Published: November 15, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor
Public Broadcasting Power Struggle - Report Blasts Conservative PBS Chief
New Report Blasts Conservative PBS Chief Tomlinson
Public Broadcasting is the institution conservatives love to hate: An icon of liberalism, force-funded by hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars-including conservative dollars.
So when conservative Republican Ken Tomlinson was appointed to head up the liberal organization, there was all sorts of speculation as to how the new vinegar would mix with the old oil. Well, it didn't.
The proverbial other shoe just dropped. Tomlinson is out and a new report released Nov. 15 says why.
The blistering report reportedly faulted Tomlinson on several counts including:
1) Tomlinson allegedly used a political acid test for new hiring when the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 forbade politics from coming into play at PBS.
2) Tomlinson hired a consultant for $20,000, without proper Board approval, to review program content on PBS shows such as "Now with Bill Moyers" that supposedly tracked whether guests were pro-Bush or pro-DeLay.
3) Tomlinson hired a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Patricia Harrison.
4) Tomlinson supposedly sought to withhold funding from PBS unless the taxpayer-supported network brought in more conservative voices to balance its programming.
According to The Washington Post, "Tomlinson has defended his actions as an effort to bring political balance to public affairs programming and maintained no wrongdoing" but that Democrats disagree, contending Tomlinson tried to turn public radio and television into a mouthpiece for the GOP.
Weighing in on the topic, conducting Talk Show interviews, is the world's leading Internet evangelist, Bill Keller, founder of LivePrayer.com and host of the popular late night television show "Live Prayer" on ABC Television, WB, UPN and Pax.
According to evangelist Keller, Tomlinson was restoring balance to the force-funded ultra-liberal PBS network. Keller believes it is farcical to fault Tomlinson for letting his political view affect programming decisions at PBS, as if PBS was a pillar of balance. Keller contends no study is needed to see the blatant institutionalized liberal bias at PBS.
Keller has more viewers and email subscribers than 90% of PBS's programs but without one penny of the $400 million in government subsidies.
Bill Keller, founder of www.liveprayer.com is the world's leading Internet evangelist, with over 2 million subscribers to the Daily Devotional he has written every morning for over 6 years. Bill is also the host of the only "live" Christian program on mainstream television, seen by over 1/4 million viewers live for an hour every Mon-Fri on ABC Television affiliates in Miami, Jacksonville, and West Palm Beach, the WB affiliate in Ft. Myers, the PAX affiliate in Orlando, and the UPN affiliate in Tampa.
* The views of Opinion writers do not necessarily reflect the views of NewsBlaze
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