The Wisdom of Ms. Solomon

By Richard Zoglin

Ever since its creation in 1969, the Public Broadcasting Service has been an unwieldy, multiheaded beast. Most PBS series are initiated and produced under the auspices of individual stations, funded by a patchwork of public and corporate sources and scheduled (in many cases) according to the whims of local program directors. That worked well enough in the days when PBS was essentially the only alternative to the three commercial networks. But cable has made life more complicated. Such channels as the Arts & Entertainment Network and Superstation TBS have appropriated the kind of programming that was once unique to PBS, from BBC mini-series to Cousteau nature specials. As a result, the PBS audience has been eroded by nearly 12% in the past four years.

Last week public-TV officials took a decisive step toward reversing that trend, as the PBS board of directors gave final approval to a major revamping of the network's organizational structure. In the new setup, the crucial decisions about which programs will receive PBS funding -- previously made by a majority vote of the local stations -- will be in the hands of one executive. The plan, first unveiled last summer, has drawn objections from officials at several large PBS stations. Says William Baker, president of New York's WNET: "The whole world, even the Soviet Union, is going from a command economy to a democratic one, and we're going the opposite way."

But even the most vocal critics of the new plan have been assuaged by the person who will put it into practice. This new "programming czar" has more power than any predecessor but also a daunting task: maneuvering through the byzantine PBS bureaucracy. "What we wanted was a Solomon," says PBS president Bruce Christensen. "Someone with extraordinary political skills as well as program judgment. And someone who was willing to take the heat."

How about a Ms. Solomon? Jennifer Lawson, the former film professor and civil rights worker who was named to the job last November, has thus far been getting more huzzahs than heat. She basked in the glory of PBS's huge success of September, The Civil War. (The program was set in motion long before she arrived, but Lawson approved its unusual weeklong scheduling.) She has won praise for boosting PBS's profile with such ploys as running ads on the commercial networks. Most of all, she has tamed the ornery PBS bureaucracy with a mix of calm decisiveness and careful diplomacy. "In some ways Jennifer is the only person who could have done this," says Henry Hampton, producer of the documentary series Eyes on the Prize. "She really does listen."

Not that Lawson, 44, doesn't have some fairly radical programming ideas of her own. Among the shows she is developing for PBS are a children's game show and a sitcom about a Soviet family adapting to perestroika. She wants to showcase more pop music and is looking for a dramatic series that would "explore the mood in the country, relationships between people in our cities and rural areas."

Also high on her agenda is bringing more ethnic and cultural diversity to a network whose audience is often stereotyped as "the Chardonnay and Brie crowd." Lawson objects to that characterization. "It's as if opera were only for the elite," she says. "But Leontyne Price came from Mississippi, and we don't know about all the other Leontyne Prices who are out there, who can't afford to get to the Metropolitan Opera but can see it on Great Performances."

Lawson herself grew up next door to Mississippi, in a suburb of Birmingham. She dropped out of Tuskeegee Institute to work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later she moved to Washington, then spent two years in Tanzania helping bring together Africans and African Americans interested in the arts. After getting a master's degree in film from Columbia University and making "a few mediocre documentaries that definitely will not be shown on public television," Lawson got a job teaching film at Brooklyn College. She also served as executive director of the Film Fund, which financed independent documentaries, and later as head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Television Program Fund.

Given the long gestation time for PBS programs, Lawson's impact on the schedule will not fully emerge for at least a year or two. But an early indication came last month, when Lawson made public her list of current PBS series that will be funded for next season. Most of the PBS fixtures, from the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour to Nova, will be back, as will independently financed series like Mobil's Masterpiece Theatre. But Lawson decided to end funding for the children's show Newton's Apple and the documentary series American Masters after one more season. (Both series are seeking alternative funding, in which case they could remain on the schedule.)

Lawson's choices have calmed fears that she is about to make drastic changes in PBS's direction. Yet some PBS veterans are wary of her plans for sitcoms and other popular programming formats, contending that the quest for bigger audiences will turn PBS into a clone of the commercial networks. "A perfect program to me," she responds, "is one where the viewer never questions the value or importance. But it's also engaging and compelling, so that you feel you have to watch it. Entertainment and intelligence can live well together." Just how well, and how often, Lawson can get the two to mesh will show how Solomonic she really is.

With reporting by Janice C. Simpson/Washington