The leaning tower of PBS

Public television officials are increasingly fearful that PBS is reemerging as a political football after a series of efforts by Republicans to promote more conservative perspectives on the taxpayer-supported network.

Station managers and programmers gathered here for two public broadcasting conferences last week expressed growing alarm about recent actions by officials of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit agency charged with distributing federal funds to public broadcasters.

Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the agency, has called for more conservative voices in PBS programming and recently hired a former White House official to help set up an ombudsman’s office to evaluate the fairness and balance of public television and radio. Meanwhile, PBS itself has reined in several controversial programs, taking steps some public TV advocates see as self-censorship.

Some believe the Bush Administration is using its allies at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to undermine PBS, much as President Richard Nixon and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sought to withdraw support for the system in past years.

“There is no smoking gun, but when things begin to add up in aggregate, you can really only draw one small subset of conclusions

In an interview, Tomlinson strongly disputed the notion that he is attempting to muzzle public broadcasters, saying he just wants to strengthen PBS by making it more balanced. He also denied that the Bush administration was behind any of his actions.

“There has been absolutely no contact from anyone at the White House to me saying we need to do this or that with public broadcasting,” said Tomlinson, a former editor in chief of Readers Digest who was appointed to the board by then-President Bill Clinton.

But the consternation has risen to such a level that Tomlinson said he is worried about how it will impact PBS, which is facing a 25% cut in federal funding next year. The agency chairman said he plans to meet with Common Cause and other public interest groups that have expressed concern about the recent developments to reassure them about his intentions.

“I’m a fan of public broadcasting,” he said. “I’m going to reach out to liberal advocacy groups and assure them that I wouldn’t touch a hair on their favorite programs.... I’m going to watch myself and watch my language.”

“Public broadcasting is a very fragile institution,” Tomlinson added. “If I cause liberals to lose support for public broadcasting, I will have done the system harm.”

The controversy is forcing PBS President Pat Mitchell to navigate some tricky political terrain. She criticized Tomlinson publicly for the first time in a recent New York Times article, saying she believed there have been inappropriate efforts to influence content.

But during a public interest media seminar last week sponsored by the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, Mitchell backed away from that remark, saying she had been referring only to one instance in which Tomlinson told a gathering of member stations last fall that PBS should appeal more to Republican viewers.

She said she would not comment on private conversations she has had with the chairman.

“I don’t want to speculate about what his motives are,” Mitchell said. “What I care about is what we’re doing. And what we’re doing is -- any efforts from him, from the other side, from anywhere on the spectrum -- we’re going to resist.”

The anxiety among public broadcasters has been triggered by several events. In January, PBS decided not to distribute an episode of the children’s program “Postcards From Buster” that featured a family with two lesbian moms, a show that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said should not receive public funding. Several weeks later, PBS sent member stations an edited version of a “Frontline” documentary about U.S. troops in Iraq that cut out the profanity used by soldiers.

In April, Corporation for Public Broadcasting chief Kathleen Cox resigned after nine months on the job. She was replaced by Ken Ferree, a Republican and top advisor to ex-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell. Ferree raised eyebrows in a New York Times Magazine interview by saying he is seeking more conservative viewers and had trouble naming his favorite PBS shows.

Tomlinson has used his 18-month tenure to scrutinize the political makeup of PBS programming. He complained about bias in the newsmagazine “Now,” which was hosted by liberal commentator Bill Moyers until he retired last year.

At one point, Tomlinson quietly hired an outside consultant to track the political views of Moyers’ guests in order to bolster his argument. Eventually, PBS picked up new shows featuring conservatives Tucker Carlson and Paul Gigot, but officials were alarmed by Tomlinson’s aggressiveness, especially since “Now” is not directly financed by his agency.

In early April, the agency startled PBS officials by announcing the appointment of two ombudsmen to examine issues of fairness and balance in public broadcasting: Ken Bode, a former politics editor for New Republic magazine, and William Schulz, former executive editor of Readers Digest. Tomlinson tapped Mary Catherine Andrews, the former director of the White House Office of Global Communications, as a senior advisor to help coordinate the new office, among other duties.

Tomlinson said that his main concern has been the “political tone-deafness” of PBS officials such as Mitchell, who he said was not receptive to his argument that Moyers’ show was slanted.

“When we have shows of political advocacy, I want to see them balanced by other shows ... so people don’t look at public broadcasting, as a number of conservatives do, and say it’s biased,” he said.

Mitchell would not comment on her conversations with Tomlinson, but noted that polls taken by both Republican and Democratic polling firms have found the vast majority of the public believes PBS is objective.

“We have all the evidence in the world that Americans see the schedule as balanced and free of bias,” she said.

Many public broadcasters have watched the developments with distress.

“It’s important that public broadcasting be independent in order to do the best possible job of serving the American public, and it is not helpful when you have people playing out political agendas,” said David Hosley, general manager of KVIE, the public television station in Sacramento.

Mel Rogers, general manager of KOCE in Orange County, said he has received numerous e-mails and phone calls from viewers and members of his board about the corporation’s actions.

“They’re saying, ‘Is the current administration secretly trying to do away with all things public, including public broadcasting?’ ” said Rogers, adding that he does not believe there is an effort to eliminate PBS.

“What concerns me is that there appear to be some people at CPB now that seem to think that if there’s anything on public television they disagree with, that it should go away,” he said.

Tomlinson said he is not out to kill any PBS programs, and John Lawson, chief executive officer of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, said he has not observed any attempts to do so.

Last week, five public interest groups said that they are organizing town hall meetings around the country with members of the public, broadcasters and lawmakers to discuss how to guard PBS from politicking.

“What’s happening at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting directly contradicts the very reason CPB was founded, which was to protect public broadcasting from political pressure,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a media reform group, which has called for Tomlinson’s resignation.

Tomlinson said he has no plans to step down.

“If I didn’t believe that what I’m doing is going to increase public support for public broadcasting, I wouldn’t be here for five more minutes,” he said.