Outstanding Pat

Pat Mitchell, the head of PBS, got into the television news business in Boston in the early 1970s. There were almost no women in television news then: a few at the networks, and only one locally in all of Boston. WBZ had Pat Collins doing movie reviews at the end of the 11:00 news, until she left for New York. Her replacement was Pat Mitchell.

But before long, what was then called "women's lib" was having a real impact in television, and suddenly a generation of women were on the air in Boston. Like Pat, they were smart and also young and beautiful. It was a remarkable combination, which caused them all problems and got them plenty of attention as well.

Pat quickly added anchoring a new 5:30 p.m. newscast and talk show hybrid, and she was off and running. She had a talk show in Washington, eventually became a producer with Turner broadcasting, and now she's running PBS.

She's kept a fairly low public profile, even through all the recent storm and strife affecting PBS, but she's picked the perfect moment to raise her voice. She testified at a congressional hearing the other day that ended up with the committee reccomending that PBS get its funding restored. Then she responded to questions from the Television Critics Association saying the so-called study of Bill Moyer's Now and other PBS shows that CPB chief Kenneth Tomlinson commissioned was "very troubling" and should be investigated.

She pointed out that she doesn't report to him, and he doesn't report to her---PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are independent of one another. Here are a few other lines from the story below:

CPB was established to provide a "heat shield" to protect programming produced for PBS or local public-TV stations from political interference, Mitchell said.

"There are clearly questions, and rightly so, about whether the heat shield is in place," she said.

PBS Chief Backs Programming Investigation