EDITOR: Kudos to Harry Jessell for lamenting the decline of clear limits between factual and fictitious programming and programming channels ("Fusing Fact and Fiction," March 5). Whatever happened to "standards"?
Unfortunately, no matter how noble the original concept of the History Channel and Discovery Channel may have been-and I hope they take our singling them out as a compliment to their overall excellence-it seems that all such noble aspirations eventually succumb to the temptation to seek the lower, if not lowest, common denominator, a.k.a the mass audience. On television, and cable, art almost always runs second to business. The bottom line is that, apart from the bottom line, nothing is sacred!
-Roy R. Russo, Managing Partner, Cohn and Marks, Washington D.C.
