San Diego City Attorney seeks more records from Public TV Station

SAN DIEGO CITY ATTORNEY SEEKS MORE RECORDS FROM PUBLIC TV STATION
[SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune, AUTHOR: Alex Roth]
San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre has expanded his investigation into the city's public-television station three months after the station canceled a public-affairs program that sometimes featured him as a guest. In an Oct. 31 letter to KPBS, Aguirre asked for internal e-mails, financial statements and other documents, including information about recent contacts between the station's journalists and the mayor's office. Aguirre's latest demand for documents came several weeks after he issued a report accusing the station of “abrogat(ing) its duty to maintain objectivity and balance in its local public affairs television programming” by canceling “Full Focus,” a public-issues program. In recent months, Aguirre has suggested the station might have committed civil or criminal violations by canceling the show, on which Aguirre appeared as a guest 15 times from July 2003 until it left the air Aug. 1. First Amendment experts called Aguirre's investigation inappropriate. “Just about the last thing you want in a free society is a government official going in and mucking around in a newsroom and making programming decisions,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. KPBS receives no funding from the city. It receives its money from fundraising drives, corporate sponsors, San Diego State University, and grants from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among other sources. KPBS-TV is a PBS affiliate; its radio station is a National Public Radio affiliate. KPBS cited low ratings and high costs as the main reason for canceling “Full Focus.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071115-9999-1m15aguirre.html

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