Journalist MacNeil named 'Crossroads' host

NEW YORK, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Journalist and former "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" co-anchor Robert MacNeil has been named the host of the controversial TV project, "America at a Crossroads."

The $20 million series of TV programs from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting has been fraught with problems since its inception in 2004, but The New York Times said that naming MacNeil as host shows the project is headed in the right direction.

"I wanted to be sure that we were going to be in control of the material," MacNeil said of the project, which includes films on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It seems to me extraordinary, at this time, that public television, whatever the genesis, is devoting a huge block of time and a large amount of money to a series of independently made films about all these issues."

The project, under the purview of the Washington public TV station WETA, will unveil its initial 11 documentaries in April as part of a six-night block of programming, the Times said.