by DemFromCT
In case you missed it, the CPB flap is covered here, wherein the Soviet-style minders have been instructed to check for creeping Bill Moyerism amongst staff and programming at public broadcasting's PBS and NPR. Yesterday, CJR had some follow-up:
As we reported last week, the two top Democrats on the House Appropriations and Commerce committees, Reps. David Obey and John Dingell, delivered a letter to the inspector general of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting charging CPB chief Kenneth Tomlinson with having broken the law in his quest to add "balance" to public broadcasting.
In the May 11 letter to CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz, the pair wrote that "Recent news reports suggesting that the CPB is making personnel and funding decisions on the basis of political ideology are extremely troubling." Speaking to the Web site Current.org, Konz has since confirmed that his office will investigate the charges contained in the letter and will report back to CPB and Congress once the investigation is completed.
One of the charges leveled by Obey and Dingell may point to potentially serious violations of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The charge has to do with Tomlinson's hiring of Mary Catherine Andrews, former director of the Office of Global Communications at the White House, to write a set of guidelines for CPB's two new ombudsmen to use when monitoring political content on PBS. The problem with this is that Andrews was still on staff at the White House when she wrote the rules. This may violate Section 398 of the act, which bars federal employees from engaging in any "direction, supervision or control over public telecommunications.
CJR makes the point that since Tomlinson is a federal employee, every move he makes to influence programming is potentially illegal. Stay tuned for more... very interesting turn of events here.
Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting wants to force PBS and NPR to broadcast news and opinion biased in favor of the radical right, all in the name of “Fairness and Balance”.
The Facts are The Facts, no matter who is embarrassed or affected by them. It is the legal duty of PBS and NPR to report on the facts without concern for the consequences to any political party (required by the Public Broadcasting Act).
Factual news stories that report on events that are alleged to have happened and verified by multiple sources or evidence can never be considered to have a liberal or conservative bias.
Opinion shows are a different matter entirely. Opinions are expected to be biased towards the point of view of the speaker.
If Kenneth Tomlinson and the Republicans in congress want "Balance" in opinions on PBS then they should be given exactly what they are asking for.
If every speaker and statement of opinion on every PBS news and opinion show is evaluated and every conservative speaker or minute of conservative opinion is required to be balanced by a liberal speaker or minute of liberal opinion and vice versa, the conservatives will have screaming fits since they currently enjoy a better than 3 to 2 bias in favor of conservative speakers and opinions.
Posted by: Douglas Godfrey | May 19, 2005 at 18:38