Editorial: Looks bad for PBS critic

Monday, Sept. 4, 2006 | 7:44 a.m.

As chairman of the federal Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson created a nasty stir last year by claiming that the Public Broadcasting Service consciously favored liberal points of view.

A conservative and former editor of Reader's Digest, Tomlinson held a position carrying great weight - the CPB distributes federal funding to public radio and TV stations.

His public comments would likely not have affected his position as a CPB board member, as the board has a conservative majority and conservatives are in power in Washington.

But he resigned in November after the inspector general of the CPB released a report highly critical of his management style. The inspector general found that Tomlinson was prone to making decisions independent of the whole board and that some of his decisions violated CPB policy.

In a story about the inspector general's report, the Washington Post reported that Tomlinson was especially criticized for his efforts to steer a conservative talk show onto the Public Broadcasting Service's weekly schedule, when board members are strictly forbidden to engage in programming decisions.

At the same time Tomlinson was serving on the CPB board, he was also chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. This federal agency oversees international government broadcasting, such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. He continued in this position after resigning from the CPB.

Now a State Department inspector general's report is criticizing his performance with this agency. According to the Associated Press, the report says Tomlinson signed invoices worth $245,000 without the knowledge of other board members or staff, overbilled the agency for his time and used the board's office resources to support his private horse racing operation. Meanwhile, a civil investigation is under way by the State Department into allegations that Tomlinson put a friend on the federal payroll as a contractor.

If the charges are proven against Tomlinson, a political appointee, President Bush should demand that he resign from the Broadcasting Board of Governors.