Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff [will] take over [PBS NewsHour] in September...Ms. Ifill and Ms. Woodruff will also share the managing-editor responsibilities for the program. The appointments are another milestone for women on television and in journalism, seven years after Katie Couric became the first female solo anchor of a network nightly newscast. PBS noted in a news release that “this will mark the first time a network broadcast has had a female co-anchor team.”

...follows the lives of two families in Milwaukee, the Stanleys and the Neumanns—the former black, the latter white—over the past two decades, starting in 1991. Both come out of the solid working class...Jackie Stanley and Tony Neumann had factory jobs at the huge engine maker Briggs & Stratton, while Claude Stanley worked for A. O. Smith, a leading maker of chassis frames. All were union jobs, and all disappeared around 1990 as manufacturing went overseas. That’s when we meet the Stanleys and the Neumanns—just as both families are beginning to sink. The only work the men can find pays half the factory wage, without benefits...Without unions to support them, they are all at the mercy of indifferent employers and the harsh vagaries of the post-industrial economy.

Dwayne Johnson—a man most famous for pantomime wrestling, acting next to massive explosions, and knowing about the outcome of the Bin Laden raid pretty much before the rest of the world did—just made a movie slamming mandatory minimums that serves as a $35-million companion piece to a PBS documentary.

...Mitt Romney, taking on our enemies, no matter where they nest.

...will have its broadcast premiere on PBS on April 12

If you think America’s addiction to slavery was cured by a few strokes of a presidential pen, then a new PBS documentary called “Slavery by Another Name” is going to be a real eye-opener. The film, narrated by...Laurence Fishburne, will focus on the struggles of the post-Emancipation era, as well as the labor practices and laws that effectively created new forms of slavery in the South...

Charlene Hunter-Gault was one of two black students to attend the University that year...in 1963, she would become its first black graduate...Her journalism degree would take her to The New York Times...and PBS’ The MacNeil/Lehrer Report...Hunter-Gault moved to South Africa in 1997 where she worked for NPR, and later was CNN’s bureau chief/correspondent in Johannesburg

Massive budget shortfalls, vicious in-fighting and a power shift in Washington. Make no mistake, public media is facing the biggest ever threat to its existence...At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and the future of such popular programs as "Nova," "This American Life" and "Sesame Street."

PBS and nine of its local stations will benefit from a $2.2 million grant...by the Newman’s Own Foundation, a charitable arm of the food products company started by Paul Newman...Citing how engaged the late actor was in civic life and public affairs, the president of the foundation..said in a statement that Newman had “deeply valued” the foundation’s commitment to public broadcasting.

  ...throughout our nation's history, religion has never been on the sidelines. If you're going to watch only six hours of serious TV this fall, spend it all on the joint Frontline and American Experience documentary God in America...which traces the paths of America's religious, political, and social thinking since the 17th century. Sounds a little heavy, right? Fair point. This is a short, but never simplified, explanation of how democracy's ideals influenced belief, faith, and practice—and vice versa...What makes the three-nighter a standout is that it explains this complex interrelationship without selling anything. The narration, dramatic re-enactments, and expert commentaries maintain an academic distance from questions of a given faith's validity, and by treating all denominations as equal players, they avoid the theological distractions that effectively censor most discussions of God's role in real life...