PBS flap

George Neumayr, executive editor of The American Spectator, has a great column of the recent flap of Ken Tomlinson trying to correct the 99.99% liberal tilt of "public" broadcasting. The column is short and excellent, and this excerpt sums things up well:

The arrogance of the liberal cabal at PBS is incredible. They complain in proportion to their lost privileges. They automatically assume that Americans should feel happy to pay higher taxes to finance what amounts to PBS infomercials for the Democratic Party and the ideological cultural left.

The media coverage of Tomlinson reflects this arrogance of the aggrieved ruling class pining over its diminution (and minor at that) of power at PBS. Starting with the premise that liberalism is synonymous with editorial neutrality and independence, the media cast Tomlinson as "political" while his liberal critics at PBS are treated as "independent." This drawing of artificial lines is necessary in order to make the story sound compelling. But the story isn't alarming in the least if people know that the independent critics here are Democrats and liberals who treat PBS tax dollars as their own personal piggy bank for ideological projects.

Under a picture of Bill Moyers, the Washington Post ran the caption: "Bill Moyers's PBS program is reported to have been monitored for 'anti-Bush' content." That's supposed to sound very chilling. But what Tomlinson did sounds responsible once you know that Moyers's infomercials for the Democrats are financed with tax dollars. Didn't the same press now getting worked up over Tomlinson complain recently about tax dollars going to pro-Bush content (from Armstrong Williams and the like)? If tax dollars shouldn't go to pro-Bush journalism, by that same reasoning the press should object to tax dollars going to Bill Moyers for anti-Bush journalism. That Tomlinson objected to Moyers' anti-Bush content isn't any more threatening to editorial independence than the press's legitimate squawking about tax-financed right-wing punditry.

(snip...)

Democratic Congressmen John Dingell and David Obey, trying desperately to upend Tomlinson before the liberal monopoly at PBS cracks up, have written to Corporation of Public Broadcasting Inspector General Kenneth Konz: "Recent news reports suggesting that the CPB increasingly is making personnel and funding decisions on the basis of political ideology are extremely troubling." It wouldn't occur to them that this is an exact description of what PBS under a liberal monopoly has done for decades. It has funded, hired, and programmed according to a liberal ideology since it started. But Tomlinson, a Bush political appointee, hires another Bush political appointee to do work a reasonable person would expect him to do, and that's a scandal?

Personally, I think PBS should be 100% de-funded! There is not a damned thing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the role to get involved with media programming. In other countries where the government has state-sponsored programming, we call it "propaganda", but for some reason, we call it "education" over here. My tax dollars should not be funding television programming that otherwise wouldn't survive in the marketplace (though maybe Barney and Clifford the Big Red Dog would do well).