Officials Decry Republican Slap at Public Broadcasting : Television: The party platform attacks stations as ‘biased.’ Defenders in the media see the plank as a political tactic.

A plank in the Republican Party platform that condemns public TV and radio as biased and undeserving of government support is “misguided” and “ridiculous,” say officials in public broadcasting.

Nancy Neubauer, a spokeswoman for America’s Public Television Stations, public broadcasting’s lobbying arm, called the plank a political ploy meant to be used by Republican candidates against opponents who support public broadcasting.

“It’s ridiculous to make this a major issue when there are so many real major issues,” Neubauer said.

“The Republicans are misinformed,” Richard Carlson, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and himself a Republican, said in a written statement. “They are putting the blame on the wrong outfit.”

The plank, which is in keeping with the ultraconservative tone the Republican Party has taken during its convention in Houston, sharply criticizes public broadcasting as “biased” and says the party “looks forward to the day” when the system is privatized.

The platform language is based on a widespread belief among the political right that public broadcasting has a liberal bias, a belief that fueled a bitter Senate fight over funding for public TV and radio earlier this year.

“We deplore the blatant political bias of the government-sponsored radio and television networks,” the platform reads. “It is especially outrageous that taxpayers are forced to underwrite this biased broadcasting through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” the nonprofit body that doles out government funds to public broadcasters.

“While we all enjoy the entertainment programs, the public-service part of it is just horribly slanted,” said Thomas Hartnett, a South Carolina delegate who chaired the committee responsible for the wording of the plank. “It’s almost to the point of . . . communistic.”

Hartnett is running for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina against incumbent Democrat Ernest F. Hollings, a staunch supporter of public broadcasting and chairman of the committee that oversees it.