[Swprograms] Tomlinson's Credibility (or lack thereof)

[John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following is from Columbia Journalism Review's CJR Daily, published 
June 6.  It speaks for itself and, frankly, it makes me sick.

John Figliozzi
Halfmoon, NY

----------

Spin Buster

June 06, 2005
Tomlinson Shows His Hand

Some silver-tongued orators skilled at the art of public discourse can 
spin a shaky or unsupported argument into rhetorical silk, leaving 
their opponents tongue-tied and at a loss for a rebuttal. Others, not 
equally blessed with a politician's ability to shuck and jive, simply 
dig themselves deeper every time they open their mouth.

We think we know which camp Kenneth Tomlinson, our old buddy at the 
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, falls into.

Before we get to Tomlinson's most recent comments however, a little 
background. In the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Sanford 
J. Ungar, director of Voice of America from 1999 to 2001, wrote a piece 
lamenting the budget cuts and political meddling that have marred VoA's 
record in recent years. Writing that the influence of VoA is being 
"systematically diminished" by these cuts, he also makes note that VoA 
reporters "have tried to fend off directives from VoA director David 
Jackson and other political appointees, who have suggested that the 
network report more favorably on the actions of the Bush administration 
in Iraq and the Middle East."

This is consistent with what CJR's Corey Pein wrote in the May/June 
issue of the magazine, when he reported that VoA correspondents have 
always felt pressure to act as advocates for American policy, "but 
under the current administration, the pressure is barely disguised."

Tomlinson, as chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, oversees 
the VoA, and as might be expected, didn't much like Ungar's takedown in 
Foreign Affairs. In the as-yet unreleased July/August issue, Tomlinson 
strikes back at Ungar in a letter, which CJR Daily obtained a 
pre-publication copy of.

It's an unfortunate letter, in that it makes certain specific claims 
but then fails to back them up with convincing evidence. At the very 
least, as any good politician can tell you, if you're going to 
intentionally mislead the public, you have to keep your statements 
opaque enough to allow yourself some wiggle room. Tomlinson, as you may 
be able to guess by now, did not.

He begins his letter by writing, "I have worked in four 
administrations, and this is the first time there has been no attempt 
from the White House, the National Security Council, or the State 
Department to interfere with the programming broadcast by our 
professional journalists."

Tomlinson's assertion is directly contradicted by rebuttals in the 
forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs by Ungar and an anonymous VoA 
staffer. The staffer notes that over the past several years, some VoA 
television scripts have been "subject to an unusual level of personal 
scrutiny and revision by VOA Director Jackson, and before him by former 
director Robert Reilly, to ensure that they reflected administration 
views and did not accentuate negatives, but positives in the 'war on 
terrorism.'"

What's more, the staffer writes that "Jackson has been intimately 
involved in directing the day-to-day, and some say the minute-to-minute 
appearance, of the Voice of America Web site to reflect more positive 
news, particularly where reporting on Iraq, the Middle East, and the 
president's democracy agenda are concerned, to the point where some VOA 
employees have complained about what they see as unusual pressure."

Ungar also writes in to refute Tomlinson's claims, recalling an August 
2003 incident in which Jackson criticized the news division for "not 
reporting on a document, apparently passed to him by the National 
Security Council, but carrying no attribution, detailing administration 
successes in Iraq 100 days after the invasion."

What's more, in January 2004, Jackson "ordered the news division to 
stop reporting from Baghdad on car bombings and terror attacks, urging 
that it instead do 'positive stories' emphasizing U.S. successes in 
Iraq." In another case, in January and February 2004, Jackson forwarded 
a series of memos from the White House and the Coalition Provisional 
Authority in Baghdad, "insisting that these press releases from the CPA 
did not require independent verification by VOA reporters in Iraq."

Both Ungar and the VoA mole cite many other instances of Jackson's 
meddling in editorial decisions to offer a decidedly pro-administration 
slant on the news, but the ones related here are enough to paint a 
picture of some serious ideological interference by Tomlinson and 
Jackson in their campaign to redirect VoA's news coverage.

Despite the evidence offered above, in his letter to Foreign Affairs, 
Tomlinson arrogantly writes that "As for VOA director David Jackson, 
his lengthy career as a Time magazine foreign correspondent speaks for 
itself -- and dwarfs the credentials of his critics. I have yet to see 
any case in which his news decisions were dictated by anything other 
than professionalism." (Emphasis ours.)

Tomlinson leaves out some key facts here. He gets it right that Jackson 
did indeed work for Time -- but that was before he left the magazine 
four years ago to help create the Pentagon's PR Web site, 
DefendAmerica.gov. That's quite a career shift on Jackson's part, and a 
pretty glaring omission by Tomlinson.

Meantime, the allegations of political interference at Voice of America 
add a new and telling wrinkle to the ongoing fight between Tomlinson's 
CPB on the one hand and PBS and NPR on the other -- a pattern of 
increasing partisan control over publicly funded broadcasting that is 
becoming more and more difficult to deny.

By taking part in the fight in such a public manner, and armed with 
outright falsehoods, Tomlinson may have shown his hand one too many 
times.

As a result, his pleas that he's just "trying to provide balance" to 
public broadcasting sound like an increasingly tinny trumpet, designed 
to drown out the jackhammers as Tomlinson continues his attempted 
demolition of our publicly funded news media.

--Paul McLeary

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