City Newspaper Archives - 9/2007
MEDIA: Where was PBS's 9/11 program?
Published on Sep 18, 2007
On September 11, all the PBS flagship stations, including WGBH in Boston,WNET in New York City, and WETA in Washington, DC, broadcast in prime time - 8 p.m. - the new NOVA show, "Building on Ground Zero." WXXI ran it only on HD on September 11 and did not schedule it to run on its main and most accessible channel until 2 a.m. on Sunday, September 16.
Incredibly, WXXI has neglected this opportunity to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, and has effectively deprived most of its audience of any realistic opportunity to view this important broadcast. (2 a.m.?)
This insensitive programming seems to indicate a very disturbing lack of respect for those who lost their lives on this date six years ago.
Sam Abrams, Rochester
Editor's note: Actually, NOVA's "Building on Ground Zero" was a rerun of a show first distributed in 2006. Station officials say they aired it several times last year on the "main" WXXI channel. This year, they aired it on WXXI HD three times, including on September 11, aired it on several of its other channels, and aired it on City Cable 12 on September 16.
