The same week former CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson resigned from the CPB Board, public TV stations received a low-key announcement that the Wall Street Journal would soon end production of the conservative news analysis series he aggressively championed. Journal Editorial Report, which Tomlinson saw as an antidote to Bill Moyers’ provocative liberal commentaries on Now, will wrap its final PBS program Dec. 2. The controversy over how it came to PBS — especially as details of the process were revealed last week — demonstrated that when politics enters pubTV editorial decisions, none of the players emerges unscathed. Producers for Dow Jones Television, an affiliate of the Journal, initially didn’t explain why they canned the show, but in an unsigned op-ed Nov.

Inspector General Kenneth A. Konz found fault with much of former Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson’s balance crusade, but his report did validate the creation of CPB’s ombudsmen, the corporation’s stated tool for dealing with audience concerns about program balance and objectivity. While Konz criticized the unilateral manner in which Tomlinson selected veteran journalists Ken Bode and William Schulz, he concluded that “by expanding the public’s ability to have issues of objectivity and balance addressed,” the addition of ombudsmen was “consistent with” CPB’s responsibilities. “The legislative statute requires that public broadcasting be objective and balanced,” Chair Cheryl Halpern told reporters in September. “The ombudsmen were put in place to [help] CPB function within the constraints of the legislation.”

Adding conservative voices “appropriately diversified” the PBS lineup, the Houston Chronicle editorialized Nov. 19, but former CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson unnecessarily created a scandal with his secretive campaign for balance. “Thanks to his improper consultations with the White House … Tomlinson forfeited any claim as a crusader for fairness. Public broadcasting was meant to give Americans respite from the handiwork of political hacks.”

The CPB Board induced former President Robert Coonrod to extend his time in office by giving him a four-year consulting contract worth nearly $500,000 and starting after he left CPB, the New York Times reported this morning. Because the CPB president’s salary is capped by Congress (he was paid $174,000), the contract could raise political hackles. The board also agreed to pay his successor as president, Kathleen Cox, more than $600,000 as severance, a CPB spokesman told Current. Now the Times reports that CPB may withhold part of her settlement.

Public radio is hitting home runs, but it can do better. Producer and StoryCorps founder Dave Isay says public radio is entering its golden age.

What could Congress, CPB or anyone do to prevent the conflicts, failed decisions and other embarrassments bubbling out of the Tomlinson affair? Perhaps the central problem is that the Public Broadcasting Act tells CPB, run by well-connected political appointees, to protect public broadcasting from political influence while also fostering objectivity and balance on the air. While CPB’s inspector general and many others criticize former CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson for violating the first mandate, he and his supporters at the Wall Street Journal still say he was only doing his duty under the other. Though APTS proposes several reforms at CPB, eliminating this central conflict of interest is not one of them.

Citing the Freedom of Information Act, three citizen watchdog groups petitioned CPB President Pat Harrison Nov. 21, 2005, to release certain documents mentioned in the CPB inspector general’s Nov. 15 report on the Tomlinson affair. Included are materials given privately by the IG to the CPB Board and members of Congress, minutes of closed and open CPB Board meetings for three years and communications with the White House and with producers of Tucker Carlson Unfiltered and Journal Editorial Report. Several days earlier the groups had requested similar information without invoking FOIA. The groups also petitioned the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federal agency chaired by former CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson.

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson repeatedly violated provisions of both the Public Broadcasting Act and the corporation’s guidelines for board members’ behavior, according to the report of a six-month internal investigation released Nov. 15 [2005]. Tomlinson, who resigned from the CPB Board earlier this month, meddled in programming decisions, injected politics into hiring procedures and ignored contracting guidelines, CPB Inspector General Kenneth A. Konz found. The report spurred another round of press coverage focusing on an institution that, until this spring, flew mostly under the Washington press corps radar. The inspector general’s findings substantiated much of the early press coverage. Konz found that many of Tomlinson’s actions in his campaign against liberal bias — hiring a content monitor to review Now with Bill Moyers and other pubcasting shows, pushing for creation of Journal Editorial Report and hiring ombudsmen—exceeded “the oversight role of a board member in making procurement and programming decisions.”

NPR’s Bill Marimow discusses his network’s growing commitment to investigative journalism in an Editor and Publisher report.

“…Watch Pat, she is slick as grease lightning.” That was former CPB Board Chair Kenneth Tomlinson on PBS President Pat Mitchell in an e-mail to the Wall Street Journal‘s Paul Gigot. The WSJ has posted e-mails between Tomlinson and Gigot surrounding the creation of the Journal Editorial Report. (free registration required)

Editorial writers for the Wall Street Journal come out swinging for former CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson in their account of the storied history of the soon-to-be cancelled PBS show, Journal Editorial Report. [Via Romenesko]

Congress restored nearly all cuts in pubcasting funding proposed for the present fiscal year, APTS reports. A House/Senate conference committee last night okayed the big appropriations bill covering CPB as well as education and health agencies. CPB funding for FY06 rises to $400 million as planned and Congress maintained the practice of advance funding, okaying the same level for FY08.

NPR is granting the unusual privilege of downloading an MP3 of one of its reports: “My Lobotomy,” a Sound Portraits Productions piece that aired yesterday on All Things Considered.

Ken Tomlinson, then CPB chairman, proposed a “very generous” severance package to fire President Kathleen Cox, the organization’s inspector general reported Tuesday (PDF, page 21): three times her total annual compensation. (CPB spokesman Michael Levy told Current the amount was $614,000.) Cox’s attorney said in the report she has not yet received a second installment. Headline added to post, 2012

Released by  CPB Nov. 15, 2005 The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Office of Inspector General, has conducted a review of alleged violations of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, as amended. We found evidence that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) former Chairman violated statutory provisions and the Director’s Code of Ethics by dealing directly with one of the creators of a new public affairs program during negotiations with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the CPB over creating the show. Our review also found evidence that suggests “political tests” were a major criteria used by the former Chairman in recruiting a President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for CPB, which violated statutory prohibitions against such practices.