THE NEWS HOUR AVOIDS ALL MENTION OF PLIGHT OF PALESTINIANS IN GAZA

I was disappointed in The NewsHour tonight. It had not one story on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza after the devastating destruction wreaked by the Israelis. People have no homes, no place to sleep, no way to cook food. Children go without school or proper food. Yet The NewsHour spent its time on making automobiles more fuel efficient, or on creating jobs, or on the change from analog to digital.

No wonder I have a low opinion of Jim Lehrer and the other "reporters" on The NewsHour.

WEARY OF JUDY WOODRUFF ON NEWSHOUR

Why do public TV stations continue to allow Judy Woodruff to ply her profession as a news anchor on The NewsHour?

This is one hapless lady. No wonder CNN gladly released her. Judy Woodruff is undoubtedly a nice human being, but should she be the anchor or one of them on The News Hour? No way!

Her questions are simplistic. Compare Judy Woodruff to Margaret Warner, no great interviewer. At least Margaret Warner asks intelligent questions, notwithstanding Warner gives no quarter to the answers. Judy Woodruff asks dumb questions.

I won't mention here here atrocious respect for pronunciation. Like how she says "Clin-on" for "Clin-ton," or "inner-net" for "internet." And so on, just pick your word, Judy is sure to slay it.

PBS NEWS HOUR CASTIGATES MYANMAR'S GENERALS FOR NOT ACCEPTING AID, BUT NO REFERENCE TO BUSH REJECTING AID OF VENEZUELA FOR KATRINA

Tonight on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Margaret Warner does a story about the leaders of Myanmar refusing help from the United States.

But how come Margaret Warner makes no reference to George Bush refusing help from Hugo Chavez and Venezuela after the hurricane devastated New Orleans?

And if she had made that reference to Bush, perhaps Margaret Warner would have lumped Bush together with the military dictators of Myanmar.

PBS: WHERE IS NEWSCAST ON SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS?

I want PBS to broadcast The NewsHour on Saturdays and Sundays. As it is, we have no news from PBS over the weekends. It is as if nothing happens in the world deserving of coverage over the weekend. We all know how ludicrous that supposition is. Yet, notwithstanding bombings in Iraq, earthquakes, tsunamis, important political developments, PBS offers us no newscasts or broadcasts.

We don't need Jim Lehrer to work seven days a week. A substitute will do. But we do need The NewsHour or similar program. If PBS refuses to consider weekend news broadcasts, let it substitute BBC World News several times a day on both Saturdays and Sundays.

THE NEWSHOUR BETTY ANN BOWSER'S LOW CLASS USE OF "KIDS"

I watched The NewsHour tonight. I thought The NewsHour did a good job with the story on The World Bank and Paul Wolfowitz. Also I appreciated the update on the new War Czar, three-star General Lute. But I was disappointed with Betty Ann Bowser's story on the Northern Lights.

For me, Bowser's story was more on education, i.e., how schools get students interested in science by means of the Northern Lights. An okay story, but really just "filler."

Moreover, I was disappointed that The NewsHour allows Bowser to refer to youth or children as "kids." I hear the same term innumerable times on local TV news, but for The NewsHour I don't think it is appropriate.

As the Dominican nuns taught me at St. Thomas the Apostle grammar school in Queens, New York, a long time ago, a "kid" is a young goat. The term henceforth has always seemed so low class when used to refer to children. Why must The NewsHour allow Bowser to get away with this? Or are all standards of proper English dumbed down to the lowest denominator even on The NewsHour?

MARGARET WARNER'S STORY ON IRAN DETAINING MS. ESFANDIARI

I watched Margaret Warner's discussion last night on The NewsHour with her two guests Lee Hamilton and Karim Sadjadpour about Iran's holding 67-year old Ms. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, after she went back to Iran to visit her ailing 93-year old mother. As I indicated in my post on May 11, 2007, on the same subject, I am against Iran taking Ms. Esfandiari into custody and detention without any evidence she did anything wrong.

I am also against a decision by Bush and Cheney to arrest the five Iranians in Iraq in January 2007, and in deciding to keep them in custody even though there is no evidence they did anything which would justify their imprisonment, other than being Iranians.

I think the way to secure the release of Ms. Esfandiari is for the United States to sit down and negotiate with Iran over these detainees.

I heard nothing from Margaret Warner or her guests remotely suggesting this diplomatic stategy. Nor did anyone mention the obvious connection between the detention by the U.S. of the five Iranians with Iran's detention of Ms. Esfandiari.

HELP FIND THREE-YEAR OLD MADELEINE MC CANN

BBC World News on our local TV station had an update on Madeleine McCann, the three-year old who was kidnapped from her bed eight nights ago in Portugal at Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, where her family was vacationing.

BBC.com has an update today on Madeleine. And here is BBC's Search for Madeleine in Pictures. BBC reports:

"The toddler is believed to have been taken from her bed while her parents were eating at a nearby restaurant and regularly checking on her and their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie."

This is a story that needs to appear on The NewsHour and on NPR news. So far I have seen and heard nothing about this sad story on American public and/or commercial broadcasting. We need to get American child-disappearance experts and criminal profilers on this case.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST AT NEWSHOUR VIS-A-VIS ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION?

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting points out that the NewsHour on PBS gave the president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation air time for an interview with Ray Suarez on April 5th, even though there might be a conflict of interest between the NewsHour and the Foundation.

"Following its March 28 broadcast of no less than four segments sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, NewsHour airs an entire interview with the foundation's president. Apparently the show's producers consider their fine print disclosure that "the NewsHour health unit is funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation" to be immunization from their blatant shilling for a sponsor."