researched and based on empirical evidence. I understand that your show wanted to bring to light that people are trying to help these children, but unfortunately you picked those that are actually harming these children. My worry is that some families may see this program and invest their hard earned money to seek FC and be in the same place they are now years later.

Mike Berlin, Simi Valley, CA

In Response

Here's the joint response from NETA and the film's producers: "'AUTISM: WE THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER ASK' features several adults with autism speaking candidly about living with the disability. Each communicates in the fashion best for him or her. No treatments or therapies are discussed or advocated. This documentary is about what these individuals say, not how they say it."

The Ombudsman 'Should Resign'

The following letters are a sampling of those I got in response to a segment in last week's column dealing with the use of a film called "9/11: Blueprint for Truth" by KBDI, a PBS-member station in Denver, as part of a pledge drive to raise funds. My column can be read via the link at the beginning of this Mailbag, but let me reiterate a couple of points. The thrust of the column was about incidents in which PBS, as a television service, and its programs were not involved, but stations or individuals were. PBS had nothing to do with the 9/11 film. Also, I did view the film. I don't write film reviews but rather write about editorial issues raised by viewers about programs. I said KBDI had an obvious right to show the film, and I added that "on a personal level I find the idea embedded in 'Blueprint' of a government conspiracy to blow up those buildings to be preposterous and simply beyond belief and I fault the station for promoting this as part of a pledge drive and presenting it without an accompanying on-the-air program in which critics have their say."

Here are the letters:

Michael Getler should resign as ombudsman effective immediately. His personal emotions are obviously getting in the way of his doing his job, which in this case would involve reviewing the film Blueprint for Truth with an open mind. In fact, virtually every architect or engineer who sees Richard Gage's presentation of the material in the film is convinced that the three World Trade Center skyscrapers were obviously destroyed by deceptive controlled demolitions, which were then covered up by FEMA and NIST, which report directly to the President. If the supremely important historical fact of these demolitions is too much for Getler to handle, perhaps he should find a less stressful job, one that doesn't require him to face current political reality.

Kevin Barrett, Madison, WI

You folks are pathetic 'gate keepers' putting out hit pieces about 9/11 truth that some of us have put more than 8 years into. You lost a viewer for life and you should be ashamed for parroting the treasonous lies of the Bush son's and daughters of bitch's who mass murdered Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 in a huge 'false flag' attack blamed on others who had nothing to do with it.

Dennis Cimino, Silverdale, WA

9/11 was an inside job. Listen closely . . . active thermate in the dust. Do your job and look at our side . . . we are called Truthers for a reason. Get on the right side of history Mike.

Poote Genous, Deland, FL

I have just finished viewing 9/11 Blueprint for Truth, the film you refused to watch yet managed to review, even as far as laying out the "message" of the film. Your words regarding the message of the film: "In other words, someone wired these buildings with explosives intending to bring them down in this attack, and this has been covered up by the government, the 9/11 Commission and the mainstream media. That's the message."

I watched the film along with 400 others on Friday night at an independent theatre in NYC. I must tell you, the audience response was astoundingly unified with regards to the message of the film, and it had nothing to do with the Government wiring the towers with explosives, or any Conspiracy theory at all. The film was a straight forward analysis of the collapses of three skyscrapers from a perspective reliant on the laws of physics. The overwhelming message of the film was that there needs to be a new investigation. It couldn't have been any clearer. This was confirmed when I managed to see a poll taken after the film, and out of 300 people who answered the question, Do we need a new investigation? All 300 responses were YES.

I have read your work before and have been satisfied with your sensibilities and recommendations, but I am dumbfounded as to how you have come up with such radical conclusions from a film which you have not even seen. I would love to hear your explanation of this.

Brian Michels, New York City, NY

I just finished reading your article "PBS, Yes or No" and was somewhat stunned that you would comment on the quality of the evidence presented in a film like "9/11 Blueprint for Truth" without actually viewing it. This kind of attitude is exactly the one shown by so many people who rail against public broadcasting without actually viewing any of the content. For a person who plays an important role in the public broadcasting, I would think that the very thought of doing this would make you cringe. I will have to say however that as much as I feel like I want to express further discontent with what you've written, I do have to remind myself of the time when I thought such ideas were ludicrous and impossible. I urge you to cast aside your a priori assumptions and take a small amount of time to research the matter which you right now are obviously filing in the kooky/crazy category. "9/11 Blueprint for Truth" is actually a great place to start.

Mark Michel, Gulfport, FL

Included are a couple of unusual but not widely known episodes that unfolded last week that I thought might be of interest more broadly to PBS viewers. They can be seen to have at least some association with PBS in the way they were presented or appeared to the public. Yet PBS, as an enterprise, didn't have anything to do with them.

These things happen because PBS is a strange beast within the world of media. Its hundreds of member stations are all independent and can broadcast what they want, and some of the superstars associated with PBS programs are also forces unto themselves with lots of other interests and outlets. Yet these stations and these superstars are widely perceived, rightly or wrongly, as joined at the hip to PBS in the mind of many viewers.

So these episodes — one involving a member station in Denver and the other involving talk show host Tavis Smiley — struck me as interesting and worthy of sharing beyond the normal back and forth with viewers over the widely viewed and well-known PBS programs that are broadcast nationally and that we all associate with public television.

The Conspiracy Pledge

The first episode involves PBS member station KBDI in Denver, Colo. Earlier this summer and again in mid-August and last weekend, the station ran a series of independent documentary films labeled: "America: Freedom to Fascism," "9/11: Press for Truth," and "9/11: Blueprint for Truth." These films ran as part of a pledge drive by the station to raise funds. These are controversial films that feed conspiracy theories and theorists about the origins and results of the 9/11 attacks. The "Blueprint" film, for example, "offers evidence that all three World Trade Center high-rises were destroyed not by fire and damage, per the official story, but by explosive-controlled demolitions on September 11, 2001," according to the official blurb describing the film.

In other words, someone wired these buildings with explosives intending to bring them down in this attack, and this has been covered up by the government, the 9/11 Commission and the mainstream media. That's the message.

Now, America has no shortage of conspiracy-minded people. The Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, and 9/11, all have provoked lingering questions and suspicions and are fair game for many people, even those not inclined to always see conspiratorial forces at work, who believe there is more to these stories than has come out of official investigations. And KBDI, of course, has the right to air unpopular, alternative perspectives on such events. The station bills itself as "Denver's bold, diverse and independent PBS station." Its spokesmen say on the air that they are "taking risks," that viewers don't have to agree but they are "doing stories outside the mainstream media." And they say as they did, for example, in presenting the "Blueprint" film, they are the "first TV station in the nation to do this."

That is undoubtedly true and so far, as far as I can tell, this remains exclusive to KBDI among the 350 or so PBS member stations. I'm not going to review the films, but on a personal level I find the idea embedded in "Blueprint" of a government conspiracy to blow up those buildings to be preposterous and simply beyond belief and I fault the station for promoting this as part of a pledge drive and presenting it without an accompanying on-the-air program in which critics have their say.

PBS actually did make an early stab soon after the attacks at providing some preliminary assessments, explanations and perspective of "Why the Towers Fell" in a NOVA science program on April 30, 2002. That program included this observation from Matthys Levy, author of a book titled "Why Buildings Fall Down." He said at the time: "It was very much like a controlled demolition when you look at it, because the building essentially fell vertically down, as if someone had deliberately set a blast to take place to cause the building to fall vertically downward." Levy was making an observation, not offering "evidence," and there were many other observations presented by inspectors.

Where to Draw the Line?

The programs have not attracted much national media attention. Arts and entertainment columnist Joanne Ostrow, writing in The Denver Post on Aug. 21, said that KBDI "has a reputation for broadcasting bold, distinctive documentaries" but "just where to draw the line between bold/distinctive and kooky/irresponsible is a matter of opinion." Both the Denver Post article and another on Sept. 8 in Current, the trade newspaper for public television and radio, also noted that "staffing the phones last month were volunteers who adhered to the programs' assertions that the federal government intentionally allowed the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center in 2001 and has covered up the deed ever since," as Current put it.

Station officials quoted by Current said that viewer reaction has run about 4-to-1 in favor of airing the films and that the pledge drives in which they were used have been among the most successful.

As has been pointed out many times, all member stations are independent and can air what they choose, and only programs that bear the PBS logo at the beginning and end identify programming that was distributed and approved by PBS. Officials at PBS said the service had nothing to do with these films and that the station is under no obligation to inform PBS about what it plans to use during fund-raising pledge drives, according to Jan McNamara, director of corporate communications, and decisions about whether to have opposing views or who to use as volunteers are also local, she said.

Another PBS official added this: "KBDI has a long tradition of broadcasting (and sometimes pledging) controversial point of view programs. The fact that they ran them would probably not come as a surprise to many of their viewers. Think of them as more akin to a Pacifica station rather than a traditional PBS station. In markets where there is more than one PBS station they are always trying to differentiate themselves, and broadcasting POV (point of view) programs is one way that KBDI does it."

These films, of course, don't carry the PBS logo, but on the on-screen banner during the station's promotional segment, alongside the station's logo and the phone number, is the little PBS logo. And certainly some viewers associate this with PBS.

Still Seems Like PBS

Here's what one viewer from Alpine, Colo., wrote to me last week:

"I have a great respect for PBS and always listen to it when we are in our 2nd home back in Virginia. But I had occasion to listen to the KBDI station out of Denver CO tonight [Sept. 17] and was exposed to this nonsense about 9/11 essentially being a hoax.

"As a career army officer and Vietnam veteran I really do understand the tendency of my government to mould the truth to fit its political needs, but the garbage and pseudo science surrounding this particular PBS sponsored program does the entire PBS community a great disservice. It was presented during a station fund raiser which made it all the more incredible to me. The content was presented from one perspective and the local PBS commentators all but gushed over it as being the 'truth' incarnate. They looked out at us viewers with steely eyed sincerity and could have said our landing on the moon or the attack on Pearl Harbor was a government hoax and done it without blinking. Needless to say every conspiracy nut in the Nazi part of Colorado or in range of KBDI feels vindicated and the grassy knoll crowd and UFO buffs will be clamoring for air time. I have never heard such tripe from any PBS station and if you guys have any form of internal review for program content, you might want to give this one a real close examination. Shame on PBS for allowing these loonies to use the PBS moniker.

"I understand and admire PBS stations that are willing to air controversy. That is a good thing! There have been many programs you guys have aired that have had a major influence on helping me form opinions, but normally the more controversial shows provided explanatory comments or hopefully opposite viewpoints, all in the same show however so the listeners could decide for themselves. The folks who run KBDI are a bit 'off the reservation' it would seem to me."

Tavis Smiley Makes a Withdrawal from Wells Fargo

The second episode involved Tavis Smiley, who is a big star on PBS but who also is a force on many other platforms. He owns the popular weeknight "Tavis Smiley" talk show he hosts on PBS, raises the money for it and has many other independent involvements. One of those outside interests came back to bite him earlier this month yet it seemed natural that his prominence on PBS is what probably most defines him to the public.

The headline above the online story on Sept. 17 by The Washington Independent said: "Suit Alleges Trusted Blacks Drew Minorities to High-Rate Loans." The story by reporter Mary Kane began: "As the housing market began booming in the mid-2000s, Wells Fargo & Co. teamed up with prominent African American commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley and financial author Kelvin Boston, the host of 'Moneywise,' a multicultural financial affairs show, to host something called 'Wealth Building' seminars in black neighborhoods."

Smiley was the keynote speaker and the big draw, Kane reported, with standing room only crowds in several cities. "But," she wrote, "what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth was actually just the opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of the 'Wealth Building' seminar strategy, contained in a lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

"Wells' plan for the seminars all along was to target black borrowers for higher-cost subprime mortgages, not for wealth-building, the suit charged. And," Kane reported, "the seminars were a part of the bank's overall illegal and discriminatory practice of steering black and Hispanic borrowers into riskier and more expensive loans, the suit said."

This is still just a lawsuit and nothing is proven but Smiley quickly announced, according to blogger Richard Prince, that he had cut all ties to Wells Fargo & Co. until the case is resolved. The bank had sponsored Smiley's radio show on Public Radio International and was an underwriter for the annual "State of the Black Union" conference that Smiley presides over and is telecast by C-SPAN. Smiley had issued a statement that said, in part: "In this economic climate we continue to be reminded every day that there is no perfect company. Part of the process of accountability is making sure that companies are taking steps to do the right thing, and that includes appropriate outreach to communities of color."

The Washington Independent also quoted Boston, host of the "Moneywise" series on American Public Television: "Basically we were just speakers for hire. We didn't have any role or any control over what else happened. The main point is that we were not involved in any of their discussions or in anything they sold."

Chevron: A Conflict for PBS?

This next brief segment I felt fit into the earlier discussion that touched on free speech and the Denver station's decision to broadcast very controversial films.

Every once in a while I get a letter from a viewer objecting to the fact that one company or another is advertised as a sponsor of a program. I'd say the company most often mentioned is Chevron, the big oil conglomerate that is among the sponsors of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Here's one that arrived this week from a viewer in Lancaster, Calif.:

"I love and trust the NewsHour. I feel it is one of the few media outlets that is not corrupt. However, I am worried about the fact that Chevron is a sponsor. How can PBS have so much programming about global warming and saving the environment, and then have Chevron as a sponsor? Is it not a conflict of interest? How can PBS let its name and goodwill be used by Chevron? How long will it take be before PBS bends to the pressure and influence large corporations like Chevron, if it has not done so already? Where are the principles?"

When I asked PBS officials about this they made several points.

PBS guidelines, Cathy Hogan, senior director of program underwriting policy, explained, "permit producers to accept funding from a wide variety of companies, with very few exceptions (liquor, tobacco products, and firearms). While we review credits for their compliance with FCC and PBS noncommercial standards, we do not discriminate on the basis of any particular business or industry category."

She added: "Public television is made possible by a remarkable public-private partnership involving individuals, businesses, state and federal governments, foundation and educational institutions. PBS policies are intended to preserve the highest standards for editorial integrity. For example, underwriters are never permitted editorial control over content." And, she pointed out, that "as one of the current underwriters of The NewsHour, Chevron has helped make important news coverage possible."

I'm not a fan of the oil companies either, but I would add a simple free speech, First Amendment factor to PBS's policies. Chevron is a legitimate company with millions of consumers who need and use its products and it has a right to advertise — a form of free speech — and PBS, it seems to me, doesn't have grounds to reject it or limit that form of speech.

On the other hand, the answers I got from PBS on this issue struck me as falling short of the stricter standards for advertising or sponsorship that are rather common in newspapers, for example, where ads can be rejected if they advocate actions that are illegal or incite violence, or if they are demonstrably false or in bad taste.

(Ombudsman's Note: PBS station officials said later that these kinds of conditions are implicit.)*

Old, but Expanding, Business

Finally, on Aug. 12, I reported in a mailbag that more than 50 postcards from around the country had been received objecting to a program that aired on July 14 as part of the POV (Point Of View) series. The program was called "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court." The postcards all had the identical message and were supplied by an organization known as Accuracy in Media, along with instructions to write to me. They claimed that the film was biased and sympathetic to the Court. I didn't see it quite that way, but I do want to report that we have now received more than 500 of those postcards.

*This column was updated on Sept. 25, 2009 at 12:03 p.m.

If you want a sure-fire, hot-button, journalistic double-header guaranteed to generate controversy you can't do any better than Israel vs. Hamas followed by the role of race in American public life. So it is not surprising that it generated responses from viewers. A sampling of the letters is posted below.

Much of it is critical of Ifill, but as I watched both episodes I thought her questioning was what made both of these segments more informative than they otherwise might have been. These are both very tough and touchy subjects and her questioning struck me as alert, smart and challenging, playing quickly off what the guests were saying and asking the questions that the average NewsHour viewer would have wanted to be asked.

But the format of the segment on the U.N. Human Rights Council investigation and report about the Israeli assault into Gaza also raised questions in my mind as well as some of those who wrote to complain.

The first guest was Justice Richard Goldstone, a respected South African judge who is widely known internationally and who headed the U.N. investigation. He was interviewed by Ifill from the U.N. earlier in the evening. The other guest, interviewed in the studio, was the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, who blasted the report and the Council, as have officials in Israel who have said the Council is biased and questioned the panel's legitimacy to undertake such a mission. Israel had declined from the start to cooperate with the investigation.

Why Invite the Ambassador?

So, if Israel had refused to take part in the U.N. mission, why invite the Israeli ambassador on the program to criticize the panel's findings? When I asked NewsHour Senior Producer Mike Mosettig that question, he said: "More than three-fourths of the report was devoted to criticism of Israel. We offered them a chance to reply, which they decided to do after some cogitating on the matter."

Ideally, it might have been better if Goldstone had been able to appear for another minute or two to challenge the ambassador's views, or if reporters who had covered the fighting and its aftermath had been guests to assess the U.N. report. So what actually unfolded was Ifill questioning Goldstone about the harsh criticism of Israel in the report and whether fair conclusions could be reached without Israeli cooperation, and the Israeli ambassador getting a chance to voice strong Israeli condemnations of Goldstone's mission and report.

On the other hand, Ifill also pointed out to the ambassador that some Israelis had actually flown to Geneva to give their testimony to the U.N. group and introduced the segment with the very tough language of the report which, she said, "concludes that Israeli [forces] deliberately targeted civilians by launching military operations against homes, factories, schools and hospitals in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force. The 574-page report focuses primarily on what it calls grave breaches by Israeli forces, including willful killing, torture, or inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction of property."

So, you could argue that the guest list might have been better structured if there was time to do so. But I thought this wound up being a pretty good representation of the report's findings, the Israeli reaction and the questions surrounding both aspects, and that there was enough there for viewers to get a better feel for this highly contentious issue than they might otherwise have.

Here are some of the letters, as well as some about the segment on race.

BTW, He's Jewish

Gwen Ifill conducted an interview with UN Judge Richard Goldstone (who, BTW, is Jewish), who in fact has been representing the World's people in investigating what went on in Gaza early this year for the UN Human Rights Commission. But then, I was astounded to see that PBS had the totally unjournalistic gall of following that with an interview of the Israeli Ambassador to the US, who of course dissed the forthcoming report, a report for which Israel was invited to contribute but for which it refused to provide data.

In other words, Israel was given the opportunity to oppose the (somewhat mild) conclusions of the report by PBS, unbalanced by any other views. Not only that, but, for the casual and momentary viewer, Amb. Michael Oren appeared to be a regular commentator, as, during this lengthy interview, his name and position (Ambassador only, could have been to the US or to the UN) were only put up onscreen three times (at the beginning, and twice more), remaining visible from between 2 to 10 seconds each time.

Carlos A. Coimbra

Shame on Gwen Ifill for conducting a set of interviews on the UN report on Gaza that basically gave a platform to Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's effort to delegitimize it. She first interviewed Justice Richard Goldstone, the report's author, and repeatedly challenged the fairness of the report rather than focusing on the allegations of war crimes. She interviewed Oren second, who did the Israeli government spin job, and the soft-spoken Goldstone was never given a chance to rebut. The effect of this was to forward the Israeli governments' talking points and undermine the legitimacy of Goldstone's investigation. And why was no Palestinian interviewed?

Nina Tannenwald, Providence, RI

The segment on 9/15 on the UN report on Gaza could just as well have been produced by AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] for all the objectivity it demonstrated. Very strange to see this from Gwen Ifill who is one of your best correspondents. Just in case anyone missed the point that the UN report was complete rubbish, the Israeli Ambassador was brought on to reinforce it. Where is the balance you tout? Contrast this discussion of the UN report with the segment presented the following night on whether racism plays a role in criticism of Obama and specific incidents like Congressman Wilson calling the President a liar. The segment was informative, balanced, and nuanced. Why is it OK to have a frank discussion of black and white relations in this country, but not about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? I feel this is a legitimate question, but the Israeli lobby has been so effective at stifling questioning of Israeli policy or actions (let alone criticism) that I am afraid to have you post this with my name for fear of being labeled as anti-Semitic.

Richmond, VA

I was very disappointed in the NewHour's report on the study about Israel and Gaza strip. Gwen Ifill's questions to the UN's respected chair of the study were not objective, and letting the Israeli ambassador make a false case and hand out more propaganda was too much. I turned off the NewsHour. Hope you do more than cater to the Israel lobby groups.

Salem, OR

Shame on PBS and shame on Gwen Ifill for allowing Israel a free platform to discredit the UN report on Israeli war crimes against Gaza. Thousands of defenseless Gazans were killed, yet PBS failed to give them a voice. When will the US media ever hold Israel responsible?

Glen Ellyn, IL

About Those 'Teabaggers'

Do you care to comment about Gwen Ifill's use of the word 'teabaggers' to describe some of president Obama's critics on a segment discussing racism charges on the 9/16/09 NewsHour program. You are aware of what that means?

Since racism charges were directed at President [Bill] and Hillary Clinton during the campaign, as well as media questions such as Time magazine's questioning whether Obama was black enough, fixing a narrow focus on this type of charge seems short sighted. Was it also necessary for a black host to have a panel of comprised of three other blacks and one white? Does the NewsHour have a diversity problem?

Robert Holmgren, Menlo Park, CA

(Ombudsman's Note: Ifill says, "Turns out I am the only person with access to email who never knew this was a term with a sexual meaning. I used it in an offhand manner as a shorthand referring to the 'tea party' movement. It was a slip I was unaware of, and I regret it." I would add that I didn't know that either.)

I was deeply offended by Gwen Ifill's segment on racism and in the current political scene. I do not think that was the title of the segment but that was the message of the segment. These are the areas in PBS stated Guiding Principles which I felt where breached.

Accuracy, The guest and Ms Ifill were all guessing and superimposing their beliefs about and onto the actions of those whom they were speaking of (the tea party members and other unnamed but-implied-to-be out-there voters). There were no tea party members invited as guests, although their reputation and intention was the main topic and was being misconstrued which leads to the lack of fairness.

Add to that there were three guests and Ms Ifill who held the view that racism was a definite part of the tea party members' belief system, actions and intentions. There was only one guest who was (I guess appointed) to voice the side of the tea party members (although he was not a tea party member) He was decent enough to state that the tea party people and other who where being labeled as 'secretly racist in their motivated', should be taken at their word and that reporters should not tilt their coverage (and guest) to express their predetermined agenda. This of course goes to the unbalanced nature of the selection of guest.

Kennewick, WA

Having been a subscriber since Watergate, I am sorry to say that I can no longer support your system. What with the ties to NPR, Gwen I. calling people teabaggers on the NewsHour, this does not seem like a balanced news hour.

Kirkland, WA

And About That Boehner Interview

I am writing to object to Jeffrey Brown's interview with Congressman Boehner on tonight's (Sept. 17) NewsHour. It was amateurish in that he allowed the Congressman to simply rely on talking points without requiring him to be specific. The subject was health care reform and when the question of what the Republican proposal is, the congressman was allowed to simply refer to a website without being drawn out on specifics.

Boehner did cite two suggestions that were of minimal potential effect on costs and was not pressed about how the major problem (costs) would be addressed. In the past I have enjoyed Jeffrey's interviews on the show but, in this instance, I am very disappointed in that it was an opportunity to put the Republican position (heretofore unarticulated) before the public and Jeffrey simply blew the opportunity.

John Daniels, Wilmette, IL

We watched the interview with John Boehner this evening. He said two things that were accepted without question. First: We have the best health system in the world. Second: The Obama administration is spending us into great debt. On the first statement, by many measures, we rank well below the rest of the Western World in our health care. On the second statement, the Bush tax cuts are responsible for a great bit of our deficit. Those cuts were made by a Republican Congress and President. Why were these statements not challenged? Does the NewsHour not challenge such statements from the House Republican leader for some reason not shared with the audience?

John Elsbree, Bethesda, MD

It has had an extraordinary run — 26 years and hundreds of awards, including more than two dozen Emmys. It ranked only behind the icons of "Sesame Street" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" in the pantheon of PBS's longest-running children's programs, and was widely recognized as the top reading program and was used in classrooms nationwide. The program was not meant to teach youngsters how to read but rather why they should read. It was meant to ignite enthusiasm and excitement, a love of books and stories by youngsters who already knew how to read. The program was produced and originated from WNED-TV in Buffalo, N.Y., and was hosted and guided by Emmy-award winning actor LeVar Burton.

Yet, despite its recognition and longevity, the program fell on hard times in recent years, a victim, for sure, of funding problems but maybe also of changing directions in such programming as emphasis from government, in particular, has switched ever more toward teaching children the basic mechanics of reading, which can be tested and measured. And, it may also simply have run out of gas with young viewers after an extraordinarily long run.

In one sense, the program went quietly. No new episodes of the program had been produced for the past three years (only repeats of earlier shows have been aired) and, perhaps not surprisingly, viewership "has declined dramatically," say PBS officials, far below even the average rating for kids' shows generally and many times lower than top PBS children's shows now such as "Curious George" and "Super Why!"

Recent "carriage" reports, according to PBS, that measure how many member stations carry specific programs and at what time indicate viewership for "Rainbow" at only about one-third of the core weekday series of kids' programs on PBS.

There has not been any PBS-related funding of the program since April 2006, when Educate Inc., a Baltimore-based educational services company, bought into the production rights for the program and reportedly committed to funding 52 new episodes, according to a report in the Atlanta Business Chronicle and another in The Buffalo News. But the funding for those new episodes never came together, according to John Grant, chief content officer for WNED, and what funding was available was used to keep the series alive through repeats of earlier shows, a process that also costs money.

Grant also pointed out that the program won't die completely and that it will live on in various non-broadcast Web and video formats, although the "Reading Rainbow" Web site on pbskids.org will end in December.

But in Another Sense . . .

The demise of "Reading Rainbow" has not been quietly received, however, by about 80 or so viewers who wrote to PBS headquarters or Viewer Services or to me to protest the end of the series and to urge for it to be supported. Some of the letters to me are printed below, as is the official response that PBS's Viewer Services is sending to the e-mailers.

The end of a long-running program is not a usual topic for an ombudsman. It doesn't deal with the editorial standards of a specific broadcast that I usually get involved with, and it does deal with internal business and funding decisions that I normally would not get involved with. Yet the letters to me on this subject seemed so much to reflect this sense of loss that I felt they were worth recording in this space. You can question how much of this is from people who still watch the program, or if it contains at least a bit of nostalgia for a well-remembered program. But it still seems sincere and important as I read it.

Officials at headquarters here say they understand this allegiance but, in response to some of the criticism, they say that PBS did step up to the plate for two decades of support for this program, that 26 years is many times longer than what is generally perceived as a hit show on television, and that many of the newer children's programs are about words and literacy meant to make reading interesting and exciting.

Nevertheless, new grant projects to PBS such as the U.S. Department of Education's Ready to Learn Literacy Framework, based on the recommendations of the National Reading Panel, focus heavily on pre-reading and reading language and word skills that are measurable, and many PBS children's programs focus, at least in part, on all the sub-categories of measurement. This is undoubtedly important and augments what one is supposed to learn in school. But who will get kids hooked on the sheer joy of discovering and reading a great story?

Here Are the Letters

I am writing to say that ending the production of Reading Rainbow is a crime against literacy. During my 31-year career as an elementary classroom teacher, I taught hundreds of children to read. Learning the nuts and bolts of phonics and skills happens appropriately and efficiently in classroom instruction. What is often more difficult is helping children 1) to develop background knowledge of themselves and the world around them necessary for understanding what they read, and 2) to develop a love of reading so that they will practice sufficiently to become highly skilled. Reading Rainbow helped with both of these. To replace it with skill and drill on the screen is to sell a birthright for a mess of pottage. Shame on PBS.

Wendy Swanson, Portland, OR

As a librarian for 35 years, I know how influential READING RAINBOW was on children!

Beverly Ellingwood, Webster, NY

After 26 years of superlative programming, as attested to by its winning more than two-dozen Emmys, news of the cancellation of "Reading Rainbow" came as a complete surprise and is truly a tragedy for those of us who have enjoyed this program for so many years. As an educator, I know that the program has provided both students and teachers with a source of inspiration about reading, as well as a means of modeling the behavior of effective readers and critical thinkers.

If the NCLB [No Child Left Behind] agenda of reducing reading to sounding out phonemes (e.g., DISTAR, DIBELs, and skilling and drilling) continues to reign, without a doubt our dream of becoming a "Nation of Readers" will most likely become one more of the unreachable "Dreams" that Langston Hughes so aptly described many years ago. I implore PBS and the foundations that have funded "Reading Rainbow" over the years in its very successful trajectory to reconsider their decision, and to renew the program for the sake of the children and adults who have benefited from it.

Mattituck, NY

I am absolutely shocked and very saddened at the decision to take Reading Rainbow off the air. As a teacher, I recognize the importance of programming designed to engage children in reading rather than in "drill and kill" (it kills the students' love of learning and love of school) isolated phonics and spelling. Programs such as Super Why? which actually engage students in a meaningful story as well as in embedded phonics activities are great, and programs like Reading Rainbow only further this learning and serve to help our children understand why they should read as well as expose them to peers who love to read. If we are only concerned with programming that drills skills into our children, we will have a nation of students well versed in phonics skills who have been taught by scripted curriculums and who loathe reading. They may not even understand why they should read and they certainly will not want to read for pleasure. I am appalled at this decision and call for PBS to reinstate Reading Rainbow as a developmentally appropriate program that peaked students' interest in and love for reading.

Holly J. Matthews, Nashville, TN

I am writing to implore you to keep Reading Rainbow in your programming and in production. It's one of your best shows for children. I am an artist, teacher, and mother of an avid reader. Reading Rainbow books have inspired us at home and in the classroom. The love of reading and the love of stories is what this show is all about. Without the passion for a good story, we'll never entice children to learn to read. It's this connection — to place, to story, and to the incredibly talented authors and illustrators who create the books — that makes Reading Rainbow a unique and special public broadcast offering. Please tell us you've changed your mind. I can still recall favorite episodes such as Ox Cart Man. Hearing the children give book reviews is yet another aspect of this show that is unique and powerful. Articulate children expressing enthusiastic reviews for books is something largely absent from media. Please save Reading Rainbow, one of the great treasures of children's broadcasting. I look forward to hearing from you on this issue.

Robin E. Brooks, Augusta, ME

'Enough Phonics'

I believe you are wrong to take Reading Rainbow off the air. It has inspired children to read for years. They get enough phonics in school and you are ignoring an essential part of reading . . . motivation. Teaching children to love books was a big part of what Reading Rainbow was all about. This is another sign that children's programming has gone downhill on PBS. In one word . . . boring!!!

Nancy Bailey, Collierville, TN

As Ombudsman I felt you might be the one to hear my comment. I am sadly disappointed in PBS for canceling Reading Rainbow. It appears that the educators on your staff were hoodwinked into believing that the NCLB Act under the Bush Administration is supportive of our children. This act was written based on data from Texas when Bush was governor. Talk to the teachers there. I have. The data was false and erroneous and did not improve their schools or drop out rates. There has been a push for early literacy, let's teach two-year-olds how to spell. What happened to play time? Kids are marked from their pre-K screening test now if they don't know how to spell their names or read when entering Kindergarten. We're creating kids with extreme anxiety before first grade! Reading Rainbow was created to give children a love of books so when their time comes to enter school, they have been exposed to the wonderful world of literature and be eager to learn. It was never intended to "teach" children how to read. That is the job of our educators, not a TV program or even a reading program. People teach. Programs are tools.

By canceling RR you will now create a generation of children who have never been exposed to books at all. Parents who don't read to their kids, impoverished parents who don't have time in between their three jobs count on programs such as RR to expose their children to literature and begin that love of learning. My own brother-in-law sat and watched it with his son daily because he was embarrassed by his own reading skills and knew how important it was to expose my nephew to books. Sesame Street helps kids learn how to read — it did me; I walked into Kindergarten already reading because of that program. Reading Rainbow filled a whole different set of needs. I work with fifth graders who have never heard nursery rhymes. I wonder how long it will take before Kindergarten teachers are saying they are shocked that a child has never seen a book or has been read to.

I wish that PBS, of all stations, recognized the importance of children just sitting down and listening to a story being read to them to develop imagination, listening skills and a love of learning. The program didn't require prior knowledge. You didn't have to watch the day before. You don't have to interact. You just sit and enjoy a book. Everyone loves to be read to no matter what age. Even my seniors love it. And if it never happens for a student, they won't know what they're missing but there will be a huge hole in their lives!

Shannon Murdoch, Lynnwood, WA

I am saddened to hear Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton is being cancelled after today. Teaching the love of reading is as important as teaching the building blocks of reading, such as phonics, etc. I hope PBS can find it in their budget to continue this very beneficial and educational program. My children are now grown, but loved this program when they were young.

Carolyn Solomon, Haslett, MI

Here's the PBS Response

PBS and member station WNED, the producer of READING RAINBOW, have been contacted by individuals inquiring about returning the series to our schedule. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to do this.

Production ended on READING RAINBOW several years ago, viewership for the show had declined dramatically and now broadcast rights have expired. Off-air educational rights for the series are still currently available for the classroom and remain in effect for a year following the last broadcast of each episode.

Nationally-recognized stories authored by children for the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest will be available online until December 2009, at which point the READING RAINBOW Web site on pbskids.org will end. PBS and WNED are discussing plans to continue the contest on a national level as well as plans to build a literacy Web site for school age children.

PBS KIDS continues to be committed to leveraging the power of media to further children's development cognitively, socially, emotionally and physically. As a non-profit media enterprise, our limited financial resources are focused on new and current productions that promote literacy education as well as math, science, the arts and overall healthy living. Series such as SUPER WHY!, WORDGIRL, MARTHA SPEAKS, the all-new THE ELECTRIC COMPANY and others encourage a love of reading and books and help guide children through literacy skill development.

(Ombudsman's Note: An earlier response to viewers also included these paragraphs.)

Through new series and websites created in alignment with the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Education's National Reading Panel of 2000's research assessment on reading instruction, several PBS KIDS series are dedicated to fulfilling these research-based reading practices, including SUPER WHY! and the all-new THE ELECTRIC COMPANY, among many others.

In addition, two recent studies funded by the Department of Education on SUPER WHY! proved that children, especially those from low-income families, are learning core early literacy skills from the TV series and its educational support materials.  For more information about PBS literacy programs, please visit PBSKids.org, PBSParents.org and PBSTeachers.org for new and updated resources.

The headline on this column is from an answer I got from Linda Winslow, the executive producer of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. In the mailbag this week, not surprisingly, were a number of e-mails from viewers who were upset over some of the statements and questioning on a segment of The NewsHour on Aug. 13 that dealt with the heated debate over health care reform and that featured former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey as one of the guests.

Moderator Judy Woodruff pointed out at the start that Armey was also the leader of FreedomWorks, a conservative group that has rallied protestors at health care town hall meetings. The other guest was Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager of the liberal advocacy group Health Care for America Now.

I sent a couple of those viewer e-mails to Winslow seeking a response. Those e-mails, some of which are printed below, focused especially on two things that Armey said: "If you're over 65 years old in America today, you have no choice but to be in Medicare. Even if you want out of Medicare, you have to forfeit your Social Security to get out of it . . . That's pretty heavy-handed, and people fear that."

Those who wrote said Armey was not speaking the truth, and frankly I thought it sounded strange as well and so I sent them along to Winslow seeking a response. Because The NewsHour presents a full hour of news five nights a week it, naturally, provokes a lot of commentary from viewers. In my experience, Winslow has always been a solid responder — candid and tough-minded. But this time she sent only a terse note, along with a link to the transcript that readers can check:

"Here's the transcript of last night's discussion. Seems to me the guests were asked to rebut one another. Judy was the moderator, not the judge. Check out http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec09/health_08-13.html."

Woodruff did, indeed, turn to her other guest and ask, "What about this charge?" But Kirsch responded in a way that didn't answer those specific assertions raised by Armey and the discussion moved on to other points. So Armey's points about Medicare and Social Security benefits were left hanging out there, viewers wrote to challenge them and The NewsHour wasn't going to clear the air. Armey made much the same charge on NBC's Meet the Press program last Sunday and it also went largely unchallenged.

Was He Right? How Do We Find Out?

There are two issues here for me: One is the accuracy of what Armey said. The other is the question of whether moderators, if not serving as judges, need to at least challenge guests more forcefully, especially on subjects such as health care where the degree of falsehoods and fear-mongering has reached very high levels, so that the viewer has a better chance of getting at least close to the truth.

On this point, the focus here is not on Woodruff, personally, who did seek to get a rebuttal or challenge on these points. Rather it is on the broader need for journalists to question and challenge points that they know, or suspect, to be factually wrong.

The NewsHour, for example, did a good job on Aug. 10 in dealing with Medicare misinformation, including what former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin described as Obama's "death panels." The points Armey was raising and that were focused on by viewers in the e-mails below are harder to challenge off the top of one's head unless you are an expert in the arcana of Social Security and Medicare. Nevertheless, The NewsHour occupies a unique spot on the TV dial for many people in that one can get a nightly, extended, courteous, in-depth report and discussion of the issues. But when it falls short on tough questioning — not behaving like a judge issuing a verdict but asking pointed questions that illuminate a fuller or more complex picture for the public — then viewers are going to be disappointed and, in many cases, angry, and rightly so.

As for Armey's assertions, from what I can gather he is both wrong — you can choose not to be in Medicare and you can get out without penalty under certain conditions — and right about losing Social Security benefits if you've signed up for them. These are actually very complicated issues and precise answers depend upon specific circumstances of each individual. When I asked the Social Security Administration's press office about Armey's statements, they explained that:

"Medicare is a voluntary program. Medicare Part A helps pay for in-patient care in a hospital or skilled nursing facility following a hospital stay and is free for most people age 65 or older who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States. If you sign up for Medicare Part A but do not sign up for Social Security monthly benefits, then you can withdraw from Medicare Part A at a later time if you choose. However, if you sign up for Social Security monthly benefits and also sign up for Medicare Part A, you cannot then withdraw from Medicare Part A without losing your Social Security benefits. To withdraw from Medicare Part A, a beneficiary must submit a written request for withdrawal and must refund any Medicare Part A benefits paid on his or her behalf."

Here are the letters.

Challenging Armey

On Aug. 13, Dick Armey and Richard Kirsch were discussing Health Care. Armey made statements that were incorrect, and as a former congressman, knew it. The most obvious was that seniors have no choice except traditional Medicare for health insurance. Seniors can choose an HMO (private insurance) and have the premium paid by the government. In fact, this costs the government about 13% more per individual than the government spends on traditional Medicare coverage. Either Kirsch or the moderator should have corrected this false statement! Maybe a correction should be broadcast on the NewsHour.

Martin Raphael, East Hills, NY

On 8/13/09, Judy Woodruff was interviewing Dick Armey. Mr. Armey stated "that you cannot decline to have Medicare, and have other health insurance." That is not a true statement. He also stated that if you do not take Medicare, you will lose your Social Security. That is also not true. Ms. Woodruff allowed Mr. Armey to lie about these very important facts concerning the subject of health care.

Mary Ahrendt

Re: 8/13/09 newscast; Judy Woodruff. Once again I feel very frustrated by the misinformation & outright dishonesty of individuals interviewed on the newscast. In this case it was Dick Armey re: proposed health care legislation. Case in point: he states he had no choice when he turned 65 but to sign up for Medicare. That simply is not true. When I turned 65 I had private health insurance. No one told me that I "had" to sign up for Medicare when I signed up for Social Security, I was told it would be a good idea. I did so by choice while I retained my private health care. Shortly after signing up I had major surgery resulting in a $60,000 bill. My private insurance paid the bulk of the bill & Medicare paid as a supplemental insurance. I had no deductible to pay & in fact I did not have to pay anything out of pocket. Mr. Armey seems to be very enthusiastic to distort, lie, or whatever to scare people re: a new health care plan. This and other distortions from individuals such as Mr. Armey without any attempt to point out these distortions by PBS is (for me) very distressful and does make me question the accuracy of other reports given by PBS. I understand that individuals that appear on the program have a right to their own opinion but that does not give them the right to lie and certainly does not give PBS carte blanche to accept everything they say as factually correct. I believe PBS does have a responsibility to fact check what is said on air and make corrections on air as is appropriate.

Phyllis Koch, Portland, OR

Former [Rep.] Dick Armey was with Judy Woodruff on Health Care debate representing Insurance Co, Why did she not ask him about his insurance? Does he not retain his wonderful benefits as a former senator or did he give them up for the wonderful insurance freedom he seems to support? She missed a real opportunity in my estimation.

Joseph Carlomagno, McLean, VA

How dare the NewsHour interview that anti-American Dick Armey who is behind the Screaming Thugs in the Town Hall Meetings. He is the bought and paid for prostitute for the Filthy Rich Private FOR PROFIT Insurance Companies which have taken America's good health care to the same level as Slovenia and Cuba, all due to the Republicans — in fact Richard Nixon. He has used their huge amounts of lobbying money to organize, pass around outright lies, fear and what amounts to paid thugs to derail the democratic process. You should better spend time investigating how Dick Armey has disrupted the democratic process, who pays him and HOW MUCH, and what he has personally done to spread lies for his masters.

John Bowen, Edmond, OK

In More Ways Than One

Today [Aug. 14], Richard Armey announced his resignation from the Washington, DC, law firm DLA Piper, citing as the reason the negative reaction to his association with FreedomWorks, the conservative activist group that is involved in orchestrating protests against health care reform being considered by the Obama administration and Congress.

Armey's resignation immediately reminded us of the Lehrer NewsHour interview that Judy Woodruff conducted with Armey and another guest last evening, August 13, about the health-care reform debate. During the interview we were appalled at the soft-ball questions that Woodruff lobbed at Armey. Although she mentioned his role with FreedomWorks, at no point did she press him about the orchestrated "astroturf" campaign being sponsored by Freedom Works and other groups, which are disseminating misinformation about "death panels," the "socialist" takeover of our government, and universal health care as the first step toward a "Nazi regime" in this country.

Woodruff mentioned none of these facts, even though FreedomWorks' involvement has been reported for weeks. We've known about it, as have millions of other Americans, and now Armey finally has to leave a reputable law firm because of the taint of FreedomWorks. Yet not so much as a peep was heard from Judy Woodruff, who is right there in Washington!

Jon and Peggy Saari, Yellow Springs, OH

Last night [Aug. 11] on the NewsHour, during the discussion on health care reform, Cynthia Tucker referred to the fact that many of the people criticizing health care reform appear to be folks who are on Medicare, a public health care program for seniors 65 or older who are Social Security eligible. As if on cue (I expected it), the gentleman from the Detroit Free Press referred to this as a failed public/government health care program. I would like the NewsHour to set the record straight on this issue. Is Medicare a failed program? Or just one with problems — flawed funding stream, a caseload consisting of that part of the population with the greatest healthcare demand — the elderly?

When I hear the health care reform discussion, I get livid at what I hear. Senator Grassley is against the public option because, to hear him say it, that would be the preferred choice of people, this would crowd-out private insurance, and we would wind-up with a system like the Canadian one. Does he listen to himself? Does anybody listen and see the flaw in this argument — "everybody will prefer the public option, even though it's not a good option". Gimme a break.

Joseph Costa, Baltimore, MD

A Good Closing Point

This letter refers to a viewer comment published in last week's Ombudsman's Mailbag and an Ombudsman's Note that I had appended to it.

A letter to you concerning Judy Woodruff's interview [Aug. 5] with Sen. Grassley on Healthcare complaining that Ms. Woodruff did not challenge Sen. Grassley's inaccurate and misleading comments drew the following quote from you, as somewhat of a defense for Ms. Woodruff:

(Ombudsman's Note: Judy Woodruff introduced her interview with Sen. Grassley with the following important point: "Since in the past two weeks, we've heard both the president and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, make the case here on the NewsHour for reform from the Democrats' point of view, tonight we get the views of the senior Republican sitting in those sessions, Charles Grassley of Iowa.")

There thus arises an important question on the role of an interviewer on public television; to wit, is this role only to allow interviewees a platform to state whatever they want to state, regardless of the truth or validity or accuracy of their statements? My own opinion is no, but rather, the interviewer must make an effort to ensure that the truth/untruth of statements be measured or acknowledged in some way. Especially statements involving gross errors, as in the case of Sen. Grassley. For this, the interviewer must know her stuff. Anything less is a reflection of incompetence as an interviewer, and an act of collusion to people spreading deceitful propaganda.

Tom Tonon, Princeton Junction, NJ

(New Ombudsman's Note: Mr. Tonon raises a point with which I agree. The reason I put that note under that particular letter last week was only because one of the things the viewer said was, "On topics as important as healthcare reform it is crucial that time be allotted for opposing views to be presented.")

First come some follow-ups to the July 29 column that dealt with reactions to a Bill Moyers Journal segment on some of the extreme rhetoric on the nation's airwaves, especially from some right-wing commentators.

Then there is a cluster of e-mail from viewers objecting to a role reportedly played by the host of PBS's popular Charlie Rose Show in getting top executives of General Electric (the parent company of MSNBC) and News Corporation (the parent of the Fox News Channel) to help bring an end to the long-running, fever-pitched, on-air feud between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. This struck me as a strange story. The New York Times broke this story on Aug. 1 and put it on the front page.

The newspaper reported, prominently and near the top of the story, that "it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to help bring it to at least a temporary end. At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in mid-May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud." That's all the story says about Rose. There are no details to suggest he did anything other than ask about the feud. Asking a question is one thing. Intervening in a dispute that seeks to limit what people say on television is another. The viewers who wrote assume, perhaps properly, it is the latter and they are angry about it. That is indeed what the story seemed to suggest but there is no evidence of that presented.

The national debate — if that what you want to call it — over health care is angry and confusing and so it is not surprising that efforts to cover it in the calm and reasonable fashion of the nightly NewsHour with Jim Lehrer will not please viewers on all sides of this. A group of e-mail below attests to this.

Back to the Future: A Postcard Campaign

There was also a quaint, old-fashioned touch to last week's mail. I got more than 50 postcards from around the country objecting to the airing on July 14 on PBS's POV, or point of view, documentary series, of a program titled "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court." Although it was nice to receive something other than e-mail for a change, all these postcards said exactly the same thing and were supplied by an organization known as Accuracy in Media, a conservative organization that, in this case, felt the program had a definite bias in support of the International Criminal Court, and that PBS should air a film opposed to the ICC. More than 100 countries are members of the court but the U.S., China and Russia, among others, have not joined.

Here's what the postcards said:

"Dear Mr. Getler: PBS on July 14 aired a 'Point of View' program, 'Reckoning,' about the need for an International Criminal Court (ICC). We understand that this film was designed to be biased. However, PBS should air a film that will make the case AGAINST the ICC. As you know, critics of the ICC say that its application to American citizens would violate the U.S. Constitution because it would not respect the right to trial by jury of one's peers and could eliminate the right to face one's accuser. Plus, foreign judges could imprison Americans in foreign jails. On such a controversial issue of public importance, PBS should present both sides."

I asked POV Executive Director Simon Kilmurry about this and he replied:

"While the ICC and the court's first Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo are the film's primary subjects, there is also significant air time given to opponents of the court such as former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. In addition, the POV website provides many other resources including an extended interview with Ambassador Bolton, and a wide range of opinions regarding the ICC, its mission and its effectiveness. The information in the film and on the website accurately clarifies much of the misinformation about the ICC including many of the claims that are made in the postcard mailings you have been receiving . . . Should other filmmakers wish to produce films that present a different point-of-view, then we shall be happy to consider them on their own merits as we do with all film submissions."

This, in my view, is a long and slow-moving film that nevertheless documents an array of slow-moving horrors that have afflicted many regions of the world, especially Africa, in recent years and some of which continue. It is sympathetic to the role of the ICC but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that considering that it is the only organization seeking to bring justice to those committing crimes against humanity who are allowed to act with impunity and escape punishment.

There are legitimate legal issues to be debated about preserving national sovereignty over citizens, and the film includes the U.S. case against membership as outlined by former Ambassador Bolton. Should the U.S. ever move to join, there is no question that this will produce massive amounts of coverage and much more debate. In the meanwhile, this seemed to me to be an informative film that focused overwhelmingly on the human tragedy and was well worth presenting.

And this being pledge season, there are continuing complaints from some viewers about some of the programs used by stations to attract contributions from viewers like you, plus complaints and comments about other matters.

Here are the letters.

More on Moyers

The response to Bill Moyers' last program is simply unbelievable. People who support conservative right-wing radio personalities who attack autistic children ought to be ashamed of themselves, yet I know they aren't. I am not a religious person, but the pastor in Knoxville Tennessee who had his church violated by a crazed gunman out to kill liberals made so much sense that I admire his candidness.

Right-wingers contend that liberals are the ones ruining this country, but I've yet to hear about a liberal walking into a church or abortion clinic and shooting the people inside. I just don't understand how they believe they can justify violence by being patriotic. "Patriotism — the last refuge of a scoundrel" I wish I had said that.

Michael Cindrich, Kansas City, MO

Well, I can't say I am at all surprised to read all the diatribes against Bill Moyers and the broadcast of his expressing the attitude of many of us about the potential problems of stirring up trouble with hate speak. A few years ago, when I was driving home from work, I would try to listen to the pompous windbag that everyone knows makes his living by going over the top. I wondered how any sensible person could listen to him. Just for the record, I voted for neither Bush nor Obama. I just wish we could get some sensible people in the U.S. Congress who could think for themselves instead of being lead by the nose by big business. Yes, we are a capitalistic nation, but we also should be a nation that can express compassion. Whatever happened to the folks who got together when someone's barn burned down to help him build a new one?

Olive Lohrengel, Austin, TX

I am currently watching a program on WTTW Prime (Bill Moyers Journal) about a man who open fired in a church. I am very displeased about what I am seeing. This is incredibly one-sided. As a conservative woman I am astounded that your program is sweeping this man's unspeakable crimes in with mainline conservatives. This program played several minutes of Michael Savage, a man who does NOT speak for the majority of conservatives, and then the program went on to lump several other talk radio hosts in with Savage's hateful comments. Glenn Beck, one of Moyers' examples, is NOTHING like Michael Savage, and it is completely wrong to paint Beck and the others with the same brush. Public programming is tax-payer funded and should represent a broader spectrum of public opinion. Presenting programs with such a bias against conservatives, programs which directly connect a murderer to conservative media, is offensive.

Palatine, IL

Charlie the Neutral Peacemaker, or Was He?

I am deeply disturbed that PBS journalist Charlie Rose tarnished his own and, by association PBS's, reputation by intervening in the MSBNC-FOX NEWS dispute. For someone so closely associated with PBS to intervene on the behalf of big corporations to shut down criticism of each other's news commentary is appalling. This type of self censorship is extremely bad for journalism, PBS, and most importantly our democracy.

A healthy democracy depends on free, objective, substantive journalism to survive. To silence criticism in the name of corporate profits is chilling. For someone from our non-profit public broadcasting corporation to orchestrate this Faustian bargain is beyond appalling. Whether Rose was motivated by a misguided respect for civility over free speech or by corporate interests, he is not fit to have a show on PBS. I hope PBS has the courage to put the public's interest over that of big corporations and cover this story.

Dora O'Shaughnessy, Charlotte, NC

As written in the NY Times, it seems Charlie Rose has been meddling in the affairs of MSNBC and Fox, and has mediated a deal to "stop the feuding" between Olbermann and O'Reilly. This is tantamount to CENSORSHIP of Olbermann and reflects extremely poorly on PBS!!! Just thought that you should know how many of us in the liberal "net- roots" community feel about this travesty, and how we blame in a large part Charlie Rose for it. This blame will take the form of withholding of further membership dues from PBS. For that you can be certain!!!

K. R. Searle

I'm deeply disturbed by the participation of Mr. Rose in hashing journalistic independence for the interest of corporations. This reflects badly on Mr. Rose's professionalism and makes PBS look bad.

Chicago, IL

Heated Up About Health Care

The coverage on 08/07/09 healthcare protest by Ms. Bowser was tepid in my opinion; and I am being generous. When NBC is voice of truth, something is wrong at PBS. Chuck Todd and Brian Williams called out on those behind these "protests" against health-care reform, which included airing a sample of Rush Limbaugh's radio message. If PBS would at least read Media Matters or watch Rachel Maddow's show, they would find names and organizations behind the protests. I am guessing that since PBS receives money from corporations, the hand of Insurance Industries rendered the reporting of this story in such an inadequate manner. The uncivil behavior displayed by those against health-care reforms needs to be covered by the PBS of old. I use to think of the PBS NewsHour as the last frontier of truth. PBS's poor coverage of this story is disheartening to say the least.

Anne Davis

Judy Woodruff's interview with Sen. Grassley on the NewsHour Wednesday, Aug. 5, was a prime example of the "lack of journalism integrity." Ms. Woodruff let Sen. Grassley cite the Lewin Group study without noting that the CBO disagrees on the number of people who would convert to a public option. In addition, Lewin Group VP John Sheils was quoted in a Washington Post story dated July 21, 2009, as saying people would not be forced into a government run program and "they might very well be better off." Maybe Ms. Woodruff was trying to avoid putting Sen. Grassley on the spot, but isn't that her job?

Maynard Chapman, Santa Fe, NM

I was appalled at the interview with Sen. Grassley shown on the local PBS broadcast of the NewsHour on Aug 5th. I have never heard such biased garbage parroting the insurance company and medical services industry bias. This interview sounded more like a free paid political announcement. Shouldn't those people be making some hefty donations to PBS during the current membership drive? It begs the question of how much those interests contributed to his reelection campaign. You can probably look it up. Grassley used every possible buzzword favored by the (mostly) Republican stooges who resort to carefully orchestrated and rehearsed spurious arguments whose sole purpose is to scare the American public into believing a government takeover of healthcare is imminent. Egads, we just might get healthcare which is not only affordable but also available to all. All of this misinformation and hyperbole went largely unchallenged by the NewsHour reporter. Would it have been too impolite to react when a view point is as grossly biased as Sen. Grassley's was? On topics as important as healthcare reform it is crucial that time be allotted for opposing views to be presented. Some viewers may actually believe this drivel. I have noticed a lack of cross examination on several occasions on the Lehrer NewsHour recently. Once in an interview by Mr. Lehrer himself. I realize PBS must at least attempt to be impartial in its reporting although anyone can see that it has a decidedly liberal tilt. In spite of that I imagine that most everybody except those involved in the healthcare industry (what? maybe 80% of the voters) would favor just about anything over the terribly broken system we now have. Unfortunately I don't think Sen. Grassley's most ardent supporters have any such plans.

Bradford J. Turner, Tucson, AZ

(Ombudsman's Note: Judy Woodruff introduced her interview with Sen. Grassley with the following important point: "Since in the past two weeks, we've heard both the president and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, make the case here on the NewsHour for reform from the Democrats' point of view, tonight we get the views of the senior Republican sitting in those sessions, Charles Grassley of Iowa.")

On the evening of August 11, I sat through a disappointing NewsHour discussion of health care involving 4 newspaper editors, spinning their wheels "debating" trivial and irrelevant sidebars. More like Fox News then PBS. Focusing on angry mobs organized to divert our attention, just diverts our attention. Serious issues of health care demand serious discussions. In my view you are on the whole failing us and this was one more example. Going forward let me suggest you require all those speaking of health care to be knowledgeable AND have no agenda, only the health of the American people.

Lawrence Willson, Birmingham, AL

Last night (Aug. 11) on the NewsHour, during the discussion on health care reform, Cynthia Tucker referred to the fact that many of the people criticizing health care reform appear to be folks who are on Medicare, a public health care program for seniors 65 or older who are Social Security eligible. As if on cue (I expected it), the gentleman from the Detroit Free Press referred to this as a failed public/government health care program. I would like the NewsHour to set the record straight on this issue. Is Medicare a failed program? Or just one with problems — flawed funding stream, a caseload consisting of that part of the population with the greatest healthcare demand — the elderly.

When I hear the health care reform discussion, I get livid at what I hear. Senator Grassley is against the public option because, to hear him say it, that would be the preferred choice of people, this would crowd-out private insurance, and we would wind-up with a system like the Canadian one. Does he listen to himself. Does anybody listen and see the flaw in this argument — "everybody will prefer the public option, even though it's not a good option." Gimme a break.

Joseph Costa, Baltimore, MD

The 'Quack' Watch

PBS's reputation for honesty will cause many thousands of people to be misled by Dr. Perricone. I am amazed that his unsubstantiated quackery is used for fundraising. What a scam backed by PBS. Dr. Perricone lacks credibility and PBS' support of him causes PBS to lack credibility. He should NOT be featured and his "research" should not be touted by credible journalists. Most of his claims are sheer snake oil at high prices. Another example of the absence of investigative reporting in our country today.

Pine Mountain, GA

Re: The Brain in Love — This show appears to be a drug commercial and I find it impossible accept the integrity of what is being presented. I have to turn it off. The portion I just watched has the doctor (Dr. Amen) suggests a drug for every possible brain activity. How can I take this seriously, much less actually donate??

Granby, MA

I was about to complain about the blatant infomercial called Qi Gong and Weight Loss, stating that a station that purports to have some degree of intellectual integrity ought not be in the business of quackery, but then I read the ombudsman's column re: Lehrer and Moyers and realized that my assumption that intelligence resides at your station is a myth. Moyers is one of the few voices that dare raise the issues he addresses, and yet the ombudsman seeks some kind of balance. Move on to Fox, where you will find exactly what you are seeking.

James Dunne, Mendocino, CA

I just contacted my local PBS station and protested the airing of Dr. Wayne Dyer's programs. I, and many others, consider Dr. Dyer a fraud. Years ago I tried to listen to him and realized that he was saying nothing but recycled garbage. PBS programming is generally excellent. I enjoy science, drama, nature and art programs every week. But putting on such an obvious sham such as Dr. Dyer is really an insult to PBS viewers. Dr. Dyer is milking his audiences courtesy of PBS. I do not like the idea of my donations subsidizing this nonsense.

Edward Sledge, Austin, TX

On Jackson, Suspenders and Religious Music

I'll begin by stating that I have the utmost respect for PBS. I've only had one complaint in the over 40 yrs that I've been watching, though I don't have time to watch as often as I'd like.

My concern here is due to a comment, during your fund-raising, that I find indignant & unnecessary. It is also out of character for the PBS I know & love. The comment alludes to priorities in newscasting by your competitors; example given that PBS is better viewing because it doesn't spend too much time on Michael Jackson. Well, I agree that too much time has been spent on speculation concerning Michael (may Walter Cronkite RIP). Meanwhile, not enough time has been spent with mention of losing Michael Jackson humanitarian.

First of all, PBS stoops to the level of other stations as disrespectful to Michael. He hasn't even been buried. I realize that it is unusual for someone to not be buried for well over a month yet, the fact that he hasn't, remains. I would imagine that his family would like his brain tissue buried with his body & toxicology reports are supposedly not yet completed.

PBS need not use someone's name in vain to make a point. I don't recall that it ever has. Why Michael? I know that I am not alone in adoring Michael Jackson who gave so much. Not only is he in The Guinness Book of World Records for his astounding creative expression a few times over, he's in this book for giving more millions than any other artist/performer in history. Furthermore, it's that he actually visited countless children in hospitals & orphanages, our veterans, Ethiopia & so many other places that matters. He lived what he sang & danced & wrote about. He was true to his words as a young boy, "I only sing what I believe." As far as the question of drug use, this doesn't change all he accomplished. As far as that horrid trial that almost killed him a few yrs ago, he was acquitted for good reason as stated in international best-seller "Michael Jackson Conspiracy" by Aphrodite Jones which is a book of facts. I am hoping that PBS does a special about Michael's humanitarianism. He was honored by 2 former US presidents, was recently granted a global award in Austria, We Are the World, & so much more. What an interesting documentary PBS could do! Please, I ask PBS not to feed into any comments of Michael that are not out of respect & unconditional love.

Elizabeth Olney, Dover, NJ

I am a member and will continue to be; but will you please yank Neal Shapiro [president and CEO of WNET.org in New York]. Aside from the fact that his suspenders create the image of Gordon Gecko (I wear suspenders), his standard line that PBS, unlike commercial TV, has no commercial influences makes me nuts. If you believe those "statements" by Mobil and Archer Daniels Midland (your "supporters") aren't commercials, you insult our intelligence. The latter is the great rapist of the small farmer and Mobil, the less said the better. I don't expect PBS to be activist; in fact I disapprove of such a role. Run contributors in a list at the end of a program unless non-profits but don't broadcast their PR.

Frank Soriano, Morristown, NJ

On August 9, 2009 at 3:30 pm, WPBS-TV broadcast "River-Lations", a 30-minute show that, according to the description on their web site, "A scenic tour of the Thousand Islands set to inspirational music performed by Patty Mondore." What it turned out to be was poor, non-broadcast quality video and bible quotes over overtly "Christian" music. It had no educational or public service purpose whatsoever. I was led to believe that PBS no longer allowed this kind of blatantly religious programming on its stations. Does WPBS-TV have some sort of exemption for this kind of show?

Watertown, NY

Two PBS programs in recent days struck me as capturing the range of public discourse in present-day America.

One took place on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on three consecutive evenings starting Monday, July 27. There was Lehrer on a stage in Kansas City, Mo., with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. As moderator, he was questioning the Fed chief. But so were local citizens in the audience and others participating on the Web. The one-hour interview with Bernanke actually took place the day before, on Sunday, but was shown, in segments, on The NewsHour beginning the following day.

The questioning was polite but serious and, at times, challenging. People are worried, and skeptical. The Fed remains a mystery to many Americans. Many believe it was at the center of what went wrong and crucial to making things right. The interview received a great deal of press coverage, even though it didn't make a lot of news. Yet it was explanatory and informative, both substantively, in terms of providing a more candid glimpse inside the thinking and emotions of the Fed chairman, and also simply watching him react to concerns put to him directly by citizens. Fed chairmen traditionally have appeared as detached, sort of secretive officials, used to providing their carefully crafted views in congressional testimony, speeches and the very occasional press interview. But last Sunday's appearance by Bernanke at a town hall-type forum was historic, Lehrer reported; the first time a Fed chairman had taken questions from the public.

Bernanke, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, may have just been campaigning to be reappointed to his job in January by President Obama. Or the Fed may be trying to be more open with the public at a time when the sense of economic peril is greater than most people can remember. Whatever, this was a good and useful discourse, one that was worth watching as well as listening to, and a smart undertaking by Bernanke, PBS and The NewsHour.

On the Other Hand . . .

At the other end of the discourse spectrum, as I see it, was the concluding segment of last Friday's (July 24) presentation of Bill Moyers Journal. The program was about health care but the closing segment segued into a strong editorial assault by Moyers against the type of often vicious rhetoric that can be found on television, radio and public podiums and that can "poison the air all of us breathe."

Moyers led into his attack by showing clips of a speech last week by Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, warning about what will happen if health care reform includes coverage for abortion services. From there, Moyers went on to the murder, two months ago, of Dr. George Tiller, a performer of late-term abortions. Moyers replayed tapes of Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly repeatedly referring, before the murder, to "Tiller the baby killer." The NOW on PBS program last month also focused on this. Moyers then replayed a lengthy segment of his program from last fall when a gunman showed up and shot up a church in Knoxville, Tenn., at least in part because he said he hated "the liberal movement."

But then Moyers goes on to include clips from other right-wing commentators, particularly Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, but also some from Glenn Beck, Michael Reagan, and Jim Quinn.

Moyers then says: "Do I think any conservative commentator wished for what happened in Knoxville last year, or to Doctor George Tiller in Wichita two months ago? Not for a minute. The killer who pulled the trigger is the guilty party. But do I wish the vendors of venom, and their sponsors, would think harder about how angry words become accomplices of foul deeds? Yes, I do . . . God only knows the price we pay when we turn political opponents to be debated, into mortal enemies to be eliminated."

And he closes this way: " . . . the First Amendment protection of a free press extends to 'The Savage Nation,' [a reference to the Michael Savage talk show] as surely as it does to The Nation Magazine [a liberal publication]. Anyway, you can't coerce taste; fairness is not a doctrine to be enforced, but a choice to be made, a responsibility to be honored."

And That's the Way It Is

As any ombudsman can tell you, indeed as anyone can who writes or says anything publicly nowadays that can be commented upon, there is plenty of anger and venom out there and it comes from both right and left, conservative and liberal. I see and hear a lot of it and it is one of the things that disturb me most when I wonder about the country trying to find enough common ground these days to cope with a huge array of big-time problems. Fierce debate is one thing; it's good and natural because the stakes in all these issues are very high. But some of this stuff seems to me to be really off-the-rails, vicious and dangerous.

My personal sense is that a lot more of the really rough stuff is coming from the far right than from the left, and it is conservative talk show hosts that, in particular, dominate the radio airways and the ratings and have the biggest audiences by far.

Moyers' views and leanings are easily discernible to anyone who watches his program, and he attracts a lot of criticism from conservatives who say, rightly, that there is nothing remotely comparable to him and his views on PBS. Last week's program, as is usual, attracted lots of e-mail, mostly from people who are enraged by him. Some of it is printed below. Lehrer's three-segment program with Bernanke has provoked no mail to the ombudsman so far.

Moyers would have served his viewers better, in my view, to also acknowledge and cite at least some of the fiery rhetoric that has come from the left as well, because it surely has, especially during the Bush administration. But the point of this column is not to take-on Moyers uniqueness on PBS or the question of balance in this specific program. Rather, in this case, it is to say that, whatever your politics, Moyers makes an important point about the extreme level of tough talk that is routinely aired publicly in this country, that does come, it seems to me, predominantly from the far right, and that tens of millions of people hear. When you string it together in clips, as Moyers and NOW have done recently, it is very jarring and makes you aware, for those that don't listen or haven't been paying attention, of what is being said. In my view, that's very important, even if the list isn't complete or two-sided and if you don't like the messenger.

It is a subject that is also getting more and broader attention recently. Here are two smart, I thought, recent op-ed pieces by Arnaud de Borchgrave and David Brooks, respectively, in two very different publications, The Washington Times and The New York Times.

Here Are Some Letters

I watched Bill Moyers the other night about the conservatives being hate mongers. It's people like him that get us so uptight, only telling one side of things. Liberals have bashed our president for the last eight years, stirring up liberals. Code Pink, Michael Moore. Jon Stewart. Sat. Night Live, just to name a few, we're tired of all of them. We listen to Hannity and Beck and Rush because they say what we are feeling. Not the other way around. Moyers doesn't get us. We are ready for a revolution. Liberals ARE destroying capitalism! Oh, by the way I'm just a peace loving, country loving homemaker, but DON'T TREAD ON ME!

Slidell, LA

Moyers' diatribe on Rush Limbaugh was absolutely idiotic and insane. What happened to the 1st Amendment Mr Moyers? Rush Limbaugh and whatever stations that wish to carry his program have the right under our Constitution to do just that, without the government or Mr. Moyers deciding who will present an opposing viewpoint. Maybe if he had ONE HUNDREDTH of the audience that Rush Limbaugh has he could be more of a factor in today's media. But he runs his little dog-and-pony show over there on PBS, a publicly-funded network that doesn't have to have ratings OR listeners in order to succeed. The difference between Mr. Limbaugh's show and Mr. Moyers' is that he has to draw listeners. And he does that by speaking THEIR minds, not his own. As a faithful listener of his program, I am mind-boggled by how much he speaks for me, the little guy. Unlike Mr. Moyers, he presents the other side of the story, the Conservative counterpoint to the "state-run media" drivel that outlets such as your network spew every day. I talk to people every day who are fed up with the constant drumbeat of pro-Obama, pro-Democrat, anti-Bush, anti-America, and anti-common sensical news coverage that they get from the mainstream media. In regard to Mr Moyers' comment "if they were required to be fair, they would soon be penniless, out on the street, cup in-hand," the radio stations who were required to be fair would be penniless only because they'd have to carry shows like Mr. Moyers' yawnfest, and they soon would all be broke.

Jerry R., Metairie, LA

I was so disappointed by Bill Moyers' piece on health care that I had to write. I am not a journalist but I understand the need to strive for objectivity. I consider myself a centrist and am always looking for bias in news. Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill and Ray Suarez are simply incredible! Their objectivity and journalistic integrity is beyond reproach. And then we come to Bill Moyers. His ultra-liberal slant on everything he covers does a huge disservice to the three aforementioned journalists and PBS in general. How Mr. Moyers retains his job when he exhibits such an utter lack of professionalism escapes me.

JD McAdams, McLoud, OK

A Blue Dog with the Blues

I am a blue dog Democrat in California. I happened across Bill Moyers' show on health care and his hit piece (resurrected) on conservatives against liberals. On the health care part, I was shocked at the woman who believes the health care problem rests with insurance companies and their profit motive. Her solution? Scrap it and start over with a single-payer system as long as there are private insurers.

I'm keeping this brief, so I will say that the country I was born in is a capitalistic one, you know, for a profit motive. To call for scrapping the system in favor of a government run non-profit bureaucracy is really a call to overthrow capitalism in a Marxist revolution. Think of government-run VA hospitals. Think of FEMA. The last thing that I need is a two-weeks-out-of-actuarial school graduate in a government bureaucracy between me and my doctor. She, and PBS, have a 1st amendment right to such an opinion, but it would have been nice if there had been an iota of balance; I saw none.

As for the hit piece against conservatives, I agree there were some conservatives who said unfortunate and regrettable things. I regret that they did. They may even have been offensive if their context had been shown. But, I read and watch both sides of the so called "news" and I can site plenty of liberals such as Olbermann and Matthews who have gone way over the top in their ravings against conservatives, and I can cite blogs such as the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post that regularly carries hate speech against Bush, Cheney, Palin, and any evangelical. Liberal calls for assassination of Bush, liberal sadness that Cheney was not assassinated, and very crass, cruel, and personal attacks against Palin. It would have been nice to see that mentioned instead of the one-sided presentation presented by a smarmy and smug Moyers.

Since PBS is publicly funded, in part, and partly funded by those evil corporations, I would have thought PBS would show some class, restraint, and even handedness to rail against hate speech from the left as well as from the right. I was wrong.

I noted that Moyers went out of his way to say that he is not calling for the return of the fairness doctrine. I have no doubt of that because his show was so far left that PBS would be hard pressed to find a troglodyte to balance him. This may come as a shock to someone like Moyers, but many of us can actually reach opinions on our own without being steered by him. In calling this show "Bill Moyers Journal" one might believe that the "journal" part was somehow related to journalism. But, that would be wrong if journalism means reporting facts accurately and impartially.

William Rowe, Chico, CA

Just watched about ten minutes of one of Bill Moyers smarmy "hit pieces" on Talk radio . . . Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Boortz . . . all the "usual suspects" targeted by Liberals as evil demons, diminishing the level of "public discourse . . . I never listen to NPR or watch PBS and stopped supporting them with money back in the 90s when they were almost as much in love with the Clintons as they are with President Obama. Bill Moyers thinks he is such an intellectual and because he speaks in that soft voice and leans into the table, trying to look like someone's trusted Grandpa, that people are buying his radical Left propaganda.

It has been written that Satan will come and approach as an "angel of light" and is the master of lies and deceit. If that is true, Bill Moyers is Satan's brother! We all knew that the attack on Talk radio, freedom of speech was coming through the never-ending fight to get the fairness doctrine, or some phony name for it on a bill passed. PBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC cannot compete in ratings, on either radio or Cable TV, so they use the Obama technique of trying to wipe out the competition through legislation or a trumped-up technicality. It isn't enough that the Radical Liberal Left has almost complete control of the Print media and those major newspapers are going bankrupt. It isn't enough that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and NBC are propaganda and PR arms of the Democratic Party. They want it all. But it isn't going to happen. There are millions of us who love and listen/watch every day to the Conservative views presented by those you are attempting to vilify, including Sarah Palin.

The real disgrace is that PBS is supported by taxpayer dollars, federally funded by "the Public" but ignores one whole segment of the public in their broadcasting. It's a national disgrace, and any one on PBS, especially Bill Moyers, who call themselves journalists are a joke. Journalists are objective and report facts. PBS is all propaganda, even in their scientific shows; for instance re: Global Warming, there is only one version of reality and it's the one that is designed to bring down and destroy our economy and our country as it was founded and remake it into a Socialistic copy of failing Western Europe . . . they even like the idea of our having a King, when is Obama going to be crowned by PBS?

Bonnie Usrey, Anthem, AZ

Why in the world is the media not insisting on broad debate on heath care reform? This is a huge issue, once again being co-opted by corporate interests. I consider PBS the standard bearer. What gives? I get tired of seeing Bill Moyers being the only voice of sanity while the insanity of politics and policy just continues to take us down.

Wally Doggett, Austin, TX

I want to add my voice in support of Bill Moyers. I always find his show interesting and informative, but I do find his religiosity annoying at times. I also want to add my voice to the criticism of The NewsHour's coverage of health care reform. I understand Judy Woodruff's defense of what they were going for, but it was obviously not effective. But the issue is that the reportage has been (from my perspective) almost overwhelmingly negative. The health care issue as well as the Honduran Coup has caused my respect for The NewsHour to decline. The only thing I look forward to is their infrequent arts coverage.

James Holder, Waco, TX

Last week's column featured an assault on the host of the weekly Bill Moyers Journal by conservative commentator Brent Bozell. It included some lengthy responses by Moyers and my thoughts on aspects of the situation that Bozell was criticizing. Judging from my inbox this week, Moyers easily wins the hearts and minds of most who wrote to me.

One of the two other major presentations that attracted viewer criticism this week involved a segment on the debate over health care broadcast on July 21 and hosted by Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The other was a 18-plus minute interview by Lehrer with President Obama the day before.

Those viewers who wrote to me were unanimous about these two offerings: they didn't like them.

I agree with those who felt that the health care panel was unbalanced, in favor of the administration's critics. But I don't agree with the criticism aimed at correspondent Judy Woodruff, and the segment itself didn't seem to me to be one of those obviously one-sided affairs that everyone recognizes immediately as it unfolds on screen.

The guests did included two Democrats and two Republicans, so the scorecard going-in looked balanced. But one of the Democrats, Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, is one of the so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats who generally are more fiscally conservative than the party mainstream. Nevertheless, I thought this turned out to be an informative discussion that benefited from Cooper's presence, and also from Woodruff's good questioning. I thought the biggest reason the segment left people feeling it was unbalanced was that the leading Democratic defender of the administration's effort, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, seemed ineffective; trying to stuff every single talking point into every answer, no matter the question. Woodruff, right at the outset, tried to bring him back to answering the question she asked.

As for the Lehrer interview with President Obama, this will not go down as one of those memorable Dan Rather or Sam Donaldson "with all due respect, sir" kind of challenges. That's not Lehrer's style. But here, too, the result was informative, I thought. It even made some news, including a front-page reference in the next day's New York Times. What was weird, however, was that ear-to-ear smile that the President seemed to slap on at the conclusion of the interview. Has that become an involuntary reflex or staged ending to all such appearances?

Here Are the Letters, and some replies by PBS.

Moyers vs. Bozell

Bill Moyers's article about health care & his interview with Wendell Potter was excellent. I can only wish that more of the American electorate would watch that particular show; maybe then corporate interests would be replaced by public interests.

E. Rivers, Portland, ME

Mr. Getler, thanks for this and thanks for providing Mr. Moyers the opportunity to respond to Mr. Bozell. I do find Bozell's complaints about perceived conflicts of interest on Mr. Moyers part to be typical of conservative attack and smear attempts. The damage they have done to civil discourse and to PBS over the last 2 decades is so great that GPB here in Georgia mostly shows pablum rather than provide any real prime time space to shows, other than Frontline, which just might facilitate a public conversation about issues that matter. NOW and Bill Moyers Journal are shown, if at all, on Sunday afternoons, when, if people are watching TV, they are watching a sports event. Two to three times a month those shows get bumped. Can't convince me, a long time supporter of public TV, that there aren't political forces at work here. I do wish that public broadcasting could operate without government funding altogether.

By the way, Moyers' closing commentary on this week's program (July 17), which I saw yesterday afternoon, framed one of the best arguments for what is wrong with our healthcare delivery system by first focusing on the new Surgeon General (she did part of her training here in Macon) and her commitment, at significant personal cost, to treating the lesser among us on Alabama's Gulf Coast and contrasting her actions with the 2008 pay for Cigna, Aetna, and McKesson CEO's. Cigna also laid off 1100 workers at the beginning of the year and then posted a 208 million dollar profit in the first quarter. Capitalistic excesses abound, but they are certainly more egregious when done on the backs of sick people and everyday common folks who pay out of sight premiums for health care insurance.

D. Williams, Macon, GA.

I love it. As a conservative who does not like the Bill Moyers' program I have a simple solution. I don't watch it. And, I have reduced my support of Rocky Mountain PBS to reflect my distaste for the program. Question: Why doesn't PBS at least offer a competing point of view program; maybe to alternate with Moyers? Finally, it would take someone a lot more interested than me to read all you had to write about Moyers' recent program.

Michael Hayes

Bill Moyers is just about the only voice of the people out there and he is only heard on PBS which has only a tiny audience compared to the cable babble (right and left--I like Keith and Rachel, but it isn't really journalism).

I find his rebuttals and explanations more than adequate and am happy to know these details about TomPaine.com, one of my favorite websites (I had no idea that a Moyers founded it, but that knowledge elevates my esteem for the site even more). I know it's your job to do this, but for the life of me, I can see no conflict here--just a damn good journalist trying to make a difference. If the Bozell's of the world have their way, you will be the first to be looking for a job, so it's commendable that you would even seem to be defending him and his ilk.

The PBS I knew and loved is mostly gutted and reduced to nearly monthly begging and souvenir-peddling thanks to the right who seem to be very threatened by alternative views. I don't agree with everything Moyers says (he is weirdly religious, for one), but I look very forward to his work in its various forms.

Janet Camp, Milwaukee, WI

Thank you for the extensive publishing of Bill Moyers response to your comments and other criticisms. I am pleased to know that he works hard to be free to say what he thinks and to present people on his program who do the same without truthful charges of being bought. The right wing highly conservative people have put out so much propaganda that we need to have someone who will inform us about other views that would otherwise be hidden. I must admit that some of Mr. Moyers guests have sometimes caused me to gasp. Long live PBS and thank God for a journalist like Bill Moyers. I can count on Bill to ask questions because he wants his guests to give us their answers.

Olive Lohrengel, Buda, TX

I want to laud PBS and Bill Moyers. Thank God there are voices of integrity in this country particularly at this time of readjustment. Reading, watching and listening to Moyers (especially the piece I just read about a few choice words for "The Select Few") give me faith that at least there are some true voices left. Not everyone in public life has sold out.

Janel Beeman, Jemez Springs, NM

I support PBS because you have excellent children's programming. However, I am questioning my support for a station that fails to investigate the moral and ethical concerns I, and many others, have regarding Bill Moyers. I do not want to support a station that allows a commentator to interview guests/experts in whom he has personal financial interests. I am not going to mention the specific instance; I would encourage an in-depth review of Bill Moyer's ENTIRE program with respect to potential conflicts of interest and misleading reporting.

Matthew Olson, Centennial, CO

All Thumbs Down on that Health Care Panel

I was very disappointed in the Judy Woodruff piece on health care on Tuesday night. The choice of participants was very one sided. Paul Ryan is a right-wing lackey of the health care industry {he is supposed to be representing my Congressional district here in Wisconsin}.You had a right-leaning Democrat from the south and another southern Republican Senator. The only real advocate was Senator Dodd and he had little to no help from any of the others. How about an advocate of REAL health care reform like Senator Finegold, I find PBS more and more right wing oriented and I don't like it.

Bill Moyers is the only fresh air in PBS. It is too bad that he cannot be aired more often and during more prime time.

William Curtis, Milton, WI

Judy Woodruff's interview with Senators and Rep's on health care reform (7/21/09) was disgustingly imbalanced. If the News Hour is going to invite Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, then they need to have an equally robust representative on the other side such as Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Inviting Senator Lamar Alexander, who refused to answer Judy's questions but instead made up his own, to obfuscate and ignore serious issues was just pathetic. At least Senator Dodd caught him admitting that a "heroic" effort was made to include Republican input. Why can't Woodruff underline that point? PBS has got to get beyond Fox logic of allowing obstructionists to act like they have some higher goals when they've stated publicly that their intention is to make healthcare "Obama's Waterloo." How much money have each of those guys received from the health insurance industry?? More than 70% of the citizens of this nation want a public plan. Anyone who has suffered the consequences of making a claim against their insurance company knows the game is rigged. Get a grip PBS. You are supposed to be serving this nation but you are allowing extremists to blather nonsense and hijack the airwaves. I am bitterly disappointed in the manner in which this deadly serious issue was handled.

D. Cooke, Ashland, OR

I just watched Judy Woodruff's discussion concerning healthcare. This was a terrible piece of reporting. First, Woodruff stacked the deck by including three persons (two hard-core republicans and one blue-dog democrat) with stances opposed to current reform efforts and only one person (the Democrat Chris Dodd) in favor of current efforts. Why even bother to try to inform people when 75% of the comments are known before hand to be oppositional? This is an extremely biased form of journalism.

Second, Woodruff allowed the three oppositional guests to distort and lie repeatedly. The most blatant example was the Republican Ryan, who twice claimed that current efforts involve a "government takeover" of healthcare. This tired republican talking point is clearly dishonest, as the presence of a public option (which wasn't even discussed) does not come remotely close to a government takeover.

Third, while the discussion topic was supposed to be "how to pay" for the reforms, Woodruff didn't even bring up what appears to be the primary approach: increasing taxes on the rich. In addition, none of the alternatives brought up by the three opponents was described in any where near enough detail to be understandable. They were quite incoherent, and it was of course impossible for Chris Dodd, with no support from Woodruff, to try to clarify their positions.

Doug Derryberry, Philomath, OR

I was outraged by the unbalanced panel interviewed tonight (July 21) by Judy Woodruff on the News Hour. Basically, you had Chris Dodd supporting the Obama Health Reform plan, and three members of Congress (including one conservative Democrat) opposing it. I request that you revisit this issue with a more balanced panel. My respect for the News Hour has plummeted.

Jacqueline Steiner, Norwalk, CT

What are you passing off as a real debate on healthcare? I just watched the News Hour "debate" with four white males who all owe their souls to the insurance industry. There is no one who represents what is the ONLY real solution which is single payer. Also, I might add, the choice of most Americans who are informed of the options. Of course you do not contribute to informing people you sell out also

Eloise O'Shea-Wyatt, Providence, RI

Senior Correspondent Judy Woodruff Sends This Reply:

"We began our Tuesday morning planning meeting deciding to aim for a discussion with four Members of Congress to try to capture where the debate over health care reform stands at this moment. Coming on the heels of Jim Lehrer's interview with President Obama on Monday, and with the administration's own acknowledgement of how this is getting harder by the day, we wanted to get four different perspectives: a Democrat supporting the Administration; a "blue dog" (conservative-leaning) Democrat still undecided; a conservative Republican; and a moderate Republican who favors expanding coverage, but through a different formula from what the President has called for.

"Our staff made many dozens of phone calls throughout the day, trying to line up as ideologically balanced a foursome as we could. I believe we ended up with an illuminating conversation - hearing four of the many different perspectives that are emerging on Capitol Hill, and illustrating just how hard the President's task is. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is one of the two leading Democrats in the Senate on this; Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) brought the skeptical but supportive voice of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House; Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) supports universal coverage, unlike many other Republicans; and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) spoke for the conservative Republicans who prefer a private sector solution.

"As for the description of 'Blue Dog' Democrats as conservative or moderate, they describe themselves on their website as "fiscally conservative," or "fiscally conscious." Broadly, they define themselves as seeking the center of the issue spectrum. And FYI, Cooper has a 70% rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action; 77% from the ACLU, and 40% from the American Conservative Union."

More on Health Care

I watch the NewsHour religiously, and appreciate the quality. This evening's (Fri 7/12) section on Health Care legislation was disappointing since Dennis Kucinich successfully amended the House version to allow each state to choose the Single Payer option, yet the news show acceded to the administration's attempt to keep this option off the table. This was a great opportunity to educate the public on the most financially feasible option.

David Matteson, Crete, IL

The budget office's conclusion that the current health care bills will result in more federal spending is correct. However, that does not equate to the statements made by reporters on NewsHour that the bills will result in an increase in medical costs. It is a fact that Medicare provides lower cost health care than any private insurer. The federal government cost might go up, but the cost for medical care will be less overall, particularly if there was a public option. We either pay the government or we pay an insurance company.

C.W., San Francisco, CA

I am a consistent viewer of the NewsHour, a generally excellent news/opinion program. However, I have been troubled for a long time by what I regard as a transparency problem. There are many segments devoted to talking heads which purport to represent different viewpoints of the organizations they are associated with. It is impossible to tell most of the time how expert the experts really are and what their organization stands for and who funds it. This lack of date makes it hard to assess the value of the expert information/opinion. It appears the NewsHour strives for balance and currency but there is a gap in knowing how reliable some of the so-called experts are. Please provide more identification for viewers. The NewsHour and its principal journalists are solid.

James Gillespie, St. Petersburg, FL

Regarding the ongoing debate about health care, isn't it time to just use the plan all Congressmen and women agree on, which is of course the plan they receive. Since they all agree that is a good plan just implement that for the rest of the country. Why doesn't the News Hour pose that question to ALL the politicians they interview and get their on-air response for the rest of the country to hear? If it is too expensive for the country why isn't too expensive for them?

Frank Reickert, Leesburg, FL

Last night's (July 17) NewsHour with Jim Lehrer reported on health issues as a partnership with a foundation. Who says ANY foundation is neutral? The record is that foundations are not immune from political agendas. News reporting and analysis, especially in an issue as sensitive as health care reform, needs to be independent. Risking conflict of interest reflects poorly on the story's objectivity and the station's integrity.

Second, twice in the health report, "Blue Dog" Democrats were referred to as "moderates". Where did that come from? Who anointed Blue Dogs "moderates"? Does this mean that "regular" Democrats are left-wingers? Socialists? Liberals? Why not label Blue Dogs "conservative"? It didn't happen once, but twice before I shut off the TV. I don't need to be propagandized by Jim Lehrer! So here are my two points: Linking news coverage with a foundation skews objective coverage, and labeling Blue Dogs as moderates is inaccurate.

William Duncan, Woodbourne, NY

Les Crystal, President of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Replies:

"The NewsHour receives two types of funding from non-profit foundations - (1) institutional, where the monies are applied to the entire program and (2) targeted, where the funds support particular areas of coverage. In this case, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supports coverage of health issues.

"There is an explicit agreement between the NewsHour and all our funders that they have no input or control whatsoever over the selection of stories, their production or the scripting. The Foundation sees the story for the first time when it is broadcast on the program. Since we do not secure enough funding from public television to meet our budget needs, we fill the gap with corporate and foundation underwriting."

And Same with the Obama Interview

The interview with President Obama conducted by Jim Lehrer yesterday (July 20) has to be one of the most pathetic interviews since I have been watching him on PBS for many years. The interview was so soft and biased that the only thing missing was for Jim to get up and hug the President and confess how much he admires him. Mr. Obama's smile at the end betrayed the fact that he had just finished manipulating one more fawning journalist and supposedly one of the tougher ones. Many of us want President Obama to succeed but we want him to succeed over vigorous debate and serious challenges to his goals and positions.

Henry Palacio, Hillsborough, NC

Leherer looks infatuated when interviewing Obama. He fawns over the President and you seem to allow it in the tradition of PC. When is the media going to get real again?

Clint Johnson, Cape Vincent, NY

I watched Lehrer's interview with Obama last night. What is the matter with you people, don't you read the newspapers? 1. Obama said he didn't agree with the Bush stimulus package, but he did agree that something had to be done. The Bush Administration ran their proposed stimulus package past President-elect Obama before they implemented it because they knew he was going to have to deal with the economy in just a few short weeks. He APPROVED the package. I read it in the ST.PETERSBURG TIMES, hardly a right-wing organ. 2. He said that the insurance companies were making billions of dollars off of Medicare Advantage Plans, which were just the same thing as Medicare. Medicare Advantage Plans pay for far more than Medicare, including excellent drug benefits. Millions of seniors pay monthly premiums two or three times the Medicare premiums because it's worth it. They are not the same, by any stretch of the imagination. And I'll bet you people have relatives on Medicare Advantage Plans and know that.

Obama looked Lehrer right in the face and told him these lies, Obama KNOWING Lehrer KNEW they were lies. Are you so in love with him, or so fearful of him, that you can't do your job and call him on his lies? These were not little "fibs", these were brazen, bald-faced lies. What the heck to you have 1st Amendment protections for if not to call the government on lies it uses to affect public policy?

I had to wait to write until this morning because this is civil compared to what I was ready to write last night.

Patrick Seery, Tampa, FL

For example, Bill Moyers ended his regular Friday night "Bill Moyers Journal" on July 10 with his customary editorial commentary about some timely news event or issue that stirred his critical juices. This time it was a whack at Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth for her ill-considered, and now cancelled, plans to host a series of private, off-the-record "salons" at her home which CEOs and lobbyists would sponsor for $25,000 and up. In return, they get to mingle with Post reporters, editors, administration officials and legislators. Politico.com, founded by two former Post reporters, first disclosed this on July 2 and it created quite a media furor.

The first salon was to be on health care, and that was also the subject of the Moyers Journal, so the editorial closing fit the theme of the program. As Moyers saw it, the disclosure showed that "before you can cross the threshold in Washington to reach 'the select few who will actually get it done,'" as the now-cancelled invitation said, "you must first cross the palm of some outstretched hand." It was enough, he said, "to give us a glimpse into how things really work in Washington."

The Post's egregious error stirred my juices as well. As someone who spent 35 years with the Post as reporter, editor and, finally, ombudsman, the revelation about the salon plans pained me deeply. There is nothing more precious or protected within a newsroom, and within a career in journalism, than credibility, and to have it stained by people at the top, not just the publisher, is a terrible blow. Readers of the Post, I believe, will understand this as a mistake and continue to have faith in their newspaper. It is within the newsroom where confidence in the newspaper's leaders will take longer to be restored.

But later in the week, it was Moyers who was on the receiving end of some sharp criticism about that July 10 program on health care from conservative commentator Brent Bozell published first on NewsBusters.org.

Moyers' guest was Wendell Potter, until last year the chief of corporate communications for Cigna, one of the largest U.S. health insurance companies. But after many years defending his company and the industry, Potter resigned and changed course and is now a severe and public critic of what he calls a "duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaign" by the industry to shape any future health care reform so that it "benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans."

Always in the Cross Hair

Moyers is a constant target of many conservatives and Bozell's commentary includes all of the fairly standard attacks on Moyers and anyone who agrees with him — shameless lefties, intellectually dishonest, socialists, etc — that one would expect. You can make your own choice about the critics and their issues. As a viewer, I was grateful to Moyers for the lengthy interview with Potter, who also testified before the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this summer, and I thought Potter's views deserved exposure to the larger PBS audience.

On the other hand, what got more of my attention within Bozell's critique was his point that Potter's new job is as a senior fellow with an organization known as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and that another organization with a similar name — the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, of which Bill Moyers is president — is one of the funders of the CMD. This linkage was not disclosed on the broadcast. So Moyers, according to Bozell, had as a guest a representative of a group he helps support financially "without disclosing the glaring conflict of interest to the viewers or the taxpayers." To support his argument that this was not a new phenomenon, Bozell cited an article in the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, from 2003.

First, some background. Moyers and his weekly Journal have been the subject of several previous ombudsman columns. Most involve some specific points raised by viewers or by me. In this column, Moyers, in response to questions from me, answers the criticisms raised by Bozell. These are good answers and important explanations, and I hope they are also read by readers of Bozell's column and other conservative critics who picked it up.

But Bozell also raises a broader point that remains troublesome, in my view, and that had not been raised before by me in previous ombudsman columns; that is Moyers role as president of a major media foundation the — Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. I, in fact, was not really aware of Moyers connection to it; which is my fault. It wasn't hidden, it just hadn't gotten my attention.

So this column got longer than I intended, but I hope that the result is newly informative. What follows is an initial round of exchanges between Moyers and me about the Bozell column. After that come two longer submissions by Moyers which I agreed to post. Since this column links to Bozell's full critique, Moyers asked to respond to that, beyond the specifics I asked about. And, since I began asking more about his role with the Schumann Center, there are also explanatory comments about that.

Back to the Beginning

When I asked Moyers about Bozell's charges, he responded: "I'm glad to have this opportunity to set the record straight again. I say 'again' because Brent Bozell has been attacking me (and public broadcasting) for over 20 years now. This is, in fact, his mode of operation - to refer repeatedly to his own previous attacks as well as attacks by other right-wing activists without mentioning our rebuttals or producing the evidence to substantiate the charges."

Specifically, I asked: 1) Why did Moyers not disclose, on the air, that Wendell Potter is a senior fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy and that the foundation that Moyers heads is among the funders of that Center?

Moyers reply: "We did. Three times during the broadcast, to be exact, we noted on screen that Potter is affiliated with the Center for Media and Democracy. "CTR. FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY" (shortened to fit the space available) was prominently displayed directly under Wendell Potter's name.

"The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy is not currently funding the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Schumann did make grants to CMD in 2005 and 2006 for the purpose of establishing SourceWatch, an Internet-based operation that provides accessible, timely and reliable research to journalists and citizen journalists. At the time the grants were made, Bill Moyers Journal was not on the air and Wendell Potter was still working for CIGNA. Furthermore, Potter only joined CMD a few weeks ago. I never met him or knew that he was becoming a senior fellow there until my staff and I were pre-interviewing him in preparation for the broadcast. But as he is not a beneficiary of Schumann funding and as the Center for Media and Democracy is not being funded by the Schumann Center, I saw no conflict and no reason to disqualify him as a credible source."

I also asked: 2) Is it not inconsistent with the role of "journalist" to be the head of a foundation that funds a wide-range of organizations, many of which are linked to public policy positions?

Here's Moyers' reply: "I am not sure why you put 'journalist' in quotation marks but let me quickly assure you that I do not consider there to be a conflict between practicing journalism and the mission of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which is to support independent journalism, alternative media, and transparency in government. The chairman of the Schumann board of trustees is the former dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Among the recipients of Schumann funding have been NPR, PBS broadcasts such as Expose, Wide Angle, Frontline, NOW on PBS (with host David Brancaccio), On the Media, as well as The Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Mother Jones (for investigative journalism), American News Project, and various books, projects, and articles of investigative journalism by free-lance reporters. Schumann has also established writing fellowships for independent journalists who came to us with proposals as varied as investigating voting practices at the state level to tracking campaign contributions to judicial candidates. In no situation where a journalist or journalistic organization has received funding from the Schumann Center have I exerted any influence over content. So, the short answer to your question is: No, I do not consider it a conflict of interest to be a journalist while helping other journalists do their work as well."

I also included a third question relating to another Journal broadcast in May, and involving the Schumann Center, which dealt with the issue of torture and included extended clips from the film "Torturing Democracy." The film became the subject of some controversy last year and was never actually distributed by PBS.

So question 3) Why, on the May 29 program revisiting "Torturing Democracy," was it not noted on the air that Schumann Center made a grant to the National Security Archives for the production of the film? I know there was a note at the end of the transcript.

Moyers' reply: "At the end of the May 29 broadcast, within the production credits, we included the following information on the screen: 'The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, of which Bill Moyers is president, made a bridge grant to the National Security Archives to assist this film in 2008. The funds were subsequently replaced.'"

Some of the half-dozen or so ombudsman columns I've written about the Journal in the past have been critical. But I have also consistently said that Moyers presents many of the best and most important interviews anywhere in the public domain — at length and in depth — and that it is doubtful that these voices would be heard anywhere else on television other than his program or perhaps one or two others on PBS. That, in my view, is a big plus for PBS viewers and for informed national discourse.

I've also made the point before that Moyers is unconventional and hard to categorize — journalist, advocate, definitely a force and an original, a person of many talents and interests. To his critics he is "a left-wing, agenda-driven propagandist." But Moyers says he is first of all a journalist and the Journal's Web site describes him as "one of America's foremost journalists."

I believe that Moyers does practice journalism, and has for many years, and that what he brings to American television is often absolutely vital for a full understanding of people and issues that are important yet rarely get a full airing elsewhere. He has injected a huge dose of thought-provoking material into the public domain over the last quarter century in a medium that has mostly deteriorated on that score. Viewers are smart. They can agree or disagree. Turn the TV off or keep it on. That's the system.

Dual, or Dueling, Roles?

I accept Moyers' explanations about Potter's appearance. But the reason parts of Bozell's column still interest me is because working journalists usually don't also run foundations that provide financial support to other organizations that, in turn, sometimes provide guests for your own program, or other programs or projects and issues you care about, and sometimes the connections are not made clear on the air. And even if they are sometimes printed on the screen or in the credits, are the full relationships really clear to the viewing audience?

The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy is a generous organization that makes grants to tax-exempt organizations seeking to "create worthy projects in the areas of health, education or community development" and its main focus, according to its filing with the Internal Revenue Service, is "invigorating democracy." It spends a lot on campaign finance reform, on environmental projects and to "expand independent non-commercial journalism and to encourage new voices in the conversation of democracy." All inquiries, its statement says, should be addressed to the President of the Center, and that's Bill Moyers.

The list of recipients is long and impressive, some of the best and most independent-minded think-tanks and investigative journalism enterprises. But it gets tangled as well. For example, in 2004, according to IRS filings, the Schumann Center sponsored a grant of $2 million to The Florence Fund "to support the TomPaine.com project and operating costs. Balance of $1.5 million was rescinded on May 18, 2004." TomPaine.com was founded in 1999 by John Moyers, Bill's son, and he left in 2003, before the 2004 Schumann grant. But the Florence and John Schumann Foundation, which was the Center's earlier name, also supported TomPaine.com with an earlier $2.5 million grant via The Florence Fund in 2001, according to IRS records. There were also grants in 2006 and 2007 to support the investigative series on PBS called "Expose" and a special edition of NOW on PBS with David Brancaccio on election financing. I have no problems with providing financial support to such things, but what I don't understand is why Bill Moyers, a working journalist, needs to be president of this.

Can't the Schumann Center figure this stuff out for itself? Isn't it enough being able to choose your topics, have a one-hour, prime-time spot on one of the nation's most respected brand-name outlets every week, along with a closing editorial whack at your target of choice? Why be president of a Center handing out millions in grants that can lead, no matter how carefully it is done, to questions of credibility, self-interest and conflict-of-interest, and possibly diminish the impact of the programs, or at least make them vulnerable to critics? I haven't done the research, but is there any other high-profile, or low-profile for that matter, working journalist who is involved in this kind of arrangement? Anybody on 60-Minutes, Frontline, the NewsHour, the New York Times?

(My associate, Marcia Apperson, contributed to the research for this column.)

More from Moyers

Aside from my exchanges with Moyers above, he asked to be allowed the following comments since my column would link to the full Bozell attack upon him as well as the earlier 2003 article in The Weekly Standard. Here's Moyers' letter:

"Dear Michael Getler:

"This is how they do it: Bozell issues an attack. Then his sidekick follows up with a second one. They have been quoting that now very old Stephen Hayes piece [in The Weekly Standard] since it ran, never once mentioning anything of my lengthy rebuttal. Since you've been in the mix, they will do yet another column quoting the PBS ombudsman on their attack in such a way as to make their case appear legitimate rather than ideological. I know that you must be on to them, as they take swipes at you, too.

"But, they've been at this ever since Nixon and Pat Buchanan, his director of communications, set out to defund public broadcasting. Bozell and his team launched their offensive more than 20 years ago, and have continued with no regard for accuracy or evidence and no one challenging the legitimacy of ideologically driven attacks. It's one reason a chill developed over the years in the public affairs atmosphere of public television. It's bizarre, frankly, how successful they have been. It's why I suggested you ought to take a look at Bozell's Media Research Center in order to provide your readers the ideological context of quotes from Bozell and Graham or the links you provide.

"One example, MRC asks others for transparency it won't itself provide. Take a look online at the latest year for which it posts a tax return (2007). Although it indicates revenue that year of over $11 million dollars, it doesn't identify the funders. Every funder to a public broadcast identifies the funders on the air. The Schumann Center posts its grantees online. If Schumann funds a broadcast, that's publicly stated.

"MRC operates by a double standard. Long before you came to PBS, it set out — with grants from Bradley, Scaife, Olin, Castle Rock, and Carthage foundations, all prime funders of the conservative movement — to discredit mainstream journalists in order in order to advance the right's political aims. Bozell and MRC are right-wing operatives. As Howard Kurtz reported in the Washington Post, June 28, 2004, 'Bozell's Media Research Center has raised $2.8 million for newspaper ads in 15 markets, billboards in 40 cities, and a talk-radio blitz aimed at countering what he sees as a 'liberal jihad' that is unfair to President Bush. The slogan is not exactly subtle. A finger-pointing Uncle Sam declares: 'Don't believe the liberal media!'' That is just one example. Doesn't it seem to you that MRC attacks on public broadcasting should be put in such a context? Otherwise they get away with attacking a Wendell Potter for supporting 'socialized medicine' when in fact Potter identified himself as a capitalist on the air and when in fact not a single variety of 'public option' being discussed in Washington would have doctors and nurses employed by the government or prevent a patient from choosing his or her on doctor.

"Such a context would also help readers of your column see why Bozell was not telling the truth when, for example, he writes that Potter and Moyers discussed how Michael Moore's film 'was a misunderstood work of genius.' Neither of us used that language. It would also help your own audience understand why Bozell would attack us for covering different alternatives to health care reform that had been ignored by Congressional committees (Baucus wouldn't admit any testimony by an advocate of a single payer system at his hearings until after we dealt with the subject on BMJ), the White House, and the Washington media, including PBS broadcasts — despite the fact that polls by NBC, CBS, the WSJ, and the NYT show that those alternatives have considerable support in the public at large. I don't have a personal opinion on what health care reform should be adopted, but I do believe that PBS has an obligation to foster discussion of alternatives that are otherwise blacked out from the official agenda inside the beltway. But that's exactly what the Bozells of the world don't want to happen.

"I'm not advocating that you ignore ideological attacks on PBS or on me, but only that you help your readers understand where they are coming from.

Bill Moyers"

On Other Linkages

When I than asked about the earlier relations and links between what was then the Florence and John Schumann Foundations and John Moyers, Bill's son, and TomPaine.com, Moyer's deputy, relaying her notes from an interview with Moyers, said this:

"John Moyers was the program officer at Schumann when it was the Florence and John Schumann Foundation. The two brothers, Ford and Robert Schumann, had a special affinity for John, having met him when he proposed an environmental series for NPR which they funded (that's how he came to work for the Foundation later.) When John Moyers then proposed to them creating a web operation based in Washington as an independent operation, they agreed. Bill recused himself from the decision because of the father-son relationship, but he was pleased with their decision. They formed a new entity called the Florence Fund (named after the late mother of the two brothers) with a separate board of directors and with John as its publisher and editor. Bill had no input in the operation but was very proud when John Moyers created a very successful Web journal for which he received the Herblock Award for outstanding independent journalism at an occasion in Washington at which Bill was asked to speak. After five years of working seven days a week and practically around the clock, John was exhausted and resigned to return to Vermont where he is an environmentalist and in business. He has twice declined the Schumann brothers' invitation to take over the Schumann Center as Bill's successor because he prefers his life in Vermont.

"Incidentally, since you are so curious about the Schumann Center, you will perhaps want to know that Bill met the family in 1986 when the then president of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation, Bill Mullins, read in the New York Times that Moyers was leaving CBS News to start his own independent production company to create programs for public broadcasting. Mullins introduced him to the Schumanns who then made a large grant to help launch the operation. Over the next three years Bill made periodic reports in person to the Schumann Board. In 1991, when that original grant had been expended, the family on its own volition made a $6 million grant to PAT (Public Affairs Television). When Bill Mullins suddenly was stricken with a raging cancer that took his life in six months, the family asked Bill to succeed him even while continuing his journalism. His decision to accept meant that PAT would have to rescind the $6 million to the foundation — which PAT did — because it would have been inappropriate for the Foundation he was then running to support his own work on the air. Since assuming the presidency at the Foundation, no Schumann funds have ever been used for Bill's own journalism or for any PAT programming.

"By the way, according to MRC's 2007 990 returns, Brent Bozell's son David received $83,250 for his 'employment services.'"