PBS Examines Kentucky's Case

"On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear cases from four states that currently have gay marriage bans: Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky. The NewsHour talked to two different Kentucky families whose personal stories launched the court case."

Pew Ranks "Trusted" News Outlets

From the Pew Research report:

Those with consistently conservative political values are oriented around a single outlet—Fox News—to a much greater degree than those in any other ideological group: Nearly half (47%) of those who are consistently conservative name Fox News as their main source for government and political news. Far fewer choose any other single source: Local radio ranks second, named by 11%, with no other individual source named by more than 5% of consistent conservatives. Those with mostly conservative views also gravitate strongly toward Fox News – 31% name it as their main source, several times the share who name the next most popular sources, including CNN (9%), local television (6%) and radio (6%) and Yahoo News (6%).

On the left of the political spectrum, no single outlet predominates. Among consistent liberals, CNN (15%), NPR (13%), MSNBC (12%) and the New York Times (10%) all rank near the top of the list. CNN is named by just 20% of those with mostly liberal views, but still tops their list, followed by local television (11%) and NPR (9%). Both MSNBC and Fox News are mentioned by 5% of those who are mostly liberal. Those in other ideological groups name the New York Times, NPR and MSNBC less frequently as top news sources.

Respondents with a roughly equal mix of liberal and conservative values also have a diffuse mix of news providers. CNN (20%) and local television (16%) are the most frequently-named top sources, with a long list of other news sources named by fewer than one-in-ten. Fox News (8%) is among the most-named sources in this “long tail,” along with Yahoo News (7%) and Google News (6%), both of which primarily aggregate and highlight news produced by other outlets.

For the record, I highly trust last place Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner.

Liberace On His Outfits

Slate recaps this newly-animated interview posted by PBS:

Liberace explains his kitschy sartorial choices to journalist Jay Kent Hackleman in the summer of 1968. The conversation, which crackles with a kind of adversarial energy from the start, is telling: The interviewer’s initial annunciation of “garb” is soaked in knowing hostility, and Liberace immediately defends his super-gay style in terms of currents in men’s fashion: “The male peacock is beginning to show his true plumage.” Indeed. By the end, Liberace’s determination to contextualize his campy, effeminate clothes in any terms other than homosexuality leads to a rather bizarre discussion of social welfare programs and the moral value of the entertainer in society. The snippet is a fascinating look inside the closet (both kinds) of the man, and one that proves Liberace was as talented a rhetorician as he was a piano player.

SUNDAY: PBS Debuts Britain's Vicious, Gay Sitcom Starring Ian McKellan

Via the New York Times:

If it is surprising to see esteemed actors like Mr. McKellen and Mr. Jacobi trading barbs in a traditional, multicamera sitcom recorded in front of a studio audience, “Vicious” further astonished British audiences, when it ran on ITV last year, with its very premise. It cast Mr. McKellen (of the “X-Men” and “Hobbit” movies) and Mr. Jacobi (“I, Claudius”) as two fussy, feuding partners in a gay relationship of nearly 50 years. “Vicious” was successful enough to earn a second season, but it was also criticized by British publications like The Stage, which said that its “gay characters are nothing more than camp stereotypes” and that the scenarios “bear no resemblance to the lives of the viewers at home,” while The Guardian wrote that the series “cheerfully trades in clichés of homosexuality.” As “Vicious” arrives in the United States, the debate over its depictions of gay men reopens an argument that has confronted American comedies like “Will & Grace,” “Glee,” “Modern Family” and other shows with gay characters. Is a television character who exhibits stereotypically gay qualities a stereotype himself? Or does the presence of such figures demonstrate that TV is making progress on gay representation? And who gets to decide what attributes are offensive, or stereotypical or gay?

PBS: The Tide Is Turning On Marriage

Opening with a brief look at NOM's hate march, yesterday PBS aired the below recap of the coming wave of rulings on same-sex marriage.

(Tipped by JMG reader Richard)

TRAILER: The Day It Snowed In Miami

Especially relevant in light of today's passing of former Florida Gov. Reubin Askew, coming soon to PBS is a documentary about Anita Bryant and Miami's famed battle for LGBT rights. The film premiered last week in Miami Beach. For those too young, some back story:

As promotion of civil rights for African Americans, women and other disadvantaged groups expanded, a handful of gay communities, notably in New York and San Francisco, started to speak out. None of those communities, however, were in the South. It was not a gay public official who brought the issue to Miami; there were virtually no openly gay public officials in those days save for San Francisco’s supervisor Harvey Milk. It was a Metro Dade County commissioner, Ruth Shack, who proposed an ordinance to protect county residents against employment and housing discrimination on the basis of “affectional or sexual preference.” She just thought it was the right thing to do. The measure passed on the frigid night of Jan. 18, 1977. The next morning, it snowed for the only time in Miami’s recorded history.

A backlash quickly ensued, led by Anita Bryant. She was a 1959 Miss America runner-up who went on to a moderately successful singing career. By 1977 her main gig was as a TV spokeswoman for Florida orange juice. Bryant and her husband at the time, Bob Green, were evangelical Christians. (Ruth Shack’s husband happened to be Bryant’s booking agent, until he resigned amid the gay-rights battle.) Backed by an assortment of church groups, Bryant’s organization, Save the Children, Inc., quickly gathered far more than the necessary 10,000 signatures to put the new ordinance to a referendum. A few months later, with a heavy turnout, voters repealed the law by a 2-1 margin.

The film debuts nationwide on PBS later this year.

RELATED: Miami Herald reporter Steve Rothous, one of the film's producers, wrote today about Askew.

Askew, according to his obit in the Miami Herald, was a "fiercely determined advocate" for racial equality. He was no friend to the gay community. As documented in the new Miami Herald/WPBT2 film by Joe Cardona, The Day It Snowed In Miami, Askew firmly stood by friend Anita Bryant and supported repeal of Miami-Dade County's gay-rights ordinance. Said Askew in 1977: "If I were living in Dade County, I would have no hesitation in voting to repeal the ordinance. I do not want a known homosexual teaching my child and I think that a person ought to have the right to determine whether or not they want someone with that known lifestyle living on their premises." Two years later, during his confirmation hearing to be U.S. Trade Representative under President Jimmy Carter, Askew testified in the Senate that he would not knowingly hire a gay person.

(Tipped by JMG reader John)

Downton Abbey Returns Tonight

Sesame Street: Kim Catrall Is Fabulous

The first comment at YouTube: "Why is the 'whore' from sex and the city on sesame Street? Is this what we want our young women to aspire too?"

NORTH CAROLINA: Orson Scott Card Appointed To Board Of PBS Affiliate

Anti-gay science fiction author and former NOM board member Orson Scott Card has been appointed to the board of trustees for UNC-TV, the University of North Carolina's PBS affiliate that broadcasts over 12 stations into four states.

"We are pleased to welcome Mr. Card to the UNC-TV Board of Trustees,” said Robb Teer, chairman of the UNC-TV Board of Trustees, in a written statement. “We are grateful for his willingness to serve and look forward to working with him to continue providing the people of our state with enriching, life-changing television in these challenging times.” Not mentioned is recent controversy around Card's political writings, published in Greensboro's Rhinoceros Times. A May 2013 column compared President Barack Obama to Hitler and Stalin. "Obama is, by character and preference, a dictator. He hates the very idea of compromise; he demonizes his critics and despises even his own toadies in the liberal press," Card wrote.

Card was appointed by North Carolina state Senate President Phil Berger, who this week hinted that he will challenge Democratic US Sen. Kay Hagen in 2014. Berger is notoriously anti-gay.  NOM, for its part, has never announced or explained Card's departure from their board. (Tipped by JMG reader Gary)

PBS News Hour On Chelsea Manning

With an interview with Allyson Robinson.

TRAILER: The Revisionaries

Tomorrow night PBS will air The Revisionaries, which examines the Texas Board Of Education and its campaign to insert Christianist dogma into public school textbooks.

RELATED: Visit the PBS blog Independent Lens for "ten interesting lessons from creationist textbooks." They link the below clip as an "in a nutshell" recounting of what's already being taught in some schools.

TRAILER: Inventing David Geffen

It airs tonight on PBS at 8PM. The New York Times has a review.  An excerpt:

Mr. Geffen’s story starts on a classic Hollywood arc: Brooklyn Jewish boyhood, apprenticeship in the William Morris mailroom, quick success as an artist’s manager and record company executive. But then it refuses to follow the usual rise-and-fall trajectory — it just keeps rising, to movie mogul, billionaire and most powerful man in show business. Ms. Lacy’s two-hour film acknowledges the well-documented ruthlessness and volatility — accompanied by shrewdness, drive and, for the lucky, intense loyalty — that fueled Mr. Geffen’s achievements. They’re framed as positive qualities, though some people shake their heads as they say it, and some of his more famous antagonists, like the agent Michael Ovitz, don’t appear. Less flattering examples of hubris, like his long battle against public beach access next to his house in Malibu, or his taste for gargantuan yachts, are not mentioned.

November 3rd: Million Muppet March

Reuters has the story:

Plans to save Big Bird, the fuzzy yellow character on U.S. public television's "Sesame Street," from possible extinction are taking shape in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the "Million Muppet March." The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election. Before the presidential debate between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3, two men who had never met each floated the Million Muppet March idea on social media. They immediately united to defend public broadcasting.

Frothy Mix: I'd Kill Big Bird

"I've voted to kill Big Bird in the past. So, I have a record there that I have to disclose. That doesn't mean I don’t like Big Bird. I mean, you can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them, I don’t know." - Rick Santorum, endorsing Romney's call to defund PBS.

DNC Slams Romney Over Big Bird

Tweet Of The Week

Debate Meme Watch

Live-Streaming Helmet Cam At The DNC

I ran into this young lady several times and she told me that it was difficult to train herself to move her entire head and not just her eyes when she found something interesting. The camera is GoPro and the wireless transmitter is on the back. Somebody wore a similar setup during NYC Pride this year.

Bob Ross Remixed - Happy Little Clouds

Love these remixes by PBS. Reminds me of this classic.

(Via Gothamist)

ALABAMA: Public Television Officials Fired For Objecting To Crackpot David Barton

The Alabama Educational Television Commission has fired two local PBS executives after they objected to the planned airing of a series by historical revisionist David Barton. Barton is known for claiming that there's a biblical basis to every aspect of American law.

AETC Commissioner Rodney Herring, an Opelika-based chiropractor, had provided the series to APT for broadcast consideration. Herring joined the commission last year and was elected board secretary in January. [snip] Herring was appointed by former Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, in early 2011, according to [fired executive Pauline] Howland. She participated in the staff review of Barton’s series. The programs “talked about how our government forefathers were very religious men,” Howland said, “how the country was founded on religious principles, and how we need to go back to that.” The content “was very much advocating that position,” she said. Pizzato and his staff had “grave concerns” that the videos were inappropriate for public broadcasting due to their religious nature, Howland said.

Americans United has more.