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Former attorney general John N. Mitchell appears before the Senate Watergate Committee in Washington, D.C., on July 11, 1973.
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Primetime Watergate Hearings Helped Make PBS a National Network

Mired in a funding crisis — and the target of politicians — the hearings transformed public broadcasting.

The Core Concepts of American Public Broadcasting Turn 50

An analysis of the Carnegie Commission's 1967 report shows that public broadcasting has always been a politically fraught issue.
William F. Buckley Jr. at a press conference.

An Implausible Mr. Buckley

A new PBS documentary whitewashes the conservative founder of National Review.
Richard Nixon on a television screen.

The Problem With Fox News Goes Way, Way Back

Richard Nixon decided a powerful new medium should appeal to the marketplace, not to citizens.
Television with LeVar Burton holding book and surrounded by rainbows.

How An Untested, Cash-Strapped TV Show About Books Became An American Classic

Despite facing political headwinds and raising 'suspicion' among publishers, 'Reading Rainbow' introduced generations of American kids to books.
Collage of a farm with a large sun in the background and a cooking show on a TV.

What California Cuisine’s Past Tells Us About Its Future

Into the 1980s, the heart of the California food revolution was also a hub of French fine dining. Why did the goat cheese and sundried tomatoes win?
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Epistemic Crises, Then And Now: The 1965 Carnegie Commission As Model Philanthropic Intervention

How the commission that led to the creation of the U.S.’s public television and radio systems can serve as a model for countering disinformation today.

Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary

The success and brilliance of the new PBS series on Reconstruction is a reminder of the missed opportunity facing the nation.
Screen capture of Fred Rogers at a desk with microphones, testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications.

Fred Rogers Testifies Before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications

The young Mr. Rogers brings down the house in his 1969 effort to save public broadcasting from the chopping block.

How Lloyd Morrisett Built Sesame Street, From the Foundation Up

Sesame Street's most famous origin story centers on a 1966 dinner party. But the program was actually the culmination of a career that began much earlier.
Screen shots of PBS NewsHour anchors with title cards about conflicts in Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Afghanistan.
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“Burning with a Deadly Heat”

PBS NewsHour coverage of the hot wars of the Cold War.
Roger Mudd on the History Channel in August 2001
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The Media Will Be Key to Overcoming a Senate Filibuster on Voting Rights

Roger Mudd proved in 1964 that media attention can help overcome Senate obstruction.

An Unfinished Revolution

A new three-part PBS documentary explores the failure of Reconstruction and the Redemption of the South.
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'Gavel-to-Gavel': The Watergate Scandal and Public Television

Experience the Watergate impeachment hearings and television broadcasts as so many did in 1973.
The filmmakers discuss the Vietnam miniseries.

Burns and Novick, Masters of False Balancing

In promoting healing instead of a search for truth, “The Vietnam War” offers misleading comforts.

Ken Burns's American Canon

Even in a fractious era, the filmmaker still believes that his documentaries can bring every viewer in.
U.S. Marine Corps soldiers usher suspected Viet Cong members through the rubble of a village in 1965.

Ken Burns' New Documentary Exposes the Emotion Behind the Vietnam War

An interview with the filmmakers.

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