Ken Tomlinson’s partisan, ideological, and generally ridiculous work as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been well documented. But as Franklin Foer noted this week, Tomlinson is doing more than just “making life hell for NPR and PBS.”
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is an independent government commission that oversees the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/ Radio Free Liberty, and Radio Sawa and its sister TV network, Alhurra. The BBG’s work has been praised for its work in helping the west win the “hearts and minds” of international viewers and listeners — particularly in the Middle East — making its diplomatic and public-relations work highly significant, given the political and national security consequences.
And then Ken Tomlinson took over the BBG. And as Foer explained, Tomlinson has used the same tactics with the BBG that he’s used at Corporation for Public Broadcasting: “purging the bureaucracy of political enemies, zealously rooting out perceived “liberal bias,” and generally politicizing institutions that have resisted ideological intrusions for decades. One of Tomlinson’s fellow broadcasting governors told me, ‘In every story about the CPB, you could substitute BBG.'”
It’s quite a story. Whereas BBG meetings were open, congenial affairs, Tomlinson closed ranks and closed doors. He announced he could fire anyone, for any reason. Those he suspected to be Democrats were blocked or forced out.
And then there’s Tomlinson’s effect on actual BBG broadcasts.
There’s no better example than VOA Director David Jackson, who arrived via the Pentagon public affairs office. Reporters, editors, and producers at VOA insist that Jackson has pressured them to portray the administration favorably. These instances have been catalogued by Sanford Ungar, a former VOA director, in a Foreign Affairs essay, and by Carolyn Weaver, a VOA-TV reporter, in an e-mail to Jackson that I obtained. Their main complaint is Iraq coverage. Ungar writes: “Editors have repeatedly been asked to develop ‘positive stories’ emphasizing U.S. success in Iraq, rather than report car bombings and terrorist attacks.” Jackson, for example, sent an e-mail urging reporters to cover restored cell phone service: “This story offers so many angles.” (Like Tikrit’s dirt-cheap friends and family rate.) VOA reporters also say that they have been asked to limit criticisms of the war. Management insisted on removing photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib from VOA’s website. And, after U.S. forces raided Iraqi National Congress headquarters in the spring of 2004, Jackson chastised reporters for referring to Ahmed Chalabi as a “a favorite of the Pentagon.”
Of course, VOA exists to make America’s case to the world. But, in the Tomlinson era, VOA management has focused far more intently on burnishing the image of the Bush administration and the Republican Party–a task that falls outside the organization’s ambit. Jackson, for instance, warned reporters not to dwell on “Bush-bashing” at last summer’s Democratic National Convention. When a reporter produced a story on the diversity of Democratic delegates, the story was held. The reporter was told to wait until the Republican convention and write about both parties’ diversity efforts then.
It’s gotten to the point in which BBG staffers are anxiously looking forward to Karen Hughes — Bush’s most loyal sycophant — taking over her new post at the State Department, because employees expect her to be more even-handed than Tomlinson. What’s worse, they’re probably right.
Just as an aside, how did Tomlinson get this job in the first place? An old friend recommended him. His name is Karl Rove.