FAIR's exposé of PBS's prominent news and public affairs shows demonstrated that public television is failing to fulfill its mission--to "provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard," to serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," and broadcast programs that "help us see America whole, in all its diversity."

Now, which PBS canceled without explanation and replaced with Need to Know (co-hosted by corporate media fixture Jon Meacham), lived up to that mission admirably. Need to Know does not. Join FAIR in telling PBS to bring back Now: Sign the petition today.

Trying to explain why Need to Know, the PBS public affairs show that appeared in the Friday night timeslot vacated by Bill Moyers Journal and Now, has gotten such a cool reception from viewers, co-host Allison Stewart seems to blame nostalgia. "Obviously you can't replace Bill Moyers," says Stewart
(Show Tracker, 8/5/10). "That's just a ridiculous notion."

The funny thing is, Bill Moyers was replaced: When he left Now to resume doing Bill Moyers Journal, David Brancaccio took over as host, later joined by Maria Hinojosa. Under their tenure, Now retained its loyal following, because Brancaccio and Hinojosa were pursuing the same kind of independent investigative journalism that Moyers had aspired to--the kind of programming that PBS was created to air because it's unlikely to be produced by commercial networks.

If those same viewers find Need to Know lacking, it's not because Stewart and co-host Jon Meacham aren't Moyers--it's because they don't understand the journalistic values that Moyers represented.

The Afghanistan documents posted by WikiLeaks were obviously the big story of the week. So how did the network Sunday shows react to these disclosures, which have the potential to open up a real debate about the Afghan War?

NBC's Meet the Press interviewed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen.

ABC's This Week featured an interview with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

On CBS, Face The Nation had Mike Mullen.

What would state broadcasting look like again?

CBS also had an interview with Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations (formerly of the Bush administration), who urged the U.S. to wage a more traditional counterterrorism war, "where we use drones, we use cruise missiles. We use covert operatives, we use Special Forces."

That would seem to be the kind of criticism of the Afghanistan War that is allowable.

It's worth noting that the new PBS program Need to Know discussed WikiLeaks on Friday. As co-host Alison Stewart put it at the top of the show: "Much ado about nothing or putting lives at risk? The effects of the WikiLeaks on the war in Afghanistan."

Those are the only choices? Need to Knows' guest was Joshua Foust, a blogger/writer who is a critic of WikiLeaks and is generally skeptical that there's much of value in the leaked reports.

Washington Post critic Tom Shales (5/11/10) didn't think much of the debut of the PBS show Need to Know. Given the reactions from viewers at the Need to Know website, and those published by PBS ombud Michael Getler, he's not the only one who found the show a disappointment--or, as Shales put it, a "monstrosity" and "a specious wheeze."

But he seemed to save a special kind of scorn for co-host Alison Stewart. Responding to the show's fawning interview with Bill Clinton, Shales wrote that "she looked as though she would have been much more comfortable in Clinton's lap."

Uh huh.

When ABC announced that they had hired CNN's Christiane Amanpour to be host of the Sunday morning show This Week, Shales (3/23/10) seemed genuinely upset, balking that Amanpour lacked inside-the-Beltway credentials (I think he meant that as a criticism) and noting that some conservatives believe her to be too critical of Israel. Shales even insinuated that Amanpour's upbringing could be a problem: "Her family fled Tehran in 1979 at the start of the Islamic revolution, when she was college age. She has steadfastly rejected claims about her objectivity."

Shales went back for more in a Post Web chat, writing:

And neither you nor I has stooped to mentioning that hair of hers--yipe. What's the deal with that, as David Letterman might say.

The blog Jezebel headlined a roundup of his worst commentary, "WaPo TV Critic Tom Shales Has a Lady Problem."

Indeed.