Common Cause picked up on today's New Yorker article (see below), charging that CPB is now acting as "the agent of ideological interference" instead of playing its original heat-shield role. CPB is backing two new programs hosted by conservatives at the same time PBS is halving the length of Bill Moyers' program, the lobbying group said.

A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist vents her frustration with the BBC Newshour, which some public radio stations carry. (Via Romenesko. Reg. req. Bugmenot.com is a useful tool for dealing with website registrations, by the way.)

The right wing has stopped trying to kill PBS and is now seeking a larger voice in shaping it, writes media chronicler Ken Auletta in today's New Yorker. "Big Bird Flies Right: How Republicans learned to love PBS" [text not online] reports that PBS plans to add CPB-backed programs hosted by Paul Gigot of Wall Street Journal and conservative critic Michael Medved (co-hosting with a liberal). Auletta says PBS President Pat Mitchell was thwarted from signing Newt Gingrich to host a Friday-night show because Fox News had him under contract. But PBS didn't pursue the idea of a program for middle-schoolers to be hosted by the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, proposed by producer Michael Pack before he joined CPB.