Mississippi pubTV head departs in wake of Fresh Air controversy

Judith Lewis has resigned as executive director of the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, nine weeks after Mississippi Public Broadcasting abruptly dropped Fresh Air from its radio schedule July 8, citing “recurring inappropriate content” in the show. In the announcement of her departure, the Authority Board of Directors said it is in the process of filling the position. "Business as usual continues at MPB," it added.

The July 8 move was the the second time in nine months that MPB had yanked Gross’s cultural talk show from the air (Current, July 26, 2010).

Also, an MPB reporter's leak to a local alternative paper of the internal memo discussing the Fresh Air situation cost him his job. Carl Gibson sent the memo from his newsroom computer. The memo revealed that the network canceled the show within 24 hours of the broadcast of the interview in question.