PBS cancels 'Intelligent Design' Documentary

[Guest guest]

PBS station cancels

intelligent-design film

TV outlet charged with practicing 'politically correct censorship'

 

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Posted: January 5, 2005

1:00 a.m. Eastern

 

 

By Ron Strom

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

 

 

The PBS station in Albuquerque, N.M., has canceled a scheduled

showing of a documentary on the theory of intelligent design,

eliciting charges of "politically correct censorship."

 

New Mexico teacher Phil Robinson says he worked with staff at KNME-

TV to arrange for the documentary, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life,"

to air on Friday night. Robinson discovered Monday that the show had

been pulled and newspaper advertising for it had been canceled.

 

 

The station says the scheduling of the program was a mistake caused

by a miscommunication related to the transition to a new program

manager and that there was concern about the fact that those who

funded the film have religious ties.

 

Seattle-based Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

hammered KNME for the cancellation.

 

"It is simply astounding that a public television station would

engage in this sort of politically correct censorship," said Rob

Crowther, director of communications for the organization, in a

statement. "Public television usually prides itself in exploring new

ideas, not suppressing them. Doesn't anyone at KNME believe in free

speech?"

 

Joan Rebecchi is the marketing manager for KNME.

 

"It wasn't supposed to be scheduled in the first place," she told

WND. "It was a scheduling mistake.

 

"We're in transition between two program managers, and they were

repeating 'NOVA' in that timeslot. ?There was confusion over the

show title, and so that show was scheduled in [NOVA's] place. It was

figured out last weekend that we had that scheduled and we weren't

supposed to schedule it."

 

Rebecchi said Robinson contacted her about advertising for the show

and that she helped him write a good ad for it, not realizing at the

time the show was not supposed to have been scheduled.

 

"When I found out the show in fact wasn't going to air, I pulled the

ads from the Albuquerque Journal because I didn't want him to lose

any money," Rebecchi said. "We were able to pull them before he lost

any money."

 

Rebecchi confirmed that a lot of Albuquerque residents are "very,

very upset" that the station is not running it.

 

She said station personnel had concerns about the fact that those

who funded the program "had some connection to a religious point of

view."

 

Continued Rebecchi: "Our underwriting guidelines don't allow us to

air programs that have a specific religious point of view," adding

that PBS has to be "kind of biased" against programming with any

religious connections.

 

"That's the reason they didn't want to schedule it in the first

place," she told WND.

 

Crowther points out, however, that the film in question is currently

for sale on PBS' national website and has aired in almost every top-

20 media market in the country, including PBS stations in

California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio,

Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington state and Washington, D.C.

 

"The real losers here are New Mexico viewers who will be denied the

chance to see a fascinating documentary that public television

viewers in other states have already had the opportunity to see,"

Crowther added. "I guess if New Mexico viewers want to learn more

about intelligent design, they will have to go the national PBS

website."

 

"Unlocking the Mystery of Life" is a 58-minute program exploring

what DNA reveals about the origin of life and documents how some

scientists are skeptical about naturalistic explanations for the

origin of genetic information and are looking to theories of design

instead. According to the Discovery Institute, the documentary

follows the development of intelligent design theory through

interviews with key design scientists.

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