In case you missed it, here is David Bianculli’s review of ‘The Central Park 5’:

The case, by now, is anything but a whodunit; the actual rapist and attacker eventually stepped forward and confessed, and DNA samples from the crime scene proved a perfect match. But that didn’t happen until five teenage boys had been convicted of the crime and spent seven years in prison. They claim to have been coerced into giving false confessions, and the documentary makes a compelling case on their behalf.

You can watch the documentary online here.

John Powers on the PBS documentary Philip Roth: Unmasked that premieres next week:

Here’s a writer who specializes in anger, sarcasm, iconoclasm, dirtiness, atheism, comedy and sexual attitudes that smack of misogyny.

While Philip Roth Unmasked doesn’t completely ignore his dark ferocity, it tiptoes around it. We learn little about his personal life, which was messy enough to prompt his ex-wife, actress Claire Bloom, to spend 150 pages of a book excoriating his manipulative narcissism. Nor do we get much insight into what’s obvious from Roth’s work — his ambition, his princely sense of entitlement, his use of fury as fuel, his tendency toward political sanctimony, his way of seeing women as one big perk of fame.

Image courtesy of PBS

Just thought we’d let you know that, starting tonight, our mothership, WHYY, is airing a series on the “Pioneers of Television.” First episode up: Funny Ladies. It’ll feature Mindy Kaling, Cloris Leachman, Tina Fey, Joan Rivers, Susie Essman, Amy Sedaris, Sarah Silverman, Bea Arthur, Phyllis Diller and Betty White. Oh yes. Good stuff.

David Bianculli on Magical Mystery Tour and a new PBS documentary about its making:

It was written and produced in 1967, which was an incredibly fertile period for the Beatles. “Strawberry Fields Forever” came out that year, and “Penny Lane,” and the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Which was followed, a month later, by the live TV premiere of “All You Need Is Love,” broadcast globally. The Beatles, it seemed, could do no wrong. And then they did Magical Mystery Tour, which was televised by the BBC the day after Christmas — on Boxing Day — as a holiday special. A quarter of the British population watched it — and many of those hated it.

Monday night on PBS, American Masters presents a two-hour biography of Johnny Carson. Carson retired 20 years ago this month, and vacated a throne that TV critic David Bianculli says no one has managed to claim since.

Do you agree?

One Year Later, Inside Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown

Ameena Matthews, a violence interrupter with the Chicago organization CeaseFire, mediates disputes to prevent gang violence from escalating. She’s one of the people profiled in the documentary The Interrupters, which will air on Frontline later this week.

David Bianculli says the new PBS American Masters look at Woody Allen is “a smart, sometimes serious study of a smart, sometimes serious filmmaker, and it rivals HBO’s recent two-part George Harrison documentary as the best TV biography of the season.”

David Bianculli explains why the new four-part documentary series called America in Primetime, which premieres this Sunday on PBS, is “the smartest TV show about television I’ve seen in about 20 years.”

Perilous: Mall visitors unknowingly end up in counterterror reports

ageofperil:

We built a database of suspicious activity reports obtained through open-government laws in Minnesota. Check it out. The database accompanies a package of stories we released today at the Center for Investigative Reporting about the post-9/11 phenomenon of suspicious activity. You can read the stories online now or listen to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered this afternoon. Another version will air tonight on PBS NewsHour, and one more story will be available tomorrow on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Julia Child — 1972.

nprdigitalsvcs:

NPR <3 PBS.

Our new designer Dan shows his love for our public television buddies.

Yes, that is a PBS tattoo. Hardcore. See you Monday, Tumblr.

Shoutout

to the PBS Newshour Tumblr team. They’re doing a fantastic job while their site is down. 

The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud (2005 -- pdf)

Harry Markopolos’ 2005 memo to the SEC detailing more than two dozen red flags about Bernie Madoff. Madoff was arrested in December 2008.

Casey tells FRONTLINE that Markpolos’s analogy was, “a baseball player would have to be hitting .925 straight for 10 years in a row. Would you bet on a player like that, that he wasn’t doing something illegal?”