Panel Puts Public Broadcasting Chair in Hot Seat

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the beleaguered chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, fielded sharp questioning Monday from a bipartisan Senate panel that quizzed him about his decision to secretly monitor public television and radio programs, and about other controversial moves that have led to calls for his resignation.

Tomlinson’s actions dominated much of a Senate subcommittee hearing about federal funding for public broadcasting. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) suggested that Tomlinson was on “a crusade of sorts,” and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) chided him for spending taxpayer money on lobbyists.

In response, the CPB chairman maintained that he had simply sought to follow a federal law requiring the corporation to ensure objectivity and balance in public broadcasting programs.

The nearly two-hour exchange was the first time Tomlinson, a Republican, was directly questioned about recent allegations regarding his 22-month tenure as chairman.

Reports that he hired a consultant to track the political leanings of guests on “Now With Bill Moyers” and pushed the CPB board to hire Patricia Harrison, a former Republican Party chairwoman, as chief executive have led Democratic lawmakers to accuse him of politicizing the CPB. The private nonprofit, which distributes federal funding to local stations, is supposed to act as a political firewall between the government and public broadcasters.

In her first public appearance since she began the job last week, Harrison sought to assure the subcommittee that her partisan background would not affect her performance as CEO.

Harrison, also a former State Department official, said one of her goals was to “ensure that public broadcasting is not pressured or interfered with by the federal government, in any way, or the board.”

“I feel confident that I’m a fair person, that I have a great deal of integrity and that nobody owns me, ever,” Harrison added.

Tomlinson -- who seemed flustered at times by the questioning -- called for a halt to the heated political debate that had engulfed public broadcasting.

“I have brought up the issue of the importance of political balance,” he said. “This should not overshadow the needs that public broadcasting has.”

Though the House restored $100 million in proposed cuts to the CPB budget last month, the public broadcasting system faces a 25% reduction in federal funding next year. This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee is to consider the CPB budget, including $146 million worth of programs public broadcasting officials hope to get reinstated.

One witness at Monday’s subcommittee hearing expressed support for doing away with federal funding altogether.

“In a world of 500 channels and the World Wide Web, government-funded radio and television networks are not essential,” said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Public broadcasting officials, including PBS President Pat Mitchell and John Lawson, president of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, maintained that public television and radio provided a unique service.

Most of the senators agreed and said they were inclined to restore the funding, including Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who said many of his rural constituents relied on the programming.

With little debate about the budget, the subcommittee devoted much of its time to asking Tomlinson about his actions as chairman, including his decision to hire Fred Mann, a consultant with conservative ties, to monitor programming in late 2003 and early 2004.

Along with tracking the guests on the show then hosted by Moyers, who retired in December, Mann monitored National Public Radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show” and the PBS talk shows “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered” and “Tavis Smiley.” Politicians and journalists who expressed opinions critical of the Bush administration were dubbed liberal or anti-Bush.

Sen. Durbin called Mann’s conclusions “clearly off the wall.”

Tomlinson defended the study, saying that it proved his belief that Moyers’ program was biased -- an assessment he said PBS officials initially rejected. He said that his concern about balance had been resolved now that PBS had added a program featuring Paul Gigot, the conservative editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal.

“ ‘Now’ is liberal advocacy; Wall Street Journal is conservative advocacy,” Tomlinson said in an interview after the hearing.

He got support from Stevens, who said he agreed that Moyers’ show had a political bias. But the rest of the panel appeared skeptical of Tomlinson’s actions.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) asked whether it was legal for the chairman and his predecessor to authorize consultant contracts last year without informing the rest of the board. The consultants, including two Republican lobbyists, were hired to help the corporation defeat a measure that would have increased the representation of local stations on the board.

The chairman said CPB hired three consultants because the corporation’s only legislative affairs liaison was on vacation when officials became aware of the proposal. He said the contracts followed regulations and were approved by the CPB president and general counsel. He said he did not tell the rest of the board because it was not usually informed about such matters.

Specter took Tomlinson to task for spending money on consultants instead of lobbying himself.

“It raises questions, at least in my mind, as to the propriety of the expenditures,” the senator said. “If a man in your position came to see a senator, I think it would bear a lot more weight.”