September 23, 2005

Departing Chairman of Public TV Defends Acts - New York Times

Bias in journalism is inevitable. Balancing bias is tricky business. Nevertheless, taxpayer funding of consistently biased journalism should not be tolerated. The bias is very tough to eradicate and may be present not so much in what IS reported as in what is NOT reported.

"Appearing before the Media Institute, a research group supported by major news media companies and devoted to free-press issues, Mr. Tomlinson said Thursday that there was nothing substantive he would have done differently as head of the corporation.

'If I threatened the cozy atmosphere of public broadcasting over the failure to balance the liberal advocacy journalism of Bill Moyers, so be it,' he said before a luncheon sponsored by the institute. 'This thing of balance is not rocket science, and that is why I had so little tolerance for public broadcasting's inability to achieve balance. Let the record show that I gave as good as I got.'

'I am highly skeptical of so-called nonpartisanship in public broadcasting because that appears to mean the same old liberals making the same old decisions,' he added."

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