The FCC last month "flagged" a segment of In the Life, a gay-oriented one-hour news magazine television show broadcast on public television stations nationwide. The show airs on Vermont Public Television on the first Sunday of the month at 11 pm.
     The episode, "Hidden Agenda," was scheduled for October broadcast. The flagged segment, "By the Book," featured footage that ironically was provided by an official of the Bush administration.
     The show visits the Texas textbook hearings "to document the process by which textbooks are selected for statewide use and ultimately for the rest of the nation. Texas, which has a large block of conservative voters on the state school board and an extremely active fundamentalist lobby, is currently examining health textbooks." The program looked at "how topics like homosexuality, AIDS prevention and gender identity are being treated."
     Excerpts from a videotape produced by a group headed by Bush Presidential AIDS Council appointee, Dr. Joe Mcllhaney, featured in the season premiere episode of In the Life were identified as potential FCC indecency violations.
     The questioned content consists of a line drawing demonstrating how to do a self-exam for breast cancer (taken from a high school health textbook) and excerpts from a videotape produced by McIlhaney's Medical Institute for Sexual Health that promotes abstinence and discourages condom use. According to the Institute, their products are used in every state in the nation and in 40 foreign countries to promote abstinence-only practices to teens and parents. President George W. Bush appointed McIlhaney to the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) and the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to ITL's press release.
     Due to the content of the McIlhaney video, American Public Television, a distributor of public television programming, suggested that stations air the program after the 7-10 pm "prime time" slot. The wording on a series of AIDS prevention posters by STOP AIDS! in San Francisco were also cited in the warning.
     The program had already aired on Vermont Public Television by the time the warning was issued, according to VPT public relations director Ann Curran. But since the station normally airs the show in a late-night slot, she did not anticipate any fallout from the FCC.
     "This whole FCC clampdown is really making things difficult for broadcasters," Curran said. "We're seeing things [we now question] sent by distributors that we wouldn't have thought twice about a few years ago. I just hope this [new strict standard] will pass. These strict standards are causing a lot of grief for broadcasters."
`     Curran added that the gay and lesbian newsmagazine had been in the schedule at channel 33 for "lots of years." The show "gets not a huge audience but we receive positive feedback from people who appreciate its being there." Referring to the late broadcast hour, she said, "We just hope that people program their VCRs."