Wall Street Weak

When Maryland Public Television announced it was replacing Wall Street Week host Louis Rukeyser, the big-egoed financial journalist whose chief qualification is looking like the pictures on his currency, Rukeyser responded like a dreadlocked ex-Panther whose show's being kicked off Pacifica: He dedicated an episode to excoriating his bosses and urging his audience to protest. His cause was taken up in the media, presumably by the same people who yelped when it looked like Ted Koppel might get the hook. The Baltimore Sun gets the prize for exuberance, with an incoherent editorial worrying that PBS might "sacrifice its unique niche and become just like any commercial television network."

Reality check: PBS never was much of an alternative network. If it's selling out now, it's been selling out for years. In the past, if you wanted to argue that PBS was uncomfortably commercial, you pointed to the presence of shows like Wall Street Week. Now you complain when the host of Wall Street Week gets fired.

Flash forward to 2005. PBS announces that it will no longer air Yanni concerts, lectures by self-help gurus, and reruns of Lawrence Welk. An angry Dr. John Gray takes to the airwaves to complain, and a newspaper frets that public television is losing its special niche. The rest of us reach for our remotes.