A Coup at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

BOB GARFIELD: ...If you keep track of where your tax dollars go, you may know that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by act of Congress, is charged with doling out various federal monies to non-commercial broadcasters, including PBS and the distributor of this program, NPR. Just how much does the CPB kick in every year? Nearly 400 million dollars in 2005 - the third largest source of funds after private businesses and listeners like you. But, like any government go-between, especially one whose board is appointed by the president, the Corporation is vulnerable to accusations of political bias and persuasion - accusations that have surfaced recently over staff shakeups. Long depicted as a tool of the liberal elite, the CPB is now - if you believe Jeff Chester - in the midst of a conservative coup. Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington. Jeff, welcome back to OTM.
JEFF CHESTER: Thank you, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: The 1992 bill that re-authorized the CPB contained a clause mandating balance and objectivity on public broadcasting. Now, you say that that language is being used by the current CPB board, in effect to neuter content. How?
JEFF CHESTER: Up until now, this issue of objectivity, of balance, has been interpreted that overall in a programming schedule throughout the year, there'll be different points of view. But the CPB board, led by former Voice of America chief and Reader's Digest executive Ken Tomlinson is really insisting, now, that almost every program on PBS have that kind of balance - in other words, undermine the ability of PBS to have very strong public affairs programming, investigative programming and independent programming. [more]