Free Republic

At least one station wants to distance itself from the firing. In Miami, WLRN general manager John Labonia said he was hearing dozens of complaints from angry citizens and loyal donors. He said one called to cancel a $1,000 pledge. The station's fundraising drive had already ended when the furor erupted. "We don't want that negative halo of NPR's decision to affect us, so we are making it perfectly clear that we were not part of this decision and we do not agree with it," Labonia said. "It was a short-sighted and irresponsible decision by NPR."

Fiscal Year 2010 Operating Budget The CPB Board of Directors approved the Fiscal Year 2010 Operating Budget on September 15, 2009. Fiscal Year 2010 Operating Budget in Detail 12KB Revenues Federal Appropriation $420,000,000 Estimated Interest $2,000,000 Total $422,000,000 89% Allocation $210,262,500 Direct grants to 350 local public television stations $65,415,000 Direct grants to 800 local public radio stations $71,587,500 Television programming grants $28,535,000 Radio programming grants, National Program Production and Acquisition grants 6% Allocation $25,200,000 System support 5% Allocation $21,000,000 CPB Administration

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Justice Department gave a group called the New York Agency for Community Affairs a grant of $135,130 in fiscal year 2005 to “provide youth leadership training to students at select New York City schools, form ‘ACORN Youth Union’ chapters, and coordinate student campaigns to address issues such as school funding, neighborhood safety, and school governance,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. The GAO report says that in fiscal years 2005 through 2009 the federal government gave ACORN and what the GAO calls “potentially related organizations” more than $40 million in federal funds.  According...

According to DHS, the vast majority -- more than 70 percent -- of illegal aliens and contraband attempting to move across our border through official ports of entry will succeed In fiscal 2008 U.S. Border Patrol officers working at checkpoints that are typically set up along roads and highways 25 to 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border stopped three people "who were identified as persons linked to terrorism," according to information provided by the Border Patrol to the Government Accountability Office. "In addition," says a GAO report released Monday, "the Border Patrol reported that in fiscal year 2008 checkpoints...

Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do. Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press. Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters. The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress...

Washington - The House voted Wednesday evening to reject President Bush's plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

SAN DIEGO--If you want to change the future, play with it first. That could describe the philosophy of a new alternate-reality game called World Without Oil, which will launch April 30. Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a backer of PBS, the game will essentially encourage people to envision a world in which the United States has been cut off from oil imports. Then, visitors will be urged to participate in the game by writing their own stories, creating videos or even by conjuring so-called flash mobs in U.S. cities. Alternate-reality games (ARGs) are interactive story lines that draw...

HOMELAND INSECURITY BULLETIN By Michelle Malkin   ·   May 10, 2006 12:15 PM ***update from Daily Bulletin: " Scott James, a former Tucson agent, resigned after eight years of service in February, citing a lack of support for agents by the Department of Homeland Security. He said that U.S. Border Patrol officials provided office space inside their headquarters to Mexican consulate officials, allowed the consulate to dictate the agents' activities, and gave the consulate information on ongoing investigations. Such courtesies were not extended to consulate offices of other countries, James said."*** My latest column takes on color-coded cronyism at DHS. New...

No Rove influence seen in US public TV boss hiring Tue Dec 13, 6:43 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting's inspector general found no evidence in correspondence that White House adviser Karl Rove or other White House officials tried to influence the hiring of the group's new leader, according to a letter released on Tuesday. CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz denied a request by three watchdog groups to release documents and e-mails related to a report that found former CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson was motivated by politics when he hired a new president and chief executive...

On November 18 the Wall Street Journal ran an 1,800 word editorial about itself, titled "PBS and Us." The Journal announced that its public TV show, Journal Editorial Report, would be going off the air. Millions of taxpayer dollars had been spent on this production but few people watched it. And the effort to get this show on the air was one reason why Kenneth Tomlinson resigned as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The occasion of the editorial was a report from the CPB Inspector General into Tomlinson's activities as chairman.SNIP His mistake, in our opinion, was...

This is our last show on PBS, and we have many people to thank for helping us during the 15 months that we have been invited into your homes. Our executive producer, Paul Friedman, and his talented crew, helped us to sharpen our thinking and made us look and sound better than we had a right to expect. Our sponsors, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Royal Dutch Shell, allowed us the freedom to speak our minds. I would especially like to thank the former chairman of the CPB, Ken Tomlinson, for defending the importance of balance and diversity on...

BREAKING NEWS: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Slams PBS's Breaking the Silence November 30, 2005 Some of you have contacted me concerning donations to our PBS campaign. It is certainly true that this campaign has been costly both in terms of money and time. If you'd like to donate to support our efforts, click here. Thanks to those of you who have already donated. To learn more about our campaign, click here. To learn more about the way Breaking the Silence portrays a known child abuser as a heroic mom, click here. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Report: 'No Hint of Balance...

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Report: 'No Hint of Balance in Breaking the Silence' CPB notes: it had no role in reviewing research, production or content; CPB ombudsmen involved only post-broadcast. MND NEWSWIRE - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting released a report Tuesday which endorsed the central charges made by fatherhood advocates protesting PBS's film Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories. CPB Ombudsman Ken A. Bode declared that there is "no hint of balance in Breaking the Silence." Bode noted: "The father's point of view is ignored as are new strategies for lessening the damage to children in...

THE CORPORATION for Public Broadcasting is supposed to act as a two-layered heat shield -- both to prevent political interference with public broadcasting and to ensure balance and objectivity in publicly funded programs. A report from the corporation's inspector general illustrates that former CPB chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson repeatedly -- and dangerously -- departed from the first goal in pursuit of the second. Mr. Tomlinson was ousted from the board after it received the inspector general's report, but his departure isn't all that's needed: The report should serve as a wake-up call for the corporation to reform itself. Mr. Tomlinson...

TELEVISION Public TV federal fund use probed By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer NEW YORK -- The inspector general of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is launching an investigation into whether public television and radio stations around the country inappropriately used federal funds to lobby against threatened budget cuts this summer. Kenneth A. Konz said Friday that he will examine the matter at the request of 18 Republican lawmakers, who asked the inspector general in August to determine whether the stations used federal money to finance on-air appeals asking viewers and listeners to contact their representatives about proposed cuts to...

  Let PBS Believe In God, Not The TaxpayerNovember 24, 2005 The establishment of “The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967” is unconstitutional and all public funding of the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio) should immediately cease.  The government funding of the CPB and its affiliates violates a sane person’s right to be free from coercive propaganda.  For those of you who might consider this nutty, please dumb-down to the level of U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton and learn to read the First Amendment through the eyes of this judicial analphabet. For those of...

A prominent U.S. conservative who had criticized PBS and National Public Radio for "liberal bias," has resigned from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Kenneth Tomlinson, a Republican who was board chairman until September, left after an investigative report on his tenure. The investigation was begun in May after Democratic congressmen asked the corporation to look into reports that Tomlinson used questionable tactics to exert political influence over public broadcasting. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an independent agency that is supposed to fund and monitor the PBS television network and National Public Radio. Tomlinson had publicly...

Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, the NY TIMES is set to report on Page Ones Saturday. "People involved in the inquiry said that investigators had interviewed a number of officials at the agency and that, if the accusations were substantiated, they could involve criminal violations," the paper claims. Developing...

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board of Directors said Thursday that embattled former board chairman Ken Tomlinson has resigned. The board has been reviewing a CPB Inspector General's report--called for by a pair of congressmen--on Tomlinson's relationship with the board stemming from Tomlinson's attempts to add more conservative programming. The board said in a statement: "[F]ormer chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson has resigned from the CPB board. The board does not believe that Mr. Tomlinson acted maliciously or with any intent to harm CPB or public broadcasting, and the board recognizes that Mr. Tomlinson strongly disputes the findings in the soon-to-be-released...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - Cheryl F. Halpern, a major Republican fund-raiser selected Monday to be the next chairwoman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, vowed to continue to encourage "objectivity and balance" in public television and radio. Ms. Halpern's commitment raised concerns among some broadcast executives who said her predecessor, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, used "balance" to justify providing the financing for at least one conservative program, featuring the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, and for monitoring programs that have been critical of the Bush administration. Mr. Tomlinson is the subject of an inquiry for signing a contract with...