Free Republic

Bach might be back on Washington's airwaves, even if the region's only classical music station, WGMS, drops the format. Public broadcaster WETA (90.9 FM) is considering dumping its news-and-talk programming and returning to being a classical broadcaster if the music dies on WGMS, WETA's management said yesterday. In a special meeting Thursday, WETA's board voted to give station executives the green light to consider switching back to classical if WGMS drops the format. Dan DeVany, WETA's vice president and general manager, said the station "could move very quickly" back to classical if circumstances warrant.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Sharon Percy Rockefeller, president of WETA public television in Washington and former board chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has been diagnosed with colorectal cancer, her husband, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said Monday. Rockefeller said his 60-year-old wife will be undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment for the next three months. "Sharon is a fighter, and I know she's going to beat this," Jay Rockefeller said in a statement. "She is a strong and loving person, and we are fortunate to be surrounded by so many supportive friends and relatives." Sharon Rockefeller has served as president and...

Paul Duke, whose storytelling skills and journalistic evenhandedness set the tone for the venerable public television show "Washington Week in Review," has died of leukemia, his former employer WETA-TV said Tuesday. He was 78. Duke died Monday at his home. He was already a political news veteran — having worked for The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and NBC — in 1974 when he began his two-decade stint as the show's moderator. Now called "Washington Week," the Friday night program featuring journalists discussing the week's news is the Public Broadcasting Service's longest running news program. In a recent essay...

On Saturday, March 26, 2005, while watching "Viewer Favorites" on your public television station, I was shocked and offended by the singer Eric Burton - formerly of the group "The Animals" - wearing a Che Guevara shirt while performing a song on a segment of your presentation. As a Cuban American, as a writer and a filmmaker, I am acquainted with the Che as a mass murderer who executed, without trial, many Cubans at La Cabaña fortress in Havana as well as in the Sierra Maestra Mountains before 1959.

Chopin is on the chopping block. Public radio stations in Washington and other cities are dropping classical music from their lineups, replacing it with news and talk shows, especially the increasingly popular offerings from National Public Radio. In the past five years, between 40 and 50 stations that once featured a mix of classical music and news either dropped it or sharply reduced the amount they play, according to Station Resource Group, a Takoma Park consulting group that helps public broadcasters conduct strategic planning. The latest station to join the crowd: WETA-FM (90.9) in the Washington area, which will pull...

ON THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 10, the board of directors of WETA-FM, the only commercial-free classical music station in Washington, D.C., voted overwhelmingly to eliminate its music and arts programming. At the end of this month, someone will flick a switch and--thud!--WETA will fall to earth as just another all-news, all-talk station, and the nation's capital will be left without a public radio station devoted to beautiful and intelligent music.WETA's transformation is a blow to the cultural life of the Washington metropolitan area, of course, which despite its succulent demographics in income and education levels has always struggled to maintain...

Dirty War In an unprecedented arrangement, three provocative films from Home Box Office will be distributed through PBS for broadcast television following their HBO premiere, announced jointly today by Chris Albrecht, chairman and CEO, Home Box Office, and Pat Mitchell, president and CEO, PBS. In addition, HBO and PBS member station WETA Washington, D.C., will co-produce, along with the Council on Foreign Relations, related panel discussions to follow each film on PBS, featuring leading experts and moderated by noted journalist Jeff Greenfield, to follow each film on PBS. "These movies address three of the most important issues of the 21st...

It is a sight that many in the Shirlington area are accustomed to seeing early in the morning — men clad in winter coats, wool hats and steel-toed construction boots, standing on the corner of 28th Street and Shirlington Road. They sip coffee from plastic cups, eyeing the passing cars and pickup trucks. They eat breakfast, laughing and chatting about the day to come, mostly in Spanish. They wait. They are day laborers. Each morning they come to the small pavilion on that corner near Four Mile Run in search of work. The trucks that come to pick them up...

This video featuring WETA Digital's progress on the new Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe film was released on the internet last week. WETA Digital is Peter Jackson's production house that did the amazing special effects work on the LOTR films... judging on the glimpses from the video they won't disappoint. I just hope that the Christian themes aren't left out on the scriptwriting side.

If you've never watched this it is something you won't want to miss....grab a box of kleenex and put a tape in the VCR 'cause you'll want to rewatch it and rewatch it and rewatch it! If you are someone who can't wait to see this concert once a year, enjoy. If you are lucky enough to be going be prepared....if it is anything like the experience I had on the lawn of the Capitol six years ago your life will be changed....it is just too bad Ossie Davis is hosting.

County officials say that the taxpayer-funded “pavilion” for day laborers, which opened in Shirlington late last year to complaints that it was an incentive for illegal immigrants to congregate, has already shot past its anticipated budget and is facing problems of unruly behavior at the site. The pavilion, located at 27th Street South and South Shirlington Road, is open weekdays from 6 a.m. to noon as a place for workers to gather and be picked up by construction and landscaping employers. The Shirlington Education and Employment Center (SEEC) oversees the facility, and the county government provided $30,000 when the facility...

If ever two people living in this metropolitan area stood poles apart, it would be centenarians Strom Thurmond and Elizabeth Campbell, both of whom had impacts on Arlington. Thurmond was a bulwark of racism and whites-only schools; Campbell was a bulwark of humanity, who promoted integration and education in ways that benefited not only Arlington, but also the entire nation. Trent Lott praised Thurmond, who died last year at 101, saying that if Thurmond had been elected as the Dixiecrat president in 1948, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.” Elizabeth Campbell, on the other hand,...

www.foxnews.com WETA Loses NIMBY Fight Friday, August 08, 2003 WASHINGTON — The "Not in My Back Yard" syndrome — often applied to people who support noble causes in theory as long as the structures to support those causes are not built in "their" neighborhoods — has hit the home of programs like the always politically-correct NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (search). The folks at WETA (search), the Washington-area flagship station for the high-brow, culturally aware Public Broadcasting System (search), are vexed by Arlington County, Virginia's proposed $100,000 pavilion to house area day laborers who currently stand on county land near WETA's...

<p>Bleeding-heart liberalism for thee, but not for me. That is the expedient philosophy of the wealthy Rockefeller family.</p> <p>Last week, the Rockefeller rule was on full display at a little-noticed hearing in Arlington County, Va. There, Sharon Percy Rockefeller vehemently objected to one of the left's trendiest pet government projects: publicly subsidized day labor centers for illegal aliens.</p>

After more than three hours spent grilling their staff, and incurring the wrath of one of Arlington’s most prominent employers in the process, a divided County Board last week approved plans to spend $140,000 for a new “pavilion” for day laborers to gather in Shirlington. The 4-1 vote means the new facility will be located at South Shirlington Road and 27th Street South, approximately two blocks south of the more informal gathering spot that has existed for years. Board members had to move on the issue, because the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority is preparing to renovate the W&OD Trail...

Bleeding-heart liberalism for thee, but not for me. That is the expedient philosophy of the wealthy Rockefeller family. Last week, the Rockefeller rule was on full display at a little-noticed hearing in Arlington County, Va. There, Mrs. Sharon Percy Rockefeller vehemently objected to one of the Left's trendiest pet government projects: publicly subsidized day labor centers for illegal aliens. Among the most vocal advocates and funders of these illegal alien shelters? None other than the New York City-based Rockefeller Foundation. Last fall, a Rockefeller Foundation-funded day labor site for "undocumented workers" opened in Madison, Wis. Last summer, Rockefeller Foundation-funded writer...

PBS cares about the riff-raff and plight of undocumented aliens and condemning mean-spirited conservatives for not caring about them -- think of many prime time PBS specials on those being “left behind” and lectures from Bill Moyers -- but not when they actually have to see them next door. Earlier this week, Sharon Percy Rockefeller, CEO of WETA, the Washington, DC PBS station really located in Arlington County, Virginia, lashed out at the county board for voting to build a pavilion, to house day laborers waiting for work, next door to WETA’s studios where the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week...

http://www.fairus.org/html/newsroom.html Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) STEIN REPORT XXXXX Friday, August 01 2003 17:57:07 ET XXXXX PBS' NIMBY TAKE ON AN ILLEGAL ALIEN HIRING HALL Although illegal immigration gets positive coverage on PBS, when it comes to actually interacting with the people that our porus border admits, PBS execs take a different tack. This became apparent during the debate over a hiring hall for illegal aliens in Arlington County. The County voted to put the hiring hall close to the studios of WETA, where the Newshour and other programming is taped. According to the Northern Virginia Journal, " WETA's...

WETA officials, who had strongly opposed Arlington County's decision to build a $100,000 pavilion and gathering place for day laborers near the television company's Shirlington offices, now say they will work with the county on the project despite their continued concerns about traffic and safety. The pavilion, approved by the Arlington County Board in a 4 to 1 vote this week, will be built on county-owned land where some public television employees park. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

For Immediate Release Friday, August 1, 2003 Contact:Diana Sun (703) 228-3247 (voice), (703) 228-4611 (TTY) County Board Approves Pick-Up Site for Day Laborers Project Will Address Safety, Traffic Concerns At its July 29 recessed meeting, the Arlington County Board voted 4-1 to appropriate up to $140,000 to create a pick-up site for day laborers in the Shirlington area. The funds will be used to purchase and install a covered shelter and related equipment and landscaping for the pick-up site. "The Board acted in response to numerous concerns from the community," said Arlington County Board Chairman Paul Ferguson. "This pick-up site...