Give Maryland Public Television an "A" for ambition for its "Live From Antarctica" broadcast yesterday. Give it a "B" for execution -- and that's not bad considering the many disasters that could have befallen the broadcast.
But along with those good grades comes a warning to MPT: Don't be blinded by the dazzle of new technology, the way commercial television news was when affordable satellites came along in the 1980s. Live is nice, and live from somewhere faraway is even nicer, but the quality of information gathered matters, too.
Not that there wasn't information to be had in yesterday's hour-long educational showcase.
"Live From Antarctica" was the first of four live telecasts that MPT is describing as "electronic field trips" to Antarctica. It involved linking students in three classrooms to a scientist and a meteorologist in Antarctica.
Viewers of channels 22 or 67 could watch in their homes as pupils in classrooms at MPT in Ownings Mills, Old Mill Middle School in Millersville, and a third school in McAllen, Texas, asked questions of the experts in Antarctica. The host was an enthusiastic junior anchorwoman named Camille Jennings.
Ian Dalziel, a geologist from the University of Texas, was the main attraction. He stood on a snow-swept mountain overlooking the Taylor Valley in Antarctica and answered questions from the kids in their cozy Maryland and Texas classrooms.
Dalziel is a big-time expert on Antarctica. But most of his responses started with such phrases as "I'm terribly sorry, I couldn't hear that." Because of the snow and wind, almost nothing could be seen beyond Dalziel's image.
Similarly, the first words from Navy Lt. Cmdr. John Joseph, the meteorologist, were, "I can barely hear the question . . . I have no audio." He was in what appeared to be a weather station -- sans wind and snow, but still having a hard time trying to hear the kids.
Things did get better shortly after the producers went to taped reports on Antarctica and then returned to their two live experts. But it begged the question of whether Dalziel, at least, would have been able to offer the kids better answers if he had been somewhere less distracting -- where he could hear what was being asked and focus on what he was saying.
It reminded me of local TV news operations that send reporters out in a storms so they can offer live satellite pictures of a soggy reporter who is too drenched to talk.
After the telecast, MPT Chairman Raymond Ho said the goal of the show was "to use Antarctica as a dramatization of the possibilities for educational television."
A dramatization for what audience? Mainly, legislators and government officials who have the power to fund MPT's desire to put Maryland classrooms on the information superhighway.
The classroom at MPT contained about $60,000 worth of TV technology. The money for that came from Bell Atlantic, which is willing to fund about 270 such classrooms in Maryland. Ho is trying to show what can be accomplished by putting this kind of technology in the hands of Maryland educators.
In that context, just getting the image of Dalziel and putting the kids in touch with the scientist should be considered a victory for MPT.
Kids in classrooms have already been connected on television with astronauts in outer space. But seeing Dalziel on that mountain was also pretty dramatic, and the kids did seem genuinely enthusiastic in their questions. In short, it was a pretty good show.
Overall, in television and political terms, MPT did pretty well yesterday. It taught some science from Antarctica, and showed the folks in Annapolis and Washington what's possible with fiber-optics and such. I'll leave it to the educational experts to determine whether this kind of TV teaching results in the best kind of learning by kids in the classroom.