PBS: Republican Broadcasting Corporation: CPB ordered a comprehensive review of public TV and radio programming for 'evidence of bias.'

PBS: Republican Broadcasting Corporation: "Wednesday, April 27, 2005 by The Nation | by Ari Berman

A conservative coup is underway at PBS.

The new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the gatekeeper between lawmakers and public broadcasters), Ken Ferree, is a staunch Republican proponent of media deregulation and a former top adviser to FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Three top CPB officials, all with Democratic affiliations, departed or were dismissed in recent months. For the first time in its 38-year history, the CPB ordered a comprehensive review of public TV and radio programming for 'evidence of bias.' All new PBS funding agreements are conditioned upon the network following 'objectivity and balance' requirements for each of its programs.
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A majority of the CPB's eight-member board--chaired by Ken Tomlinson, a good friend of Karl Rove--are now Republican appointees. Two of the newest, Gay Hart Gaines and Cheryl Halpern, have donated more than $800,000 to the Republican Party since 1995. Gaines once ran a political action committee for Newt Gingrich, who as speaker of the House pushed to "zero out" all of PBS's federal funding. In 2003, PBS President Pat Mitchell offered Gingrich a town-hall style show. It would've happened if Gingrich wasn't already under contract with Fox News.

Ironically, the CPB was created to shield PBS from political pressure, just as PBS was intended to address the "needs of unserved and underserved audiences."