Sunday, May 22, 2005
Defend PBS from Karl Rove's Ideological Attack.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- the governing body that sets policy for public television and radio - was established to be a nonpartisan, independent group that is funded two years in advance specifically to avoid partisan, political pressures. It's crucial that public broadcasting is shielded from clearly partisan efforts.
However, recent expose by the New York Times has shed light onto a disturbing effort to tilt PBS and its programming to the far right. The New York Times reported that Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and a close friend of Bush right hand man Karl Rove, "is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence."
Among the revelations, Tomlinson:
1.without notifying the rest of the board, hired a consultant to monitor the political views of guests on Bill Moyers' "NOW".
2.cut funding for the NOW program in order to hire analysts from the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
3.heavily promoted and helped get on the air "The Journal Editorial Report" by conservative pundit Paul Gigot.
4.hired a Bush White House staffer as a senior staff member.
5.is pushing for a former Republican National Committee chairwoman to take over as president and chief executive of CPB.
6.has initiated an investigation of the NPR radio network's award-winning Middle East coverage in search of "bias."
In addition, Mr. Tomlinson has told CPB and PBS officials that "they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate."
The Times indicates that Tomlinson's tenure "has been the most polarizing in a generation," with one former member of CPB stating that partisanship was "essentially nonexistent" until Tomlinson joined the board and President Bush won election in 2000.
"There was an increasingly and disturbingly aggressive desire to be more involved and to push programming in a more conservative direction," said Christy Carpenter, a Democratic appointee to the board from 1998 to 2002, including a "very vehement dislike for Bill Moyers."
Tell Congress to Keep Partisan Pressure off PBS.
Contributed by Working Assets
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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- the governing body that sets policy for public television and radio - was established to be a nonpartisan, independent group that is funded two years in advance specifically to avoid partisan, political pressures. It's crucial that public broadcasting is shielded from clearly partisan efforts.
However, recent expose by the New York Times has shed light onto a disturbing effort to tilt PBS and its programming to the far right. The New York Times reported that Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and a close friend of Bush right hand man Karl Rove, "is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence."
Among the revelations, Tomlinson:
1.without notifying the rest of the board, hired a consultant to monitor the political views of guests on Bill Moyers' "NOW".
2.cut funding for the NOW program in order to hire analysts from the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
3.heavily promoted and helped get on the air "The Journal Editorial Report" by conservative pundit Paul Gigot.
4.hired a Bush White House staffer as a senior staff member.
5.is pushing for a former Republican National Committee chairwoman to take over as president and chief executive of CPB.
6.has initiated an investigation of the NPR radio network's award-winning Middle East coverage in search of "bias."
In addition, Mr. Tomlinson has told CPB and PBS officials that "they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate."
The Times indicates that Tomlinson's tenure "has been the most polarizing in a generation," with one former member of CPB stating that partisanship was "essentially nonexistent" until Tomlinson joined the board and President Bush won election in 2000.
"There was an increasingly and disturbingly aggressive desire to be more involved and to push programming in a more conservative direction," said Christy Carpenter, a Democratic appointee to the board from 1998 to 2002, including a "very vehement dislike for Bill Moyers."
Tell Congress to Keep Partisan Pressure off PBS.
Contributed by Working Assets
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