I am pleasantly, very, very pleasantly surprised to the point of shocked today. Our local PBS station, KCPT, made a terrific, even fantastic and very responsible decision. Here goes.
As a trusted source for public media in the Kansas City area, KCPT monitors community feedback and evaluates station programming, services and initiatives to ensure they effectively fulfill the needs of the audiences we serve. With our viewers, members and community in mind, we have made the decision to pause the production of the weekly roundtable debate program Ruckus.
KCPT will take some time to consider whether we might better use our station resources in support of another program, one that allows for differing opinions but maintains the standards expected of our organization.
The long and short of it is that they, KCPT, are dropping, have dropped their weekly "news" program "Ruckus."I say again, this is fantastic. That is some great news right there. Obviously Right Wing, Republican host Mike Shanin and all his old, Right Wing, also Republican buddies like Woody "I'm a Fossil" Cozad were WAY out of line. KCPT viewers and supporters deserve far better.
The program frequently had a very Right Wing weighted--and bleached white--panel, time and again. And you would think the host would only be just that, the host, and not interject his opinions, again, in this case, very Right Wing opinions yet there he was, every week, spewing those Republican or Libertarian or whatever viewpoints.
His counterpart on KCPT, Nick Haines, over at "Week in Review" always did and does just that--that is, kept his opinions to himself. He has also begun having regularly, dependably balanced guests, too, with, specifically, two white people, a Black or African-American and a Hispanic or LatinX guest, thereby giving full representation to the entire community.
I had written KCPT and asked them, a couple times, maybe a few, to make the programs more representative of the entire metropolitan area. Naturally, I also wrote about this here on the blog. (Perhaps one of you two readers may have seen it). I thought they could and would maybe tweak both programs so they were balanced and representative of more views. They did it with Mr. Haines' program, I noticed. Perhaps they tried to do the same with Mr. Shanin's program as well. And he wouldn't budge? Only they, on the inside, know, I suppose.
It's a shame something couldn't have worked out that Mr. Shanin couldn't have stayed with and on the show, kept his very Right Wing opinions to himself and dependably had a truly representative panel on the show, from across the city, week after week but so it goes. Maybe they'll create a new program with a similar format, a new, much better, more responsible host and again, balanced, representative guests for each week's panel.
Anyway, yes sir and ma'am, great, great news! Thank you, KCPT! You did the right thing here! We look forward to your continued success and growth!
Anyway, yes sir and ma'am, great, great news! Thank you, KCPT! You did the right thing here! We look forward to your continued success and growth!
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