Rest in Peace: The Dearly Beloved and Respected PBS: "Twenty-five years ago the U.S. government and Mobil Oil strongly pressured PBS to pull a documentary film about the public execution (or slaughter, as it turned out) of a young princess in Saudi Arabia. The British government also weighed in.

PBS refused to give way. The film aired--and what a buzz it created!

Those days are over. PBS can no longer resist political pressure. This year alone there have been two known shameful instances of caving in to sectarian or political demands--and who knows how much self-censorship.

The first involved a Children’s Television series dedicated to introducing children to variants of loving family life in America. A segment involving a lesbian couple and their children in Vermont was squashed. About the same time there was a brouhaha over whether Sponge Bob Square Pants, a great children’s favorite, was promoting homosexuality!

Later a Frontline human interest piece on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, in itself a bit of political pandering to make up for the program’s earlier airing of strongly critical items, had to warn viewers of foul language to come. Frontline also had to provide local stations with a cleaned up version for watchers unable to face the truth of how their kids actually talk.

As a New York Times critic observed in reviewing the rebroadcast of ‘Death of a Princess,’ PBS has been ‘emasculated’ by pressure from Christian fundamentalists and conservatives."

(Via WhirledView.)