The end of Public Broadcasting -- soon

Well, those of us who had a decent radio or TV station to go to are about to lose it. Kenneth Tomlinson, a close associate of the FCC's super conservative Chairman Powell (son of Colin Powell), has announced that he is going to eliminate the liberal bias of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

UPI May 02, 2005 (the press association owned by the Moonies who also own the Washington Times) provides the news.

"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".

"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 [...]"

"Tomlinson has often said that public TV shows is too liberal."

[Note: Dianne Rheem this morning also pointed out that Tomlinson stated that he has not listened to National Public radio and does not watch Public TV.]

[...]"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."

"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."

It isn't just the new CEO of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. He has brought with him some super-conservatives to rework the CPB Omsbudsman Office. Media Matters has this part of the story.

Essentially the conservatives hate facing people who disagree with them. Liberals in the same situation would argue and try to provide facts to change their minds. Conservatives just work to take the opponents over and shut them down or make them follow the daily spin.