Robert Crowther

Saturday, the Albuquerque Journal ran a staff editorial chastising PBS affiliate KNME for its decision to ban UMOL. The Journal correctly pointed out that KNME’s censorship is nothing more than viewpoint discrimination writing, “refusing to air a program supporting the less popular point of view looks like a close cousin to censorship.” The Journal notes that KNME should have taken the high road and aired the film as an educational service to viewers. “Consumers are best served when given a full range of viewpoints and allowed to decide for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.” It’s obvious now that had KNME just aired the program the whole issue would be over and done with now and they wouldn’t Read More ›

PBS station KNME is lying today in an effort to shrug off claims of censorship because of their banning of Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Today the station manager, Chad Davis, is claiming that it is a lie that PBS.org sells the video. It isn’t a lie that the video was available on the PBS.org and ShopPBS.org websites up until yesterday. Suddenly, PBS is joining their affiliate in an effort to censor science. (Calls to PBS for comment have been ignored.) Here’s the proof. Here is a PDF that shows a scan of a page we printed out on Tuesday of this week that clearly shows UMOL was available for purchase on the PBS web site. Even better is this Read More ›

Kudos are in order for the media covering PBS station KNME’s ill-advised decision this week to ban Unlocking the Mystery of Life from their airwaves.

First on Wednesday, Albuquerque’s ABC affiliate KOB aired a story that correctly reported this censorship of science. Their coverage was very good, although they did mistakenly identify Discovery’s Center for Science & Culture as the funder of the film, which is not true. The film was produced by Illustra Media and funded by a group of foundations and organizations. CSC Fellows were prominently featured in the film and CSC Director Steve Meyer worked closely with Illustra in the scripting of the film, but CSC did not fund the film. Still KOB’s coverage was balanced, and otherwise accurate.

Today, the Albuquerque Journal published a front page story (paid subscription required) by Rick Nathanson that was more accurate than many articles on intelligent design have been.
The paper reports KNME’s Joan Rebecchi as saying:

“The funders of this program have a clear and specific agenda they openly promote. …
KNME has no position regarding this agenda, but we must guard against the public perception that editorial control might have been exercised by the program funders.”

Lad Allen of Illustra Media spoke with KNME program manager Chad Davis and told him point blank that none of the funders had any input into the film, or any control over the content.

Rebecchi is later quoted as saying:

“‘KNME follows PBS production funding standards and practices,’ which are design to promote fairness, balance and impartiality, …”

How fair and balance has KNME, or PBS really been?

Indeed, PBS stations, including KNME, ran the Evolution series in 2001, which was solely funded and produced by billionaire Paul Allen’s Clear Blue Sky Productions. Now there is a clear instance of a funder controlling editorial content, and yet KNME didn’t squelch that film

Josh Gilder wrote in his critique of the Evolution series:

Channel 4 Eyewitness News in Albuquerque, New Mexico is the latest media outlet to pick up on KNME’s decision to ban Unlocking the Mystery of Life that we first reported earlier this week. They have a video clip of their live coverage of the story on Wed. night’s 10pm news on their website www.kobtv.com. It is refreshing to see a major, if local, media outlet actually getting the story right, and focusing on the irrational decision to try and censor a science debate. The even give intelligent design its due as a scientific theory. There is likely to be a media storm tomorrow when the story breaks in Albuquerque’s print world. It will be interesting to see if reporters at Read More ›

World Net Daily has published the first article that has appeared in response to Discovery’s press release yesterday about PBS station KNME banning Unlocking the Mystery of Life (UMOL). The station now claims in a World Net Daily article that this was all just a scheduling mistake, which is laughable whenyou realize that they’ve been considering running this film since last spring. You can see for yourself the ad that KNME itself designed and arranged to put in newspapers — then cancelled on Monday. You can also see the TV guide listings. Obviously, this program had been in process for some time (and they were well down the road of advertising and publicizing the show. While we’ve yet to speak Read More ›

When will the censorship end? Albuquerque, NM PBS station KNME has pulled the plug at the last minute on a schedule airing of Unlocking the Mystery of Life (UMOL) the documentary detailing pioneering scientific research behind intelligent design theory. Read the full press release here. Apparently KNME doesn’t realize that dozens of PBS stations have already shown UMOL and that PBS national website sells the video. Local scientist Phil Robinson has been urging the station to air UMOL for months. They recently agreed, and yesterday he was surprised to find out by accident that the show had been yanked from the schedule. The show was scheduled and listed in the local TV listings. The station even developed an ad for Read More ›

The York Dispatch has a story about the legal activity ongoing in Dover, PA with regards to the school board’s decision to mandate intelligent design theory. What’s troubling is that so many media outlets continue to incorrectly define intelligent design theory. The Dispatch’s Heidi Bernhard-Bubb puts it this way: intelligent design theory, which attributes the origin of life to an intelligent being. It counters the theory of evolution, which says that people evolved from less complex beings. If reporters are going to use definitions that come from critics of intelligent design they should at least label them that way. This is the kind of definition given out by the NCSE or the ACLU, not by design proponents themselves. This is Read More ›

Photo credit: George Gilliland

Dave Dentel, copy editor of the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania had an insightful, and pleasantly objective, op-ed over the holiday weekend. Dentel makes the point that the ACLU, aided by Darwin-only supporters within the ranks of mainstream scientists, is unlikely to acknowledge any of Darwinian evolutionary theory’s shortcomings. Indeed he points out that the very things they mistakenly claim of intelligent design theory, namely that it isn’t testable, Darwinian evolution itself is truly guilty.

The Washington Post for all its prominence as a national newspaper continues to help spread the idea that design theory is just a new form of creationism. Admittedly the article is better than recent error riddled reports by Post reporter Valerie Strauss, especially since it does give more background on what design theory is, and quotes Mike Behe. However, the article doesn’t provide any quotes from design proponents that explain the distinctions and clear differences between creationism and intelligent design. And this even after the reporter was offered a chance for an e-mail interview and then spoke with Discovery Institute’s John West, who he then mistakenly calls Paul. It’s frustrating when reporters can’t even get names right, how can you Read More ›

Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center has published a column looking at the current court cases involving evolution. While he mistakenly looks at intelligent design theory as just the next step after creationism in the anti-evolutionary chain, he does have some interesting insights into the drawbacks for science of shutting down the debate. “If school board resolutions aren’t the answer, who decides what, if any, critiques of evolution get into the curriculum? The short answer is – or should be – scientists decide. But many in the science establishment worry that teaching the controversy – even conflicts among scientists about some aspects of evolutionary theory – would open the door to creationist or other religious views. That’s why so Read More ›