NYT: PBS Firing of Host of ‘The Good Night Show’ Draws Protests

[DeepModem Mom]

PBS Firing of Host of ‘The Good Night Show’ Draws Protests
By ELIZABETH JENSEN
Published: August 5, 2006

When it comes to outrage, parents of toddlers know how to make themselves heard.

The Public Broadcasting Service has weathered recent criticism from free-speech advocates saying that the network is being overly cautious in a new policy to censor foul language in nonfiction programs by digitally obscuring the mouths of speakers. But the outcry has been dwarfed by the thousands of complaints, mostly from parents, over the PBS Kids Sprout network’s firing of Melanie Martinez, the host of “The Good Night Show,” after learning that she appeared years ago in two videos spoofing public service announcements advocating teenage sexual abstinence.

As the controversy has escalated, Ms. Martinez, a 34-year-old New York actress who is married and the mother of a 3-year-old, has become for many a symbol of political expediency run amok. On Thursday PBS’s own ombudsman, Michael Getler, tackled the topic for a second time and wrote that Ms. Martinez’s firing had “too much of a whiff of after-the-fact loyalty oaths and purity checks on performers who do lots of different things.”...

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As host of “The Good Night Show,” a block of evening series that includes “Dragon Tales,” “Bob the Builder” and “Thomas & Friends,” Ms. Martinez introduced cartoons and demonstrated arts and crafts between the segments. “I had the best time making it,” she said. “It was two glorious seasons that I filmed.”

The 30-second videos that led to her firing, made in 2000 and 2001, graphically satirized abstinence programs but were not pornographic. They were downloaded some two million times from a Web site called technicalvirgin.com that was once lauded by Maxim and Howard Stern but has since been dismantled....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/05/arts/television/05pbs.html

[w4rma]

1. I hope the public is successful in getting her back on the show. (nt)

[CBHagman]

2. Here's the link for PBS contacts, including ombudsman.

http://www.pbs.org/aboutsite/aboutsite_feedback.html

I belong to one of the local PBS stations (yes, we're spoiled here) and hope I have a lot of company on DU. It's as important to tell them about what you're enjoying as it is to tell them what troubles you.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thank you, CB! nt

[sendero]

3. Those "spoofs"..

..... were clearly political speech. Nobody should be fired from that kind of job for expressing an opinion, especially one that everyone with half a brain shares.