All politics aside in PBS series

NEW YORK — "America at a Crossroads" did not get off to an auspicious start. From the beginning, the ambitious $20-million effort to examine the complexities of the post-Sept. 11 world through a series of documentaries -- an initiative of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit that distributes federal funds to public television and radio -- was greeted with skepticism.

Independent producers and local station programmers, alarmed that CPB officials at the time were agitating for more conservatives on the air, feared the venture was driven by a political agenda. Tensions flared publicly at a March 2004 forum in Manhattan, where hostile audience members exchanged angry accusations with a panel assembled to discuss the project.

"This whole thing stinks," declared an employee of the National Black Programming Consortium.

Since then, tempers have cooled substantially.

The 11-part "Crossroads" series that will air in prime time next week on PBS has received largely positive reviews in the public broadcasting community, including from many station executives initially wary of it.

"I would not have said this was my first choice for where we should have put our efforts," said Ron Pisaneschi, director of broadcasting at Idaho Public Television. "We have limited amounts of funds at our disposal and we have a lot of different things we could spend it on. But at the end of the day, I think we have 11 documentaries that are pretty darn strong."

Three years in the making, "Crossroads" serves as a measure of how much public broadcasting has succeeded in moving past the political tumult that recently gripped it.

"I think the system is working together very strongly now," said Greg Diefenbach, CPB's new senior vice president of television programming. "This series evidences that public broadcasting is alive and well."

Such sentiment was rarely expressed several years ago, when discord erupted as Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, then-chairman of the CPB board, sought to right what he saw as a liberal tilt in public broadcasting. Tomlinson resigned in November 2005 after the corporation's inspector general found that his efforts -- which included consulting with White House aides and monitoring the political leanings of guests on public affairs shows -- broke federal law and violated CPB rules.