Republican chairman turning PBS into FOX2

[chrisclub]

"Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, hired a consultant to keep track of guests' political views on a program hosted by Moyers,"

"Shortly after becoming CPB chairman, Tomlinson sent Mitchell a letter complaining that Moyers' work "does not contain anything approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050524/ap_en_bu/pbs_mitchell
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How did this guy get to be the chairman of PBS?

He is trying to turn PBS into another FOX News.

The reason I bring this up is because the fact that PBS hasn't done a documentary on the 2004 election is obviously because of Tomlinson.

Chris

[Luminous Animal]

1. "Hands Off Public Broadcasting" Campaign

http://mediamatters.org/handsoff/

"Fortunately, some of our elected officials have taken action. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, and Rep. David Obey (D-WI), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, have written a letter to the Inspector General of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting demanding an investigation of recent actions by the CPB that may violate the Public Broadcasting Act. Dingell and Obey write: "Recent news reports suggesting that the CPB is increasingly making personnel and funding decisions on the basis of political ideology are extremely troubling."

We at Media Matters for America agree with Dingell and Obey. That is why we have begun our "Hands Off Public Broadcasting" campaign to monitor, analyze and fight back against efforts to turn PBS, NPR, and other public broadcasting outlets into yet another outlet for conservative misinformation.

We are asking for you to take action. Please contact your representatives and ask them to support Dingell and Obey's call for an investigation into Tomlinson's political pressure on PBS and NPR. Let your representatives know that you support quality programming and independent journalism at PBS."

[jedr]

2. Thinking out loud here,

many repubs watch PBS, in case you haven't noticed T.V. sucks and PBS is about the only good entertainment on the tube. What will be the overall effect if PBS tanks like Clear Channel ,( due in part to poor programing)? Satellite is taking over radio, but where will folks go with T.V.? Just as the net and blogs have replaced print MSM, I see a void if PBS goes down.. As Fox news has tumbled to half ,chiefly due to the overbearing hype, in the past months, will the overall population ( both liberal and consecrative) tolerate the loss of PBS.? Newty tried this and got bit in the ass, where might this take us?

[Inland]

3. FOX1 is sucking air in its ratings, but the conservatives give us another

Just to make sure everyone gets the Admin's message.

[Amaryllis]

4. How long has he been chair? I heard recently on AAR that one of Karl's

closest friends had been given a seat on board. I tuned in part way through so missed details.

[snot]

5. Note simultaneous top-down attack at BBC

Their board wants to fire 3,800 and to privatize parts of the corp.; employees are striking -- see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x21058 .

I think it would be helpful for awareness of this to be raised.