Big Bird Gets Plucked (PBS)

[paineinthearse]

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Big Bird Gets Plucked

For more than two decades, "political conservatives have been targeting PBS ... with a stream of public relations campaigns designed to rein in public broadcasting's independence and cut into its public and congressional support." Both the Nixon and Reagan administrations attacked public broadcasting and, as speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich tried to end its funding. E-mail petitions -- with "Save Big Bird!" subject lines -- that implored you to save public broadcasting from destruction used to be the stuff of urban legend. But leave it to conservatives to ultimately succeed in turning fiction into reality. Right-wingers are taking over the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the agency intended to provide a buffer between independent public broadcast networks and the partisan government. And they are working overtime to put a conservative slant on programming, a move that completely undermines the non-interference mandate of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act. This week right-wingers in the House voted to cut all federal funding for public broadcasting within the next two years. Unless the public demands respect for independent and public broadcasting, soon nobody will be able to tell you how to get to Sesame Street. Write Congress and demand that they save PBS from partisan operatives.

TOMLINSON'S PUBLIC CRONIES: Staunchly conservative CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson "secretly drafted a White House official to formulate 'guiding principles' for the appointment of two ombudsmen to monitor and critique all public broadcasting content." Then, against the suggestion of top public broadcasting officials, Tomlinson hired the ombudsmen. Both have very clear ties back to conservatives and even the Organization of News Ombudsmen, "which represents nearly a hundred print and broadcast ombudsmen from around the world," doesn't trust their independence. The organization rebuffed the CPB appointees' attempts to become full members of the group. Tomlinson is also working to get the former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee into the chief executive position at CPB. Additionally, Tomlinson wants to hire the conservative "who pioneered the myth of the 'liberal media'" to review NPR coverage.

TOMLINSON'S NOT SO PUBLIC CRONIES: That's the stuff Tomlinson is doing on the surface. Without informing the rest of the board, Tomlinson secretly doled out thousands of dollars to conservative lobbyists. The CPB's inspector general is now investigating these Tomlinson handouts, as well as other undisclosed money he gave to "a man in Indiana who provided him with reports about the political leanings of guests" invited on the show of media legend Bill Moyers. The consultant " 'anti-Bush' and 'anti-Tom DeLay' comments by the guests." CPB was "created by Congress to serve as a 'heat shield' to protect public broadcasting from political interference ... Tomlinson is turning it into a right-wing blowtorch."

THE RIGHT WING'S DARLING: One of the lobbyists secretly hired by Tomlinson is Brian Darling. This is the same Brian Darling who "served as a top aide to Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) but resigned after the disclosure that he had written a memorandum describing how to exploit politically the life-support case of Terri Schiavo." Initially, Martinez denied any association with the memo and Republicans " Democrats of concocting the document as a dirty trick." In the document, which Martinez handed over to another senator and described as "talking points -- something that we're working on here," Darling calls the Schiavo case "a great political issue" that would rouse the pro-life base.

THE POLL NUMBERS THE RIGHT DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE: Publicly, Tomlinson continues to maintain that he is "concerned about perceptions that not all parts of the political spectrum are reflected on public broadcasting." What Tomlinson isn't talking about are his own poll numbers, which say the exact opposite. Earlier this year, the CPB hired the right-leaning polling firm Tarrance Group to investigate these political bias claims. After conducting two "National Public Opinions," pollsters found 80 percent of Americans saw PBS programming as "fair and balanced" -- and they didn't mean like Fox News -- while 90 percent believed that PBS "provides high quality programming." Furthermore, a majority of respondents called PBS "more trustworthy than CNN, Fox News Channel and other mainstream news outlets." Tomlinson "buried in an annual report to Congress" without releasing them to the press or even sharing them with PBS and NPR.

HOUSE CALLS FOR ELMO'S HEAD: Under a bill approved by the House Appropriations Commitee, federal funding of CPB, which "channels funding to the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and individual public radio and TV stations, would be slashed by $100 million. By the year 2008, all federal money would be gone. A senior official at National Public Radio "blamed" the funding cuts "on Tomlinson's "'irresponsible' charges of political bias." The accusation is understandable; the "political bias" claim was the same obfuscation used back when Gingrich tried to gut CPB in 1994. And though CPB is "supposed to encourage the growth of public broadcasting," its own chairman seems to have no problem with the House's decision. Tomlinson "rejected a proposed statement by senior officials at the corporation denouncing vote."

[displacedtexan]

1. I posted this pic my blog today...

I also posted an excerpt from the Yahoo news story (link under the burning Bush).