A new documentary called Spies of Mississippi takes a look at the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a state agency that served as a political surveillance tool in the 1950s and ’60s, keeping tabs on civil rights activists.
As a review in the New York Times (2/10/14) notes:
A shadowy government entity exercising questionable powers in the name of a vaguely defined goal? It’s not hard to draw a parallel between the commission and today’s government activity in the name of homeland security.
It sounds like a pretty timely film, then, and it’s being made available this evening to PBS stations around the country, thanks to the series Independent Lens.
But it won’t be airing tonight on WETA, the public television station serving the nation’s capital. Instead, viewers will see, according to the WETA website, two episodes of Antiques Roadshow and a show about the British royal family called The Queen’s Diamond Decades. Spies of Mississippi will be shown at 11 pm on a Saturday night–not exactly a prime spot.
Spies of Mississippi filmmaker Dawn Porter called out WETA in an open letter (2/6/14), pointing out that the channel was not airing any of the Black History Month programming available through PBS in prime time:
I was dismayed to find out that instead of airing in primetime on Monday at 10 pm, it will air in the Washington, DC, area on Saturday, February 15 at 11:00 pm. Upon reviewing the programming schedule for WETA TV 26, it seems that NONE of the PBS programming for Black History Month will air during prime time.
In place of Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, the primetime slots on Friday, 7 February, feature re-runs of Downton Abbey and Sherlock. Instead of airing the documentary American Promise, the Sundance Film Festival award-winning film, which chronicles the stories of two African-American students in NYC and engages in a meaningful discussion of contemporary issues regarding race and class, WETA aired Antiques Roadshow and a program about the British Royal family.
She added: “Your public service mission is to educate, inspire and evoke constructive civic discourse. Burying films that help advance these goals is an embarrassment to your station and the PBS brand it carries.”
WETA responded by saying that yes, they “are offering over 39 hours (20 different series) of programming during Black History Month,” along with a link showing the programming it has in mind–most of which will be airing during weekday afternoons or late at night. “We’re proud of the job we’re doing” on Black History Month, WETA spokesperson Kate Kelly told Current (2/7/14)
Howard University professor Michael Fauntroy (Huffington Post, 2/7/14) didn’t think they had much to be proud of. He wrote:
The scheduling of Spies is not an isolated issue. A review of WETA‘s schedule confirms that no PBS‘s Black History Month programming will air in prime time. No prime time Black History Month programming from one of the most powerful public television stations in the country that serves a media market with the highest proportion of African American university graduates and one of the nation’s highest proportions of African Americans.
He added:
While I understand the economics, public television should not mimic the programming decisions of their commercial counterparts. American culture won’t be diminished if, during the shortest month of the year, the country gets to see more stories about the contributions of African Americans.
On the WETA Facebook page, underneath the station’s defense of its programming choices, one user weighed in: “39 hours but not one in primetime and not one program that hasn’t already aired on PBS. That conveys a message.” Indeed it does.
Not that long ago, black folks were barred from many public accommodations.
Now, that history will be largely barred from the primetime public airwaves in the nation’s capital.
Apparently, WETA senses no irony in that.
The local PBS station here in Las Vegas is airing THREE HOURS of Antiques Roadshow tonight! It’s unbelievable how this insipid program commands (and wastes) so much airtime.
Well, Mr. Ledbetter, Washington DC is still a burgeois town.
Ah they are just following the example of the illustrious “Madam Marie Antoinette”, instead of meat and potatoes, they are serving us fake Cake.
PBS is the mouthpiece of the CFR. They have programmed on NOVA, Why the Fell, two separate and both falsified account about the WTC collapses on 9/11. These misleading accounts were sponsored by the Koch Brothers. Since then, Architects and Engineers has been relentlessly requesting PBS stations to air, Experts Speak Out, Explosive Evidence and they have never done so…. with the exception of their one station in Colorado which did air the film which became the most watch, most requested program ever for that station. However, PBS never listed it in their programming schedule.. anywhere in the USA. No, PBS and NPR are traitors to the people. Do not trust them, do not fund them.
This is very sad WETA. It doesn’t seem that many kids will be able to watch the shows due to school and late hours. You had a whole Black History Month to do, so it’s even sadder that the schecule seems so “less than” what it should have been.
Maybe the people who planed this don’t know any Black History?
Schools didn’t use to have anything about African Americans and their contributions, but you can fix this because you still have time left in the month.
Ask the viewing audience who their favorite writers, inventors, politicians, designers, artists, photographers, judges….you have lots
of choices and really, and you should have people who know these things working with you. See what teaching to the test does. : )
PBS; is supposed to stand for Public Broadcasting System…isn’t it? You are leaving out a lot of the PUBLIC……… so, until you can fix this
maybe PBS will have to stand for Pretty Bland Stuff, and nobody wants to give money to that! Why don’t you start with the novel, THE INVISIBLE MAN, and go from there. I am being rude, but WETA, you deserve it.
David Barsamian years ago wrote a book slamming PBS. The Neocons never give up trying to defund PBS and yet people keep defending it with the logic that its meeting at best 1% of its mandate is better than having no such channel at all. Labor has NEVER been able to air any program it EVER produced – at all, in any time frame, including some award-winning documentaries – but Labor is one of the voices were supposed to be able to hear on PBS. Perhaps the thing to do is just pull the plug on them and try again in another decade with entirely new leadership that promises to fight for the viewers or resign for not trying. Give them one more chance to shape up (do what the mandate required), ship out (current management resigns), or just go away altogther – just like “Democracy”, it was a good idea but it got killed by the Peter Principle, moneyed interests, neonazis and the “best intentions” of the Quisling-Vichy-Democratic Party.
And yes, “Antiques Road Show” is actually a sneaky way to air a program that asks the audience to find ever more synonyms for the word “insipid.”
It might be worth saving PBS if they converted to a format of 100% reruns of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show and nothing else. That, and by now apparently only that, would definitely escalate the sophistication and intelligence of their content.
This is now on the WETA FB page (as of late 2/14):
WETA shared a link.
12 hours ago
TOMORROW: Don’t miss Independent Lens film “Spies of Mississippi”, which tells the story of a secret spy agency formed by the state of Mississippi to preserve segregation during the 1950s and ‘60s. Granted broad powers, this commission investigated citizens and organizations in attempts to derail the civil rights movement.
Interested? Tune in at 11pm Saturday night, right after “Doc Martin”.
I just watched this on WETA, 11 pm on Sat., 2/15. Not prime time, but I was happy to find it. By accident. I wanted to learn more so I started Googling and found this blog. I hadn’t realized this documentary got buried in this time slot. That’s pretty disgusting.
You need to read this about PBS.
http://pando.com/2014/02/12/the-wolf-of-sesame-street-revealing-the-secret-corruption-inside-pbss-news-division/
PBS is a sellout to the corporate class. It’s integrity is compromised and can only be restored by an ac tive public demanding accountability and withholding financial support till PBS lives up to its name and claims of “independence”.
PBS was always boring for the most part.Raising their own funds instead of getting government dole has not made it much better.But I love the correlation here between the deep south things that went on against the blacks and Homeland security.But I wonder are we talking about HS digging into your private mail….Or are we talking about them buying over 1 billion rounds of high impact ammo and 9000 armored street sweeper cars without any explanation?Cause I have a feeling PBS will do no shows on that.And in comparison do I care more for what blacks went through 50 plus years ago.Nope.One is history.One is as we speak
Notice that in such instances it becomes clear that public broadcasting is not serving the public at all but hidden political (and corporate) interests. This has been going on since I began to study it about 1990. My guess is that it started much sooner than than. When Obama re-signed the Patriot Act legislation (or was it the NDAA?) the national PBS radio story was on the kind of pen the president used to sign the legislation. How’s that for an abdication of their critical function, and an overt distraction of the public mind from issues of dramatic relevance. JWC