www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050718&s=blumenthal
SUBSCRIBE TO THE NATION "I frankly feel at PBS headquarters there is a tone deafness to issues of tone and balance," Kenneth Tomlinson, the chairman of the Corporation f or Public Broadcasting, said in May Since he was appointed to his posit ion by President Bush, he has set about to change the "tone" and rectify the "balance." For example, he helped secure $4 million to fund Wall St reet Journal Report, a round-table discussion featuring the newspaper's right-wing editorial board; Next he collaborated with Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, to kill a legislative proposal that would have required appointments with local br oadcasting experience to the CPB board. Last year, to justify his campai gn for balance, Tomlinson commissioned a secret study to prove that cert ain programs aired on PBS radio and television are contaminated with lib eral bias. To carry out this delicate task, Tomlinson selected Fred Mann, a conserva tive activist with no credentials as an expert on journalism, broadcasti ng or media issues, who was obscure even within right-wing circles. Mann was paid $14,700 in taxpayer money to monitor a sampling of PBS shows a nd file a report to Tomlinson on the political partisanship of their con tent. Tomlinson seems to have planned for Mann's report to become a semi nal conservative document. Republicans would wave it during House approp riations committee hearings as they argued for defunding PBS and realign ing its programming. Right-wing talk jocks would blare talking points ba sed on Mann's disturbing findings, which would at last provide definitiv e proof of a liberal media tilt. Meanwhile, insidious liberal activists boring from within public broadcasting studios would cower in humiliatio n from the exposure. While Mann diligently went about his work listening to the radio and watc hing TV, monitoring episodes of PBS's NOW With Bill Moyers, The Diane Re hm Show and The Tavis Smiley Show, Tomlinson concealed his activities fr om CPB's board. When Mann filed his detailed report, Tomlinson hid it fr om the CPB board. Only an internal investigation by CPB's inspector gene ral in mid May revealed the existence of the Mann report. And only when journalists at NPR managed to secure a copy were its contents reported. Reading the study, it is clear why Tomlinson tried to keep it a state se cret.
The Mann report reads as if dictated by Cookie Monster while chewing on a mouthful of lead paint chips. Names of famous political figures and cel ebrities are chronically misspelled. PBS guests are categorized by label s--"anti-DeLay," "neutral," "x"--for often bewildering reasons. Mann app ears to have spent endless hours monitoring programs with no political c ontent, gathering such insights as that Ray Charles was blind. Mann begins each of his PBS program summaries with a chart showing guests ' ideological leanings. Among those M ann designated as conservative is the ex-rapper and actor Mark "Marky Ma rk" Wahlberg, best known for his role as a well-endowed porn star in the film Boogie Nights. While Wahlberg used his June 2, 2004, appearance on The Tavis Smiley Show to promote juvenile justice programs--a liberal h allmark--he also said in passing, according to Mann, that Mel Gibson's T he Passion of the Christ "was a good thing." Another Tavis Smiley guest, Everlast, the rock-rapper who once fronted the Irish-American rap trio House of Pain, was dubbed a "C" for his opinion that some rap music is " sending a bad message to youth." And Henry Rollins, the former singer fo r the legendary hardcore-punk band Black Flag, was labeled conservative for stating, in Mann's words, that "people who have problems with the wa r should support the troops." Apparently, feeling sympathy for American servicemen and women is strictly "C." Senator Chuck Hagel, Republ ican of Nebraska, garnered his "L" after speaking glowingly of Ronald Re agan in a discussion with Tavis Smiley. Hagel is, of course, that comsym p who earned a 100 percent rating from the Christian Coalition last year . Another Rehm guest, Washington Post reporter Robin Wright, earned her "L" by articulating an analytical point Mann apparently had not heard ex pressed before. "Ms Wright's viewpoint was that US intelligence was g eared to fight the Cold War and did not adapt to the new threat of terro rism," Mann writes, describing why he put the "L" word beside her name. For investigating three of Tom DeLay's associates for illegal fundraisin g in Travis County, Texas, District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who was inter viewed on NOW, was dubbed "anti-DeLay." Arthur Bodette was slapped w ith an "L" after discussing on Diane Rehm's show "the unlimited possibil ities of new advances in DNA chips to screen for birth defects, cystic f ibrosis, and mental retardation." Another unintentionally hilarious aspect of the Mann report is its sloppy typos. Apparently Tomlinson's budget didn't include a proofreader. Form er Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr appears as "Ken Staff," former Assis tant Secretary of Defense Dov Zakheim as "Doug Zukheim" and former Congr essman Newt Gingrich as "Next Gingrich." In a description of the Ma rch 29, 2004, episode of NOW, Mann notes that 9/11 widow Kristin Breitwe iser filled in for Bill Moyers as host.
Besides scrutinizing political PBS guests, Mann was paid to watch countle ss hours of nonpolitical programming and report back to Tomlinson with h is insights. Thus Tomlinson was secretly informed that during one Diane Rehm episode, "Carole King talked about her career.... Or that, during The Tavis Smiley Show, actor Jamie Foxx "disc ussed the career of the late Ray Charles and the obstacles (blind and bl ack) that he had to overcome to achieve success." Next to Foxx's name Ma nn affixed a lowercase "x," which, because Mann labeled neutral guests w ith an "N," may mean that Foxx's politics are beyond neutral. For all we know, he could be a werewolf with supersensi tive hearing that detects liberal bias inaudible to the average human's ear. But since he and Tomlinson have not provided the same level of acco untability they are demanding from others, it is impossible to know. Rep orters who have attempted to locate him, including NPR, have all failed. What is known is that in 1980, Mann worked on the senatorial campaign of Dan Quayle. Then , during Reagan's second term, Mann went to work at the Virginia-based N ational Journalism Center as its job bank and alumni director until he r etired last year. The National Journalism Center is directed by M Stant on Evans, a former editor of the conservative Indianapolis News, and a f ounder in 1960 of the right-wing youth group Young Americans for Freedom . Through the center, Evans nurtured movement activists like Mann and tr ained aspiring young media players, including Ann Coulter and Maggie Gal lagher, the conservative Catholic columnist who took federal money from the Bush Administration to promote its policies. The Mann report may be one of the strangest documents ever produced by th e federal government; Labash explai ned: "The conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuck les for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in whic h it pays to be un-objective.... But until Ken Tomlinson, no conservative imagined that the Corporation fo r Public Broadcasting would provide taxpayer funding for the "great litt le racket."
TAKE ACTION NOW about Max Blumenthal Max Blumenthal is a freelance journalist in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, The American Prospect and on Alternet.
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