Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial
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Memphis PBS station censors NOVA show:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/nov/15/topic-too-hot-for-wkno/
Topic too hot for WKNO
Show on intelligent design didn’t air here
By Michael Lollar
Thursday, November 15, 2007
WKNO-TV, the local PBS affiliate, did not air a “NOVA” production on
intelligent design as part of its Channel 10 broadcast this week because
of the “controversial nature” of the subject.
The show, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” aired nationally
Tuesday, but was confined in Memphis to the station’s digital broadcasts
(channel 910 on Comcast or 810 on Comcast’s high-definition tier). Up to
70 percent of Comcast subscribers have digital service.
On Channel 10, the nondigital or analog version of WKNO, the station
re-aired a locally produced show with Mid-Southerners sharing their
World War II experiences.
WKNO spokesman Teri Sullivan said the station received complaints that
the “NOVA” broadcast was pre-empted, but would not say how many. In
response, WKNO will air the “NOVA” production at 7 p.m. Jan. 22 “with a
local followup to discuss the various views on the show.”
As for Tuesday night’s scheduling shift, Sullivan said, “We had plans to
do our local programs to honor veterans this week during Veterans Day.
We thought Tuesday night was a good spot for local programs of this
nature, and we were concerned about the controversial nature of the
(’NOVA’) program as were 15 percent of the top 50 public television
stations in the country.”
Sullivan said seven other PBS affiliates chose not to run the “NOVA”
production, which recounts the federal trial of a Dover, Pa., case in
which parents sued the school board. They objected when the board
required science teachers to read a statement to biology students
suggesting that some features of life are too complex to be explained by
the theory of evolution and must be the result of intervention by an
intelligent agent.
An exhaustive trial with witnesses for both sides ended in a ruling in
which U.S. Dist. Judge John E. Jones III, a Bush appointee, dismissed
intelligent design as a religious argument for creationism. In forceful
language, he said intelligent design has no place in a science
classroom. The Dover school board members who required the intelligent
design statement were voted out in the next election.
In response to one viewer complaint, WKNO program manager Debi Robertson
said Wednesday that while the “NOVA” episode reported the outcome of the
trial and the arguments during the trial it “might look particularly
one-sided to most of our audience.”
To viewer David O. Hill, 67, a retired FedEx pilot, the WKNO decision
was like refusing to show a Civil War broadcast for fear it would offend
some Southerners or a broadcast about Nazi atrocities in World War II
“for fear it would offend some Germans in the viewing audience.”
“I’m a supporter of and love this station. I really appreciate what
service they do, but when they step out of line like this it violates
the whole premise of what NPR and PBS stand for nationally … This was
an historical review of an important judicial decision in America, and
they chose not to do it.”
Hill’s education and background also factored into his reaction. An
ornithologist, he said he was trained as a biologist.
“Evolution is as important a building block to biology as atomic theory
is to chemistry and gravitation to physics. I can believe in the Easter
Bunny or the Loch Ness monster more easily than that the universe is
only 6,000 years old.”
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