Something’s Not Right on Channel 11

The director of programming at WTTW won’t be goaded into what he calls “the labeling game.” WTTW has just added two distinctive new shows to its schedule, but Andy Yocom denies that any sort of ideological imbalance is being redressed. “I think we get all points of view in the programming we get from our national sources,” says Yocom defensively.

We asked him what he liked about the show. Yocom echoed Cohen. “Oh, I guess I would have to say I like the fact it sometimes deals with issues that are not presented with any regularity on television.”

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Such as? “Oh, let’s see,” Yocom replied. “How about the use of nuclear weapons for strategic purposes without actually dropping a bomb?”

Kwitny is pleased that Chicago is finally getting a glimpse of his efforts, chiefly so they’ll be visible to the city’s philanthropists. After six months of what Kwitny says has been editorial interference by station management–although the given reason is a lack of resources–The Kwitny Report was canceled by WNYC, the small PBS affiliate that produced it. Unless he finds new underwriters, The Kwitny Report is going under.

Forget all the other labels. The important way public TV shows sort out is into the ones that big business is happy to back and the ones that scrape along or go bust. “Corporate underwriters decide who gets on and who doesn’t,” said Jeff Cohen. “John McLaughlin has become center stage on television from his conservative background because corporations would underwrite him.”

And not just the Sun-Times and Tribune. The next week’s Skokie Review didn’t run a word, even though the Review was there for the press conference at Gerber’s Skokie home when she said “it is clear the Sun-Times acted from panic and fear.” A story was written, distributed by the Review to the other papers in the Pioneer Press’s central group, and actually appeared a week later in two Pioneer papers with early deadlines. Then it vanished.

Prairie News

A couple of weeks ago, you probably recall–although the announcement was made at the height of the Bulls-Pistons series–the developers Miglin and Beitler said they wanted to put up a 1,914-foot-tall building.