CPB Board nominees survive hearing unscarred

Three new nominees for CPB Board seats plus two nominated for reappointment came down decisively in favor of public broadcasting during a Senate hearing yesterday. The genial give-and-take is captured in a video webcast of the hearing on the Senate website (drag the cursor past 31 minutes, to avoid dead air). New nominees, as reported in Current, are Hollywood attorney Bruce M. Ramer, educator and APTS Board member Liz Sembler and Nevada broadcast journalist Loretta Sutliff (known in Elko as Lori Gilbert), who spoke up for local reporting. Coming back for second terms are Republican activist and former CPB Chair Cheryl Halpern and former Democratic senator and governor David Pryor. Written testimony of nominees, except for Pryor, also is posted. Pryor spoke via video feed from Little Rock, where the state Democratic Party drafted him to succeed the state party chair, who was fatally shot in the party's offices Aug. 13. (The killing remains unexplained, and the suspected gunman himself was fatally shot by police.)