Inspector Gen. to Probe Actions of CPB Board Chmn. Tomlinson

“I can tell you that I will do an inquiry and take a look at the facts of the circumstances so that I can answer the Democrats on the Hill,” Konz told us. He said the investigation would take a “month or 2” because it he wound need a week to learn which records are available and “who I need to talk to.” But, he said, “I am going to do it as expeditiously as possible.”

Citing media reports, including the N.Y. Times and Communications Daily (CD April 29 p4), the congressmen said Tomlinson hired the consultant to monitor “political content” of Now With Bill Moyers for “anti-Bush, anti- business and anti-Tom Delay” bias. Seemingly it was the only public TV show subject to such review, they said, and “it is unclear why these terms were selected or how they were defined.” The consultant’s report wasn’t released to program host Bill Moyers, the CPB board or the public for review, they wrote.

They urged Konz to investigate reports of Tomlinson’s hiring of Mary Andrews, while still dir. of the White House Office of Global Communications, to draft guidelines for the 2 ombudsmen to review public TV and radio content. Andrews subsequently was hired by the CPB. The congressmen said all officers and staff of the CPB are to be selected or appointed without a “political test,” and questioned the basis for picking the ombudsmen -- Ken Bode, former NBC newsman, and William Schulz, former Reader’s Digest exec. editor. Bode, who the Congressmen said had endorsed Republican Mitch Daniels for governor of Ind., and Schulz, a “close friend” of Tomlinson, “do not appear to represent a broad spectrum of opinions,” they added. Also, they said, there seems to be a “great deal of confusion” about what the ombudsmen are supposed to do, and how they intend to carry out their mandate.

Dingell and Obey also want a review of the “process” used by the CPB to “remove” Kathleen Cox as pres. and to hire former FCC Media Bureau Chief Ken Ferree as COO and Michael Pack as senior vp-TV programming. Pack was hired a few weeks after he represented Lynne Cheney, the Vice President’s wife, in a meeting with PBS to request a series of programs on which Cheney would appear, they said. The inspector gen. should find out whether “political tests or qualifications” were used in these appointments and the board’s role, they added.

Tomlinson’s actions, they said, are “particularly disturbing” because the CPB is “supposed to carry out its purposes and functions “in ways that will most effectively assure the maximum freedom” of public broadcasters, they said, citing the Public Bcstg. Act, which authorizes the CPB: “Congress intended that the CPB serve as a shield rather than a source of political interference into public broadcasting.” They said CPB’s own research has shown that public TV and radio programming was objective and balanced. “If CPB is moving in the direction of censorship of public affairs content based on partisanship and political views, this will severely erode the public trust that public broadcasting… has enjoyed,” they wrote.

Tomlinson said in a statement he would work with the inspector gen. and Congress to “clear up with finality” what he called distortions in press reports and elsewhere “about our work to bring more diversity to public broadcasting.” He said he meant to encourage public broadcasters to take more seriously the need “that our current affairs line-up reflect objectivity and balance.” There would be no debate on the issue, he said, if more programs on public TV reflected the “high journalistic standards” of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Public broadcasters generally welcomed the probe by the CPB inspector gen., but some said they worry that the volleys could hurt public broadcasting. “It worries me because this is one of the tit-for-tat salvos,” said an executive of a national public broadcasting organization, who didn’t want to be identified. “Tomlinson does something and now Democratic proponents of public broadcasting respond to that. It becomes a sort of political game of tag. That’s not where public broadcasting needs to be.”

A CPB board source said at least 3 members of the board were unaware Tomlinson hired a consultant to review content on Now With Moyers. The questions the congressmen raised are relevant, the source said. “We do need some clarification,” said a PBS station manager: “Clearly we should be operating under the Public Broadcasting Act.”

Fairness and balance are among many issues confronting public broadcasting, CPB board member Earnest Wilson told us. “But it’s only a small issue… because all of the polls show that most Americans believe that public broadcasting is more balanced and more fair than any other medium” in the U.S., he said. However, he said, a “relatively small group” of people in Washington believed fairness and balance to be major issues. “So we are spending too much time on one issue and it’s a distraction form some of our broader concerns.” The CPB board, he said, should be tackling serious issues such as technological change, public TV losing market share and diversity.

Alleged CPB editorial interference with PBS programming calls for a thorough investigation, said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy: “One is struck with the irony that members of Congress have asked the CPB watchdog -- the IG -- to investigate the newest CPB watchdogs -- the ombudspersons.”