Bill Moyers became the central
figure in absentia
Mon Nov 28, 2005 21:40
Moyers Has His Say
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable
Monday 28 November 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805Q.shtml
Former NOW host on media bias and his feud with former CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson.
Bill Moyers became the central figure in absentia in the controversy surrounding former Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson. It was Tomlinson who pointed to Moyers' NOW newscast on PBS as a chief reason for his efforts to bring "balance" to public broadcasting by adding conservative shows. Moyers has since left NOW and is currently president of the Schumann Center for Media & Democracy. He spoke with B&C's John Eggerton in the wake of a CPB Inspector General report concluding Tomlinson had violated the law by dealing directly with a programmer during the creation of a show to balance Moyers' program.
You are the exemplar of liberal PBS bias, according to Ken Tomlinson. Was your show liberally biased?
Right-wing partisans like Tomlinson have always attacked aggressive reporting as liberal.
We were biased, all right - in favor of uncovering the news that powerful people wanted to keep hidden: conflicts of interest at the Department of Interior, secret meetings between Vice President Cheney and the oil industry, backdoor shenanigans by lobbyists at the FCC, corruption in Congress, neglect of wounded veterans returning from Iraq, Pentagon cost overruns, the manipulation of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq.
We were way ahead of the news curve on these stories, and the administration turned its hit men loose on us.
Tomlinson actually told The Washington Post that he was irate over one of our documentary reports from a small town in Pennsylvania hard-hit by outsourcing.
If reporting on what's happening to ordinary people thrown overboard by circumstances beyond their control and betrayed by Washington officials is liberalism, I stand convicted.
It is an old canard of right-wing ideologues like Tomlinson to equate tough journalism with liberalism. They hope to distract people from the message by trying to discredit the messenger.
NOW threw the fear of God into Tomlinson's crowd because they couldn't dispute the accuracy of our reporting.
And when we weren't reporting the truth behind the news, we were interviewing a wide variety of people: Ralph Reed and Ralph Nader; Cal Thomas and Molly Ivins; Robert Bartley, editor of the Wall Street Journal; Katrina Vandenheuval, editor of The Nation; The Conservative Union's David Keene; Dorothy Rabinowitz (also of the Wall Street Journal); Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity; the Club for Growth's Stephen Moore; historian Howard Zinn; and Indian activist Arundhati Roy. And on and on.
Did you get any direct pressure from Tomlinson or CPB to change the content of your show?
The people at PBS told me they were getting excruciating pressure because of our reporting, including threats to de-fund public television unless "Moyers is dealt with." They never identified the source of that pressure.
We know now it was Tomlinson. [Tomlinson] even told some people [we have confirmed it with two people who were present] that "Moyers is a coward because he doesn't want to talk to people who disagree with him."
Hello? See the above list of all the conservatives who appeared on the show.
What happened to the debate idea between you two?
I asked him repeatedly. He refused. He didn't even respond. But when all this started to unfold early last year, I asked three times to meet with the CPB board and try to find out what was going on.
I thought we could reason together and maybe agree on how to cooperate to protect Public Broadcasting's independence. I mean, I not only read the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, I helped to create it. CPB's job was to be a firewall between guys like them and the producers, journalists, and content of public broadcasting.
I thought at the time that I was dealing with people who cared about this institution. I didn't realize they had gone over to the dark side.
What prompted your departure from NOW?
I needed a break, and I also sensed that we were up against serial abusers and that I could fight back more effectively if I weren't on the air.
-------
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805R.shtml
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805S.shtml
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US to Battle Allies on Post-2012 Global Warming
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805EA.shtml
Washington will battle with its allies over how to slow climate change beyond 2012 at United Nations talks in Canada this week. Up to 10,000 delegates from 189 nations meet in Montreal from November 28 through December 9 for the first annual climate talks since the UN's Kyoto Protocol on curbing heat-trapping gases entered into force in February.
Pay Up to Save the Rainforests
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805EB.shtml
A bloc of developing countries plans to make a radical proposal this week at the United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal: pay us, and we will preserve our rainforests. The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea said timber was one of the few natural resources available and their only current option for economic growth involved the destruction of the forests.
Whales and Dolphins Threatened by Naval Sonar, Says UN Report
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805EC.shtml
High-intensity naval sonar poses a serious threat to whales, dolphins and porpoises that depend on sound to survive, says a report by the United Nations Environment Programme. The study lends the first official support to claims by environmental groups that military maneuvers are responsible for the increasing incidence of mass whale beachings.
Hot on Parkinson's Trail
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805HA.shtml
Scientists have amassed a growing body of evidence that long-term exposure to toxic compounds, particularly pesticides, can destroy neurons and trigger Parkinson's disease. They have implicated several pesticides that cause Parkinson's symptoms in animals but hundreds of agricultural and industrial chemicals may play a role.
Insurers' Tactics in Marketing Drug Plan Draw Complaints
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805HB.shtml
Officials say they have received scores of complaints about the aggressive tactics used by some insurance companies and agents to market Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. Possible violations reported to Medicare officials include uninvited door-to-door solicitation and misrepresentation of insurance products.
Janitors' Drive in Texas Gives Hope to Unions
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805LA.shtml
Union organizers have obtained what they say is majority support in one of the biggest unionization drives in the South in decades, collecting the signatures of thousands of Houston janitors. The Service Employees International Union is bringing in 5,000 janitors from several companies at once.
Forced to Marry before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805WA.shtml
Child marriages remain entrenched in rural pockets throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The consequences of these forced marriages are staggering: adolescence and schooling cut short; early pregnancies and hazardous births; adulthood often condemned to subservience. The list has grown to include HIV exposure.
Red State Road Trip: A 60-Minute Documentary
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
How could America have given George W. Bush a second term? Filmmaker Chris Hume decided to find out by embarking on a 6,000-mile, cross-country journey in search of America's soul. The result: a fascinating, hilarious, and often disturbing road-trip adventure.
Welcome to t r u t h o u t video podcasting.
What is video podcasting? By using iTunes you will be able to subscribe to our podcasts, and when we post a new video your iTunes will automatically download it and have it ready to play the next time you launch your iTunes studio. For those with the latest iPods that support video you can load our video content onto your iPod as well and view it anytime. Video podcasting is the latest advancement from Apple Computers, but you can enjoy it from a Windows PC as well. Just go to http://www.apple.com/iTunes/download/ and download iTunes 6. You don't need an iPod to view our podcasts - your iTunes will play the video right on your computer.
Once you have iTunes set up and ready to go, subscribe to our podcasts at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TRUTHOUTVideoPodcasts and we will provide you with our latest video content.
Go directly to our issues page: http://www.truthout.org/issues.shtml
================
LISTEN:
Are private security thugs KILLING CIVILIANS for fun? More depraved sickness being done in your name.
STORY || VIDEO
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/
====================
2nd Magazine Reporter to Testify in CIA Leak Case
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A second Time magazine reporter has agreed to cooperate in the CIA leak case and will testify about her discussions with Karl Rove's attorney, a sign that ...
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By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable
Monday 28 November 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805Q.shtml
Former NOW host on media bias and his feud with former CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson.
Bill Moyers became the central figure in absentia in the controversy surrounding former Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson. It was Tomlinson who pointed to Moyers' NOW newscast on PBS as a chief reason for his efforts to bring "balance" to public broadcasting by adding conservative shows. Moyers has since left NOW and is currently president of the Schumann Center for Media & Democracy. He spoke with B&C's John Eggerton in the wake of a CPB Inspector General report concluding Tomlinson had violated the law by dealing directly with a programmer during the creation of a show to balance Moyers' program.
You are the exemplar of liberal PBS bias, according to Ken Tomlinson. Was your show liberally biased?
Right-wing partisans like Tomlinson have always attacked aggressive reporting as liberal.
We were biased, all right - in favor of uncovering the news that powerful people wanted to keep hidden: conflicts of interest at the Department of Interior, secret meetings between Vice President Cheney and the oil industry, backdoor shenanigans by lobbyists at the FCC, corruption in Congress, neglect of wounded veterans returning from Iraq, Pentagon cost overruns, the manipulation of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq.
We were way ahead of the news curve on these stories, and the administration turned its hit men loose on us.
Tomlinson actually told The Washington Post that he was irate over one of our documentary reports from a small town in Pennsylvania hard-hit by outsourcing.
If reporting on what's happening to ordinary people thrown overboard by circumstances beyond their control and betrayed by Washington officials is liberalism, I stand convicted.
It is an old canard of right-wing ideologues like Tomlinson to equate tough journalism with liberalism. They hope to distract people from the message by trying to discredit the messenger.
NOW threw the fear of God into Tomlinson's crowd because they couldn't dispute the accuracy of our reporting.
And when we weren't reporting the truth behind the news, we were interviewing a wide variety of people: Ralph Reed and Ralph Nader; Cal Thomas and Molly Ivins; Robert Bartley, editor of the Wall Street Journal; Katrina Vandenheuval, editor of The Nation; The Conservative Union's David Keene; Dorothy Rabinowitz (also of the Wall Street Journal); Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity; the Club for Growth's Stephen Moore; historian Howard Zinn; and Indian activist Arundhati Roy. And on and on.
Did you get any direct pressure from Tomlinson or CPB to change the content of your show?
The people at PBS told me they were getting excruciating pressure because of our reporting, including threats to de-fund public television unless "Moyers is dealt with." They never identified the source of that pressure.
We know now it was Tomlinson. [Tomlinson] even told some people [we have confirmed it with two people who were present] that "Moyers is a coward because he doesn't want to talk to people who disagree with him."
Hello? See the above list of all the conservatives who appeared on the show.
What happened to the debate idea between you two?
I asked him repeatedly. He refused. He didn't even respond. But when all this started to unfold early last year, I asked three times to meet with the CPB board and try to find out what was going on.
I thought we could reason together and maybe agree on how to cooperate to protect Public Broadcasting's independence. I mean, I not only read the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, I helped to create it. CPB's job was to be a firewall between guys like them and the producers, journalists, and content of public broadcasting.
I thought at the time that I was dealing with people who cared about this institution. I didn't realize they had gone over to the dark side.
What prompted your departure from NOW?
I needed a break, and I also sensed that we were up against serial abusers and that I could fight back more effectively if I weren't on the air.
-------
Hope for Young War Victim
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805R.shtml
Tiny shrapnel bits pepper the left side of 2-year-old Alaa' Abd's face, looking at first glance like black freckles. Metal slivers in her left eye continue to erode her vision on a daily basis.
Saddam, Back in Court, Is Combative and Feisty
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805S.shtml
Saddam Hussein returned to court today and quickly seized the floor for a verbal assault on the American military guards who he said had manhandled him on his way to the courtroom, calling them "occupiers and invaders" and demanding that the chief judge in the trial reprove them.
US to Battle Allies on Post-2012 Global Warming
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805EA.shtml
Washington will battle with its allies over how to slow climate change beyond 2012 at United Nations talks in Canada this week. Up to 10,000 delegates from 189 nations meet in Montreal from November 28 through December 9 for the first annual climate talks since the UN's Kyoto Protocol on curbing heat-trapping gases entered into force in February.
Pay Up to Save the Rainforests
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805EB.shtml
A bloc of developing countries plans to make a radical proposal this week at the United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal: pay us, and we will preserve our rainforests. The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea said timber was one of the few natural resources available and their only current option for economic growth involved the destruction of the forests.
Whales and Dolphins Threatened by Naval Sonar, Says UN Report
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805EC.shtml
High-intensity naval sonar poses a serious threat to whales, dolphins and porpoises that depend on sound to survive, says a report by the United Nations Environment Programme. The study lends the first official support to claims by environmental groups that military maneuvers are responsible for the increasing incidence of mass whale beachings.
Hot on Parkinson's Trail
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805HA.shtml
Scientists have amassed a growing body of evidence that long-term exposure to toxic compounds, particularly pesticides, can destroy neurons and trigger Parkinson's disease. They have implicated several pesticides that cause Parkinson's symptoms in animals but hundreds of agricultural and industrial chemicals may play a role.
Insurers' Tactics in Marketing Drug Plan Draw Complaints
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805HB.shtml
Officials say they have received scores of complaints about the aggressive tactics used by some insurance companies and agents to market Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. Possible violations reported to Medicare officials include uninvited door-to-door solicitation and misrepresentation of insurance products.
Janitors' Drive in Texas Gives Hope to Unions
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805LA.shtml
Union organizers have obtained what they say is majority support in one of the biggest unionization drives in the South in decades, collecting the signatures of thousands of Houston janitors. The Service Employees International Union is bringing in 5,000 janitors from several companies at once.
Forced to Marry before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112805WA.shtml
Child marriages remain entrenched in rural pockets throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The consequences of these forced marriages are staggering: adolescence and schooling cut short; early pregnancies and hazardous births; adulthood often condemned to subservience. The list has grown to include HIV exposure.
Red State Road Trip: A 60-Minute Documentary
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
How could America have given George W. Bush a second term? Filmmaker Chris Hume decided to find out by embarking on a 6,000-mile, cross-country journey in search of America's soul. The result: a fascinating, hilarious, and often disturbing road-trip adventure.
Welcome to t r u t h o u t video podcasting.
What is video podcasting? By using iTunes you will be able to subscribe to our podcasts, and when we post a new video your iTunes will automatically download it and have it ready to play the next time you launch your iTunes studio. For those with the latest iPods that support video you can load our video content onto your iPod as well and view it anytime. Video podcasting is the latest advancement from Apple Computers, but you can enjoy it from a Windows PC as well. Just go to http://www.apple.com/iTunes/download/ and download iTunes 6. You don't need an iPod to view our podcasts - your iTunes will play the video right on your computer.
Once you have iTunes set up and ready to go, subscribe to our podcasts at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TRUTHOUTVideoPodcasts and we will provide you with our latest video content.
Go directly to our issues page: http://www.truthout.org/issues.shtml
================
LISTEN:
Are private security thugs KILLING CIVILIANS for fun? More depraved sickness being done in your name.
STORY || VIDEO
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/
====================
2nd Magazine Reporter to Testify in CIA Leak Case
Washington Post, United States - 21 hours ago
A second Time magazine reporter has agreed to cooperate in the CIA leak case and will testify about her discussions with Karl Rove's attorney, a sign that ...
MORE:>>
