By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) --"Finding Your Roots" will return for season three, but whether the celebrity genealogy series that buried an uncomfortable fact about Ben Affleck's ancestor continues after that remains in doubt, PBS' chief executive said.
PBS conducted a "very thorough investigation" and is working with the show's producers to ensure that its content is accurate, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger told TV critics Saturday. The third season has yet to be scheduled.
The public TV service launched a review after it was reported that Affleck requested the program not reveal his ancestor's slave-holding history in a 2014 episode. The Associated Press examined historical documents and found that Affleck's great-great-great-grandfather owned 24 slaves.
Affleck's request came to light last spring in hacked Sony emails published online by whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
PBS' review found that co-producers violated standards by allowing improper influence on the show's editorial process and failed to inform PBS or then-producing station WNET New York of Affleck's efforts to affect the program's content. Changes were made, including adding another researcher and an independent genealogist.
Series host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates Jr. has issued an apology, saying he regretted forcing PBS to defend the integrity of its programming.
WETA in Washington, D.C., took over as the public TV producing station before the issue came to light, Kerger said.
In a Facebook posting in April, Affleck said he was "embarrassed" for a TV show about his family to include a slave owner. The award-winning "Good Will Hunting" and "Argo" actor and filmmaker added, among other comments, that "Finding Your Roots" isn't a news program.
"We deserve neither credit nor blame for our ancestors and the degree of interest in this story suggests that we are, as a nation, still grappling with the terrible legacy of slavery," Affleck said in the post.
PBS hasn't been tarnished by what occurred, Kerger said during the Q&A session, and it reinforced the importance of applying stringent standards to all its programs.
PBS is taking time to weigh what occurred with "Finding Your Roots" to ensure that there was a clear understanding of what happened and what oversight needed to be added, Kerger said.
"But we want to be fair and not punitive," she said, adding she hopes that the series will continue.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads โ essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More