PBS turns right

Statistics already show that PBS has significantly more conservative interviewees than progressives. But now the order has come from the top down to turn even further to the right. This is very disturbing to those of us who once experienced public broadcasting as a haven of serious unbiased news reporting and thoughtful open-minded commentary.

The original article about this is in the New York Times but I'm linking you to one of my favorite blogs - Echidne of the Snakes - on the topic. The blog entry is entitled, "Fairer and Balanceder....The New PBS". Echidne starts off this way:

The New York Times reports about the man behind the curtain at the new and improved Public Broadcasting Service, one Mr. Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Mr. Tomlinson wants to make the PBS fairer and more balanced. I agree with him. It would be nice to have the same number of liberal and lefty interviewees as those from the wingnut side. But this is not where Mr. Tomlinson sees problems. Rather, he thinks the PBS is a vile left-wing plot, the beating heart of the so-called liberal media, the oppressor of all things right and wingnutty, and he wants to stop this horrible state of affairs.

Which he can handily do. He is in power. So what does Mr. Tomlinson plan? Here is a hint:

Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."

In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.

Mr. Tomlinson also encouraged corporation and public broadcasting officials to broadcast "The Journal Editorial Report," whose host, Paul Gigot, is editor of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state.

Later Echidne observes:

You might be interested in learning that the board of the Corporation for Public roadcasting has only three non-Republican members out of a total nine. Why is this seen as fairly balanced?

But of course it is. Mr. Tomlinson's idea of balance is to get rid of voices like Bill Moyers' and to make sure that no anti-government investigative journalism will be performed in the future. And this clarifies his views even further:

Last November, members of the Association of Public Television Stations met in Baltimore along with officials from the corporation and PBS. Mr. Tomlinson told them they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate.

It's bad enough that PBS has people like Tucker Carlson and David Brooks bloviating away. Now it's only going to get worse.

Update: Interestingly, I got the following email today from Free Press:

Dear Ellie Finlay:

PBS is in jeopardy. Today's New York Times describes secret efforts by Republican operatives to make our Public Broadcasting System more "fair and balanced."

Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) -- the government-funded organization that was designed to shield PBS from political pressure -- is aggressively pressing PBS to correct what he considers "liberal bias."

He secretly hired a White House staffer to help draft "guiding principles" for the future of CPB. He brought in a consultant to monitor the "anti-Bush" and "anti-Tom Delay" content on Bill Moyers' NOW program, and then set up and funded right-wing commentator Paul Gigot's new PBS program. Now Tomlinson is working behind the scenes to stack CPB's board and executive offices with Republican Party cronies.

Click here to save PBS

Together we can stop this partisan attack. Join our call to Congress, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS station managers to:
1. Remove Kenneth Tomlinson from the CPB board.
2. Return PBS to the people by holding local town meetings in your community. We the public -- not partisan political operatives -- should decide what we want from PBS.

Tomlinson told the Times that he's trying to restore "objectivity and balance" to public broadcasting. This top-down partisan meddling goes against the very nature of PBS and the local stations we trust. Let the people speak and decide the future of PBS, not secret dealings by White House operatives.

Send your message now -- and forward this letter to all of your friends and colleagues, asking them to do the same.

Onward,
Josh Silver

www.freepress.net
P.S. -- To learn more, read the recent report on "Building a Public Broadcasting System that Deserves Public Support" by Free Press, Consumers Union, Common Cause, Media Access Project and the Consumer Federation of America.