PBS Scrutiny Raises Political Antennas

In fact, congressional Republicans have been generally critical of public broadcasting's news and informational programming for years, saying it favors liberal ideas. These criticisms fueled a movement led by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich to "zero out" CPB's federal funding a decade ago. Those efforts failed; federal appropriations to CPB have grown 40 percent since then, to some $386.8 million this year. About 90 percent of this money is passed directly to public radio and TV stations, which then pay fees to PBS and National Public Radio for programming such as "Nova" and "All Things Considered."

However, conservatives were exercised that Moyers -- an outspoken liberal -- was involved in hosting a weekly newsmagazine called "Now." (Moyers left the show in December, citing personal reasons.) PBS responded, in part, by trying to recruit Gingrich to host a weekly program. It wound up developing public affairs shows starring the Wall Street Journal's conservative pundits and Tucker Carlson, a columnist for the conservative Weekly Standard and a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire." (Carlson has since left PBS and CNN for a job at MSNBC.)

In January, PBS came in for more criticism, this time a rebuke from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings over an episode of a children's travelogue program in which a rabbit character named Buster paid a visit to two families headed by lesbians. PBS pulled the episode from distribution to stations around the country.

Tomlinson would not comment on specific programs. He said CPB's efforts were aimed at making "incremental changes that meet the needs of the American people and the aspirations of the American people." Tomlinson, who ran the Voice of America during the Reagan administration and was formerly editor in chief of Reader's Digest, became chairman of CPB in September 2003.

The corporation's own research indicates broad public satisfaction with the quality of news programming on PBS and NPR. A series of focus group sessions and two national surveys conducted by two polling firms -- the Tarrance Group and Lake Snell Perry & Associates -- found few perceptions of bias in PBS's or NPR's reporting in 2002 and 2003. For example, among people who identified themselves as "news and information consumers," 36 percent said PBS's coverage of the Bush administration in 2003 was "fair and balanced," and 46 percent offered no opinion. Eleven percent judged NPR's coverage of the Middle East to be biased, and this group split almost equally between those who felt NPR was biased toward Israel and those who felt it was biased toward the Arab or Palestinian side.

Wayne Godwin, PBS's veteran chief operating officer, said in an interview yesterday that he wanted to give CPB's new chief executive, Ferree, some time before he drew conclusions. "They're in such a significant state of flux at this time that we want to be fair in looking at it," he said.

He added, "I don't know that Ken [Tomlinson] is or is not trying to change our programming. . . . I will say there is reason to remain aware and vigilant to what is going on. The long run will determine if he wants changes."

Tomlinson said his goal is to seek increases in federal funding of public broadcasting in order to strengthen it in an increasingly competitive media environment. "Public TV, public broadcasting, is in trouble," he said. "It will wither and die if we continue the way we have. That's why it's so important for us to rally national support for it. If we don't have true excellence, we won't be able to gain the support we need. We have to make sure that these [programming] concerns don't prevent us from gaining the national consensus we need."