New Program Exec Has Big Plans for Public TV : Television: With a firmer grip on the corporate reins than her predecessors had, Jennifer Lawson plans to enlist Hollywood talent for more innovative programming.

“I think I got this job because I’m comfortable being in the hot seat,” said Jennifer Lawson, the Public Broadcasting Service’s new senior programming executive.

During a recent visit to Los Angeles, Lawson did seem comfortable in her newly created position as PBS’ executive vice president for national programming and promotion services--despite the fact that this particular seat just became hotter than ever.

Under a recent financial restructuring of PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the two organizations behind public television--PBS will have control of a greater part of public TV’s funds than ever before. That means 43-year-old Lawson, who took the job Nov. 27, will not only have more money, but more power than previous PBS program chiefs.

In her new position, Lawson also takes on the delicate business of selling public television. While PBS shuns advertising on PBS , she says with a smile: “Advertising public television is something we would love to do.”

The added responsibilities do not worry Lawson. Formerly director of CPB’s $43-million Television Program Fund, as well as the $10-million CPB/PBS Challenge Fund (which finances prime-time series for PBS distribution), Lawson is used to deciding where public TV’s dollars should be spent.

“Before being in this position, I was at CPB for almost 10 years, and in that position I had to tell an extraordinarily large number of people, ‘No,’ ” Lawson said pleasantly. “And one of the things that I’m proudest of is that I have gained so many friends among the people I have said ‘no’ to.

“Because of the restructuring, this position does have more authority, and I have far more resources than my predecessors had. But . . . it’s not frightening because I feel supported by the system, by the stations and by the producers.”

Lawson has never shied away from big challenges. Her interest in television grew out of her involvement in the civil rights movement, during which she worked with destitute blacks in Mississippi. Although Lawson began her career as a print journalist, her experiences in the Deep South made her realize the value of television.

“I felt that, gee, I’m working in print, and print doesn’t make sense anymore,” she said. “It’s the visual media that get through to people. I did similar work in East Africa, and felt, again, that we were working in print in a country where the majority of the people are illiterate.

“It was interest in education, and education for social mobility, that brought me into media. Plus, I just love film and television. I respect television, and I want to encourage producers to respect television.

“I think sometimes in public television our producers place emphasis on the ‘public’ without placing equal emphasis on the ‘television,’ ” Lawson added. “And I want to believe that television could be so much more magical if we all pushed the ‘television’ side of it a little more. We too often use it as merely a distribution system.”

Lawson has already paid a visit or two to Hollywood producers to urge them to consider PBS as an option for innovative programming, rather than only considering the Big Three networks, Fox Broadcasting and cable.

Lawson scoffs at the idea that those who have worked in commercial television have nothing to offer PBS. “I think there are creative producers in Hollywood, she said. “I see no reason for us not to work with people who are in this geographical area.”

But Lawson adds that working with Hollywood does not mean imitating it. She believes PBS must maintain its identity as an educational service, rather than simply mirroring offerings on such cable channels as Arts & Entertainment and the Discovery Channel.

“The fact that (cable stations) are now buying documentary programming . . . means we are no longer unique in that realm,” she said. “But there are still many places where we are , and it also gives us the freedom to move on to new territory.

“One of the advantages of public broadcasting is that it’s a network of stations all over the country, not just a national broadcasting service. We have the ability to do local community outreach that the cable services, at this point, don’t have.”

Lawson, who began her education at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute in the mid ‘60s with the intent to become a doctor, switched gears when she left school to join the civil rights movement. She later earned a master’s degree in film studies from Columbia University and was an assistant professor of film at Brooklyn College. Her husband, Anthony Gittens, is executive director of the Washington International Film Festival.

As one who once considered making films for PBS, Lawson has plenty of ideas for new PBS programs. She would like to see PBS develop more programs on the American Indian culture and on the Pacific Islands.

Lawson said that a new CPB committee is developing ways of assessing audience needs. The mother of a teen-ager and a 6-year-old, Lawson notes that PBS needs to better serve the needs of young viewers. But, she added, PBS does not want to continue to preach to the converted.

“My fear is that we are creating two Americas in a way--and this cuts across all racial lines,” she said. “There is one group of people who attend good schools, and learn computers at an early age, who are exposed very broadly to theater and the arts--and another that isn’t. I worry about who those people will be, 10, 15 years from now.

“I think TV, because it can reach into everyone’s homes, has an opportunity to help equalize that. All of those good intentions of reaching an underclass, or people who’ve been under-served by television, will remain good intentions unless we can find forms of programming that they will watch.”