Washington Examiner: Kenneth Tomlinson: Why Congress must defund public broadcasting

I was being grilled by the Inspector General for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting about emails I had written when I was CPB chairman.

Waving a sheet of paper for emphasis, he declared, “This email is the worst of all.  This demonstrates you were seeking to politicize public broadcasting.”

I asked for the email and saw that in response to a question from the head of White House personnel about what are the qualifications to be President of CPB, I stated, tongue-in-cheek: “Loyalty to the President—and patience to put up with the left wingers who control public broadcasting.”

I looked up at the IG, and explained, seriously:  “Accusing me of politicizing public broadcasting is like charging someone with introducing lipstick to Las Vegas!”

National Public Radio’s outrageous firing of Juan Williams has prompted an outpouring of demands that Congress defund the operation.  (Who can forget the arrogance of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller as she looked into television cameras to assert that Juan’s feelings about seeing Muslims at airports should be “between him and his psychiatrist or his publicist—take your pick.”)

On reflection, I suspect Schiller did us a favor.  I had long believed that the many tentacles of public broadcasting should be reformed—not defunded.  I now realize I was wrong.  Federal funding for NPR should be eliminated—as should handouts to CPB and PBS…….Read More

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Posted by Jose Reyes on Oct 25 2010. Filed under Current News, Post To Slider. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.