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Public Broadcasting Veers to the Right

By Chellie Pingree, AlterNet
June 1, 2004

It is deeply troubling to learn that public
broadcasting has been subject to intense ideological
pressure from conservatives. 


Ken Auletta's expose in this week's New Yorker "Big
Bird Flies Right" points to several disturbing trends:




The decision by CPB to fund two programs ¨C one hosted
by Tucker Carlson, who speaks for conservatives on
CNN's "Crossfire," and one moderated by Paul Gigot,
editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, at
the same time that "NOW with Bill Moyers," which
receives no CPB funds, is cut from an hour to 30
minutes, in what appears to be a Bush Administration
litmus test for choosing members of the CPB. When CPB
board candidate Chon Noriega, a UCLA media professor
and co-founder of the National Association of Latino
Independent Producers, was interviewed by the White
House, he was asked whether the CPB should intervene
in programming "deemed politically biased." When
Professor Noriega said intervention should be used in
only extraordinary circumstances, the appointment
process ground to a halt, and the White House asked
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to put
forward another candidate.

Bill Moyer's statement to Auletta: "This is the first
time in my 32 years of public broadcasting that CPB
has ordered up programs for ideological instead of
journalistic reasons."


To begin with, there is a huge problem with the CPB.
Whether it is a Democratic or Republican President who
appoints them, CPB board members tend to be big
political donors who often come with specific
ideological agendas. This seems particularly true of
the current board. 


For example, President George W. Bush's most recent
CPB appointees, Gay Hart Gaines and Cheryl Halpern,
have along with their families given more than
$800,000 to the Republican Party and candidates since
1995. And both appointees have backgrounds that raise
questions about their suitability to serve on the
board. During her confirmation hearing last fall,
Halpern indicated that she would welcome giving CPB
members the authority to intervene in program content
when they felt a program was biased. Gaines chaired
Newt Gingrich's (R-GA) political committee GOPAC. This
is the same Gingrich who as House Speaker proposed
cutting all federal assistance to public television. 


Current board chairman Kenneth Tomlinson has given
$7,700 to Republicans since 1995, and has been active
in Republican politics. A friend of Karl Rove, he is
quoted in The New Yorker article as saying,"It is
absolutely critical for people on the right to feel
they have the same ownership stake in public
television as people on the left have." Tomlinson has
also objected to Moyers' including commentary in his
programs. 


The fact that members of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB), which provides federal funds to
public radio and TV, play politics with its program
content should disturb us all ¨C irrespective of our
political views. Public broadcasting should not find
itself in the crosshairs of a partisan firing squad.
At a time when Americans are finding it more and more
difficult to get past the clutter and partisanship on
commercial TV and radio to find truthful sources of
information about their government, this ideological
pressure may gag one of the few sources of
independent, substantive news and commentary that
Americans can count on. 


The visionaries who created public broadcasting set up
the CPB as a nonprofit corporation charged with
distributing federal funds to public radio and
television. CPB's primary mission has always been to
serve as a "heat shield" between government and public
broadcasting, protecting its programming from
government interference. But instead of serving its
intended function, the CPB now is the agent of
ideological interference. 


We cannot let partisans drive an ideological stake in
the heart of public broadcasting. At a time when media
consolidation is making it more difficult for
Americans to hear diverse points of view and to be
exposed to substantive, challenging journalism, we
must save public broadcasting from these attempts to
meddle with its editorial independence. Today I'm
calling on our 250,000 Common Cause members and
supporters and all those who support public
broadcasting to phone or e-mail members of the CPB
board. Tell them we won't tolerate playing politics
with public broadcasting. 


Chellie Pingree is the president of Common Cause, a
non-profit organization dedicated to ending the
influence of special interests on politics.




	
		
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