LEWISTON – A citizens advisory board will help decide if a controversial episode of the children’s program “Postcards from Buster” will air on Maine Public Broadcasting. Its next meeting is in April.
Maine PBS usually airs “Buster” at 4 p.m. on weekdays and at 8 a.m. on Saturdays. The program features in the title role a cartoon rabbit, who visits with kids around the nation to show where and how they live.
“It celebrates diversity,” said Maine PBS spokeswoman Deborah Johnson of the show.
The controversial “Sugartime” episode was assailed early last week by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. The segment has Buster visiting with kids in Vermont. Some are the children of two lesbian couples.
“Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode,” Spellings wrote in a letter to the national Public Broadcasting System.
Besides Spellings’ letter, conservative Focus on the Family founder James Dobson also has weighed in on the topic.
“Kids should not be taught that homosexuality is just another lifestyle or that it is morally equivalent to heterosexuality,” Dobson has said.
Videotape of the “Sugartime” episode was received at Maine Public Broadcasting late last week, said Johnson. Copies of the tape have been made and are being mailed to the company’s Community Advisory Board members and trustees.
Trustees meet Tuesday in Lewiston. Johnson said she wasn’t sure if the “Buster” show would be discussed.
“Their agenda is set well ahead of time,” she said, but also noted that trustees could raise the issue under new business if they wanted to.
The Community Advisory Board is scheduled to take up “Buster” when it meets in Lewiston on Saturday, April 9. Maine PBS has never ignored the board’s recommendation, Johnson said, “that I’m aware of.”
She said Maine PBS has been inundated with comments from its members and others since the “Buster” controversy erupted. Sentiment has been all over the spectrum, she added, but if there has been a theme, it’s been that adults should be making the decisions about what their children view.
Johnson said Maine PBS had been told by WGBH-Boston, which produces and provides the “Buster” program, that the “Sugartime” episode was scheduled to run in late March. After Spellings and Dobson commented on the program, however, Maine PBS decided to ask its advisers for their input.
“The April 9 meeting seemed very timely,” Johnson said.
But that was before WGBH opted to move up the run date. The show aired on the Boston station last Tuesday.
“Some of our viewers in southern Maine may have seen it then,” Johnson said. “There’s overall curiosity about the episode.”
Johnson said Maine PBS will continue to accept comments about the program’s content from its members and viewers. That information will be made available to the Community Advisory Board as well as trustees, she said.
Once the advisory board reaches its conclusion in April, its recommendation will be given to Maine PBS’s trustees and staff to help guide the programming decision, Johnson said. Trustees may or may not offer an opinion.
Ultimately, “three central people” – the program manager, director of television and Maine PBS’s president and chief executive officer – will decide if “Sugartime” airs on Maine PBS, she said.
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For more information: www.mpbc.org
MPBC Community Advisory Board
Richard Asam, Presque Isle
Steve Brown, Freeport
Patricia Burdick, Smithfield
Rebecca Dauphinee, Kenduskeag
William Devoe, Hampden
Linda Dutton, Bath
Elizabeth Eames, Lewiston
Jay Fortier, Orono – chairman
Robert Foye, Freeport
Erik Jorgensen, Portland
Bill Murray, Portland – vice chairman
Uma Outka, Portland
Antonina Pelletier, Yarmouth
Mimi Steadman, Edgecomb
Lynne Swadel, Pittsfield
People may contact Maine Public Broadcasting’s Community Advisory Board by sending e-mail to [email protected], or by sending correspondence to Community Advisory Board, Maine Public Broadcasting, 1450 Lisbon St., Lewiston, ME 04240
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