Current.org - For People in Public Media / Published at American University School of Communication

Few docs as substantial as The Principal Story, which airs on P.O.V. Sept. 15, are funded in full by a single angel, but this one was. The Wallace Foundation didn’t choose to cover the whole cost to make independent producers’ lives easier, though the grant did that. Continue reading →

Viewers like you — by name — have literally moved to the front of the line in underwriting credits at WQED in Pittsburgh. Since mid-August, a Mary Jones or Joe Smith of Anytown, Pa., who donated as little as $40 … Continue reading →

WGBH and WNET are “re-imaging and re-engineering” the PBS World documentary-oriented multicast channel, which has been picked up by only about 40 of the 170-plus public TV licensees. Continue reading →

Could CPB have avoided the public collision of wills over one of the America at a Crossroads documentaries that tainted its $20 million project in 2007 about the post-9/11 world? Determining that, in effect, was the assignment that Cheryl Halpern, … Continue reading →

The America at a Crossroads series and the 2007 standoff and furor over one of its documentaries, Islam vs. Islamists;, had its roots in the period of Republican dominance of the CPB Board. See related story. 2003 February 2003 CPB … Continue reading →

Too many couples were splitting up before the offspring came along. Or they lived together grumpily, keenly aware they shouldn’t have had that second date. Ellen Schneider and her crew saw it was time for an intervention. Schneider’s San Francisco company, Active Voice, has published a 25-page booklet to turn things around: “The Prenups: What Filmmakers and Funders Should Talk About Before Tying the Knot.” Continue reading →

Austin City Limits is a hot commodity based on a cool brand built over 33 years on PBS. In two years it moves its entire production site downtown in the Texas capital city to a cornerstone 2,500-seat theater in a $300 million redevelopment. Continue reading →