DORGAN SAYS CPB CHAIRMAN’S “STUDY” WAS UNPROFESSIONAL AND WASTE OF TAXDOLLARS

Thursday, June 30, 2005

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) released raw data Thursday from the “study” of public broadcasting program content commissioned by the Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Kenneth Tomlinson early this year which Tomlinson claimed measured political bias in program content.

In fact, Dorgan said, the study was “a little nutty” and a “complete waste of more than $14,000 in taxpayer funds.” Dorgan said Tomlinson hired an “amateur analyst” with twenty years of connections to conservative political organizations to “produce a report to find what Mr. Tomlinson wanted to find.”

“The raw data make clear this was not an objective study. It was not a professional study. It was an amateur study, based on no standard or objective criteria. It appears to have been cobbled together by an armchair analyst with little or no professional preparation for the task. The report is itself, steeped in deep political bias,” Dorgan said.

“This would be silly, if it hadn’t been commissioned by the Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and paid for with thousands of tax dollars,” Dorgan said. He noted at least part of the data – which was riddled with spelling errors – was faxed to Tomlinson from a Hallmark store in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dorgan described the data, which rate program interview guests and comments as “pro-Bush” and “anti-Bush,” and “Liberal” or “Conservative” as “utter nonsense.” He noted it ranked U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, as a “Liberal” for comments he made not sufficiently supportive of the Bush Administration’s war effort in Iraq, and conservative former Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia as “anti-Administration” for his views.

“Mr. Tomlinson used poor judgment and wasted tax dollars to pin labels that are both unwarranted and often inaccurate on respected and independent journalists, commentators, observers and private citizens simply because he and some partisan amateur analyst, whose credibility is highly suspect, believe they don’t dance fast enough to the tune being called by the political right wing in America.”

The recent installation of a former co-Chair of the Republican National Committee as the President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the measuring of program content on the basis of support or non-support for the President’s programs and politics make clear “that Mr. Tomlinson is taking the CPB down a very dangerous path that harms public broadcasting rather than strengthens it,” Dorgan said.

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