Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe LOS ANGELES, May 2 (UPI) -- The head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is pushing ahead with a campaign to eliminate what he perceives to be a liberal bias in public broadcasting, even though CPB reportedly has data from two separate polls suggesting that the public is content with programming on PBS and National Public Radio. Kenneth Tomlinson, who was elected chairman of the CPB board in 2003, hired an outside consultant last year to build a case on the political leanings of guests on the PBS show "Now With Bill Moyers," according to a report in The New York Times. The paper also reported that Tomlinson hired a White House public information officer last March as a senior staff member at CPB -- and that the staff member's job involved writing guidelines for CPB ombudsmen who were recently appointed to review content on public TV and radio. Advertisement Advertisement In addition, said the Times, Tomlinson urged public broadcasting officials to add "The Journal Editorial Report" to the PBS schedule. The show's host, Paul Gigot, supervises the Journal's famously conservative editorial page -- and participants in the show generally conform to conservative orthodoxy in their discussion of public affairs. Following the announcement last month that Kathleen Cox will leave her job as CPB president and chief executive, Tomlinson has lobbied the board to replace Cox with Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Tomlinson told the Times he is trying to establish balance in public broadcasting -- not to impose a political point of view on programming. "My goal here is to see programming that satisfies a broad constituency," he said. "I'm not after removing shows or tampering internally with shows." However, the Times noted that Tomlinson has often said that public TV shows is too liberal. Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of PBS -- who has not publicly challenged Tomlinson before now -- told the paper that attempts "to influence content from a political perspective" are inappropriate. Mitchell has previously announced that she will leave PBS when her contract expires next year. There is a widely held assumption among many people in the United States -- particularly among conservatives -- that public broadcasting is dominated by liberal politics. But the Washington-based Center for Digital Democracy recently reported that Tomlinson has been sitting on polling data showing that a substantial majority of Americans are happy with the programming on PBS and NPR. The CDD said the data was "buried in an annual report to Congress but never released to the press nor shared with PBS and NPR." Advertisement CDD Executive Director Jeffrey Chester told United Press International that separate polls conducted in 2002 and 2003 indicated that the public does not perceive a bias in public broadcasting. The CDD reported that the Tarrance Group -- which it said has worked for Republican clients including the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign and Republican National Committee -- conducted the polls with help from the Democratic polling firm, Lake Snell Perry and Associates. It said that the 2003 survey found that public broadcasting had an 80-percent favorable rating, while 10 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of PBS and public radio. More than half of those surveyed said that PBS news and information programming was more "trustworthy" than news shows on the commercial networks, including ABC, CNN, CBS, Fox and NBC -- while 8 percent thought that PBS's Iraq war coverage was "slanted." According to the CDD report, the 2003 poll was followed up with a series of focus groups consisting of respondents who said they believed there was a liberal bias at PBS and NPR. The report said most of those who expressed that sentiment "could not cite specific examples of bias." The CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee public broadcasting -- ostensibly without interference by politicians. It has a mandate to ensure objectivity and balance in public broadcasting, and to maintain public broadcasters' independence. Chester said public broadcasting has always been politicized one way or the other, depending on which party controlled the White House and Congress. Advertisement "CPB was supposed to serve as a heat shield to protect PBS from political pressure," he said. "Now, it's CPB that's putting on the heart and hitting PBS with its shield." Chester said the CDD is calling for Tomlinson to resign as CPB chairman. "CPB should not be run by a Republican or a Democrat," he said. "It should be run by an independent who is apolitical and whose mission is to improve the quality of public television." It is probably not very likely that public broadcasting will ever avoid being used as a political football, given that -- like virtually everything else in Washington -- it is subject to the spoils system. At that, said Chester, CPB tends to be regarded as "third-tier" political patronage. "If you can't be an ambassador to some tiny island nation because you're not important enough," he said, "you get CPB." -- (Please send comments to [email protected].)
