Senate Panel Acts to Keep Politics Out of Public TV
The Senate Commerce Committee today approved major changes in the way federal money is distributed to public television stations in an effort to better insulate program-funding decisions from politics.
The changes are vigorously opposed by the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, whose authority to decide how programming funds should be used would be sharply curtailed. CPB said the proposal would jeopardize the public broadcasting system.
Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he proposed the changes because of concerns that “CPB funding decisions are not sufficiently insulated from political” influence since CPB board members are appointed by the President.
He also said he was concerned about complaints from independent producers that they lack access to the public broadcasting system.
But Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said he was concerned about how the proposal would affect national programming, “the heart of the public television system.”
The changes, however, were approved unanimously as an amendment to a bill authorizing funding for CPB for the fiscal years 1990-92, which was sent to the Senate floor.
The changes would fund public television in much the same way National Public Radio is financed.
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