Public Broadcasting Service

I've never watched the Daystar Television Network, but I can confidently say its programmers aren't interested in the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling saga. Probably a little too much punching for a Christian broadcasting station. Too bad. The Louis-Schmeling story, which unfolded in the late 1930s in the United States and Germany, offers a terrific history lesson, not to mention a couple of great knockouts. It tells the tale of an American hero, Joe Louis.

ABC and PBS tied for the lead as nominations for the 26th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards were released Thursday. Each had 27, spread among a wide array of programs, from ABC's "World News Tonight" and "Good Morning America" to PBS' "Frontline" and "Nova" series. Also receiving double-figure nominations were NBC with 21, the History Channel with 14 and CBS with 10. Winners will be announced in New York on Sept. 19 by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Bowing to calls to delay the selection of a new president amid concern that the leading candidate was too partisan, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to wait until Wednesday to choose a new chief executive. Public broadcasting stations and a group of Democrats on Capitol Hill had pressed Kenneth Y.

If you're a fan of public radio or television, there's a good chance your local station will hit you up with another appeal this week. Only this time, broadcast executives aren't asking for money -- they want you to lobby Congress.

PBS moved to inoculate itself Tuesday against charges that the taxpayer-funded service had a liberal slant, updating its editorial standards and announcing plans to hire an ombudsman. The moves come amid ongoing friction between the Public Broadcasting Service and Republican leaders of the private Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes federal funds to PBS stations.

The growing controversy over the Bush administration's attempts to replace what it sees as a "liberal bias" in PBS programming with what would appear to be "conservative bias" has forced me to think the unthinkable -- or at least the heretical, certainly in my cultural/ideological circle: Do we really want or need PBS anymore?

PBS President Pat Mitchell maintained Tuesday that the taxpayer-supported network is independent and free of political bias, rejecting Republican arguments that there is a need for more conservative programming to balance the content of public television. In her first public response to criticism that PBS suffers from a liberal reputation, Mitchell cited public polls that have repeatedly found that a majority of Americans view the network as objective and fair.

Two Democratic congressmen called Wednesday for an investigation into recent activities by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, suggesting that efforts by the Republican chairman of the private nonprofit to put more conservative programs on PBS might violate federal law. In a letter released Wednesday evening, Reps. David Obey of Wisconsin and John D. Dingell of Michigan asked CPB Inspector General Kenneth A.

Public television officials are increasingly fearful that PBS is reemerging as a political football after a series of efforts by Republicans to promote more conservative perspectives on the taxpayer-supported network.

You can grasp Carol Sauvion's story in a piece of clay. Make it mountains of clay, and add acres of weavings and galaxies of jewelry and bins of walking sticks and shelves of wooden spoons and platters of glass and armloads of silken scarves, and that's Sauvion's too, the story of things made by hand to please the eye. It's a story that began to take rough shape in the 1960s, when Sauvion lived in New York in the vortex of the country's folk and pop music scene. She was a potter.