NEWS RELEASE
U.S. House of Representatives

Obey and Dingell Call for Investigation
of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

CPB Chairman Pushing for Political Control of PBS

WASHINGTON -- Today, Reps. David Obey (D-WI), and John D. Dingell (D-MI) called for an investigation into reports that the Republican Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is pushing for political control over public broadcasting.

Obey, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Appropriations, and Dingell, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, requested that Kenneth A. Konz, Inspector General for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, investigate whether the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is violating the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 (PBA), which prohibits interference by Federal officials over the content and distribution of public programming, and forbids "political or other tests" from being used in CPB hiring decisions.

Obey and Dingell asked that the CPB Inspector General investigate a consulting contract that, according to The New York Times, was initiated by CPB Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson to review the "Now with Bill Moyers" television show for political content. They also asked the CPB Inspector General to look into CPB's recent decision to hire two ombudsmen to review public programming, and its removal of Kathleen Cox, who was at the time CPB president and chief executive officer.

Recent news reports suggest the CPB increasingly is making personnel and funding decisions on the basis of political ideology.

• On May 2, The New York Times reported that CPB Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson had contracted last year with a consultant to monitor the "political content" of the "Now With Bill Moyers" program for its "anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom Delay" biases. The final report was never released to Mr. Moyers, the board of directors or the public for review, but Mr. Tomlinson cited "the left-wing bias" of "NOW" as a reason for his active support of a new Public Broadcasting Service show entitled "The Journal Editorial Report." "PBS Dial Dynamics," (The Washington Times, 5/10/05).
• The CPB is forbidden from actually producing programs, scheduling or distributing them. It is reported, however, that Mr. Tomlinson was involved in securing $5 million in corporate funding for "The Journal Editorial Report," and pressed PBS into distributing it. He previously told the Association of Public Television Stations that they should make sure their programming better reflected the "Republican mandate." (The Washington Times, 5/10/05; The New York Times, 5/2/05).
• Mr. Tomlinson hired Mary Catherine Andrews, while she was still director of the White House Office of Global Communications, to draft guidelines for a review of the content of public radio and television broadcasts. Ms. Andrews was subsequently hired by CPB.

"CPB's own research has shown that the American public believes public television and radio programming is objective and balanced. If CPB is moving in the direction of censorship of public affairs content based on partisanship and political views, this will severely erode the public trust that public broadcasting heretofore has enjoyed," say Obey and Dingell in the letter.

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