Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Watching 'Doctor Who' in the United States meant I was always behind the times - PBS didn't get new episodes until two years after they ran, and I was aware of the show's cancellation before the characters themselves knew, at least in my corner of the world.
We have to defeat them on the battlefield and in the marketplace of ideals. And PBS, I believe, owed the nation the chance to hear the moderate Muslim voices who decry terrorism and Jihadism, and they didn't give them that chance, and that's a terrible thing.
Jeff Smith was the Julia Child of my generation. When his television show, 'The Frugal Gourmet,' made its debut on PBS in the 1980s, it conveyed such genuine enthusiasm for cooking that I was moved for the first time to slap down cold cash for a collection of recipes.
When I was much younger, my siblings and I would routinely tune in to watch 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' on PBS. He was a fascinating instructor bent on helping kids achieve a basic understanding of science. When he engaged in politics, it was only very briefly if at all.
A generation ago, or two, when there were three channels, plus PBS, and when you needed - when you needed 15 million people to make a living, the media could focus on the broad country. And most people had no choice about getting political information. It was there at 6:30 whether you wanted it or not.
I'm a walking advertisement for PBS and for the Discovery Channel. All of my DVR settings are pretty much set to record anything that's on the Discovery Channel. I'm a big fan of 'MythBusters' and 'Deadliest Catch,' and I'm constantly watching 'Moyers & Company' and the 'NewsHour' and 'Antiques Roadshow.'
We believed - and I personally still believe - that the so called Voice of God narration, ubiquitous in documentaries destined for PBS, is insulting to the audience. If you believe in the intelligence of your audience, you don't need to tell them what to think and how to process the material they're seeing.
PBS was just such an awesome resource for a child's early development. And now I realize Mister Rogers is also an awesome resource for an adult's development because his philosophies are just timeless and are so relevant and are so important and are so simple and just something we can all grasp onto easily.
I'd like my grandkids to be able to watch PBS. But I'm not willing to borrow money from China, and make my kids have to pay the interest on that, and my grandkids, over generations, as opposed to saying to PBS, 'Look, you're going to have to raise more money from charitable contributions or from advertising.'
I started as a child, in this PBS series 'Voyage of the Mimi,' which led to driving down to New York for 'Afterschool Special' auditions, which led to moving to Los Angeles. I wanted to be an actor. But in L.A., I got into film technology, and I was building cheap editing systems and would edit my friend's acting reels.
If there is anything good to be said about my particular line of work, it's that we get to tell people the news they need to hear, and to put it in context. To get to that - for one hour every night on the 'PBS NewsHour,' and for an additional half-hour every Friday night on 'Washington Week,' we have to slog through a lot of tough stuff.
At the end [when I speak about] magma under us everywhere, how it's monumentally indifferent to scurrying roaches, recoiled reptiles, and vapid humans alike. You see, you would never hear anything like that in a National Geographic or a PBS movie. This is clearly a transgression when it comes to being politically correct with your commentary.
In my opinion, the most important thing as a woman leader-and I learned this early through a whole bunch of great women who were in my life (and men, I have to say)-is that if you have a position of leadership and power and you don't use it in a different way, then you're wasting it. So when people used to say to me when I was the first woman president of PBS, "Well, you know, does that mean that as a woman you're going to be a different kind of president?" And I would say, "Well, I hope so!"
The earliest stand-up comedy I was aware of was Bill Cosby. I watched Saturday Night Live as soon as I was aware of it, and Monty Python used to be on PBS at weird hours, so I used to try to watch that. And I loved George Carlin on SNL, that was the first stand-up I ever really remember seeing on TV. And then Steve Martin. I guess I was in fifth or sixth grade when Steve Martin showed up, and he was instantly my idol. And Richard Pryor around the same time too, I sort of became aware of him, though I don't remember the first time I saw him.
