The leaning tower of PBS

In early April, the agency startled PBS officials by announcing the appointment of two ombudsmen to examine issues of fairness and balance in public broadcasting: Ken Bode, a former politics editor for New Republic magazine, and William Schulz, former executive editor of Readers Digest. Tomlinson tapped Mary Catherine Andrews, the former director of the White House Office of Global Communications, as a senior advisor to help coordinate the new office, among other duties.

Tomlinson said that his main concern has been the "political tone-deafness" of PBS officials such as Mitchell, who he said was not receptive to his argument that Moyers' show was slanted.

"When we have shows of political advocacy, I want to see them balanced by other shows ... so people don't look at public broadcasting, as a number of conservatives do, and say it's biased," he said.

Mitchell would not comment on her conversations with Tomlinson, but noted that polls taken by both Republican and Democratic polling firms have found the vast majority of the public believes PBS is objective.

"We have all the evidence in the world that Americans see the schedule as balanced and free of bias," she said.

Many public broadcasters have watched the developments with distress.

"It's important that public broadcasting be independent in order to do the best possible job of serving the American public, and it is not helpful when you have people playing out political agendas," said David Hosley, general manager of KVIE, the public television station in Sacramento.

Mel Rogers, general manager of KOCE in Orange County, said he has received numerous e-mails and phone calls from viewers and members of his board about the corporation's actions.

"They're saying, 'Is the current administration secretly trying to do away with all things public, including public broadcasting?' " said Rogers, adding that he does not believe there is an effort to eliminate PBS.

"What concerns me is that there appear to be some people at CPB now that seem to think that if there's anything on public television they disagree with, that it should go away," he said.

Tomlinson said he is not out to kill any PBS programs, and John Lawson, chief executive officer of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, said he has not observed any attempts to do so.

Last week, five public interest groups said that they are organizing town hall meetings around the country with members of the public, broadcasters and lawmakers to discuss how to guard PBS from politicking.

"What's happening at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting directly contradicts the very reason CPB was founded, which was to protect public broadcasting from political pressure," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a media reform group, which has called for Tomlinson's resignation.

Tomlinson said he has no plans to step down.

"If I didn't believe that what I'm doing is going to increase public support for public broadcasting, I wouldn't be here for five more minutes," he said.