Because public television is blandly virtuous and soaks up smallish sums of tax money, almost no one but right-wing ideologues has ventured full-bore critiques. A 25th-anniversary report, put out last week by a task force of the usual Establishment suspects (Vartan Gregorian, Joe Califano, Tim Wirth and so on), provoked intriguing newspaper headlines (OVERHAUL PROPOSED, teased the Washington Post), but its reformist manifesto -- the 351 local PBS stations should get less federal money, the central programming apparatus should get more -- turned out to be tepid and intramural, a birthday wish list posing as tough-minded scrutiny. <
Understand: MacNeil/Lehrer is...