The irony of the debate over objectivity and balance within public radio is that “the marketplace has no issues with it,” writes consultant John Sutton on his blog.

Pat Mitchell, then president of PBS, delivered this talk May 24, 2005, at the National Press Club, in the midst of escalating news coverage of the conflict between public TV and Kenneth Tomlinson, then chair of CPB. Mitchell was preparing to announce recommendations for public TV’s future, but the Digital Futures Initiative report was delayed until December 2005, after Tomlinson had quit CPB and the dust was clearing. Since becoming president of PBS, I’ve often been at podiums like this one, with audiences like this one, although perhaps not as well informed or well prepared as a National Press Club gathering or one with so many familiar faces, those of friends and colleagues in public broadcasting.

The sole black employee at Milwaukee’s WUWM-FM has filed a racial discrimination complaint with Wisconsin’s Equal Rights Division, reports the Journal Sentinel.

“I find it upsetting that NPR sees me as competition,” says Bob Edwards from his perch at XM in a Boston Globe article.

Bill Kling, president of Minnesota Public Radio, tells the Minnesota Star-Tribune that he has heard nothing from CPB to indicate that the agency will stop funding MPR’s national production Weekend America. A New York Times article last week said CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson had told board members the funding would end.

BBC news output will be affected Monday by the first of several limited strikes protesting plans to cut 4,000 jobs, Reuters reported. Further strikes are planned by the National Union of Journalists and two tech unions for the 48-hour period of May 31 and June 1 and for another occasion not yet set.

More on Kenneth Tomlinson/CPB: NPR reports that two years ago, Tomlinson suggested bringing in Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume to talk to pubcasting officials about how to create balanced news progamming.

The Washington Post reviews the controversy over CPB’s push to balance public broadcasting in a profile of board chairman Kenneth Tomlinson. “I never started out to make a campaign of this,” he said, describing the resistance he’s encountered as “symbolic of the tone-deafness” and “intellectual dishonesty” of public broadcasting’s leadership. Tomlinson gives the Post a different account of his decision to address pubTV’s “liberal bias” than the one he offered last week in a Washington Times op-ed. Meanwhile, in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed KQED President and PBS Board member Jeff Clarke offers his own take: “CPB officials have recently claimed that public broadcasting needs to improve its ability to reach more Americans.

Salon media critic Eric Boehlert writes that while there are plenty of questions surrounding CPB’s new content monitors, “it is CPB’s tapping of two ombudsmen that has most raised eyebrows in journalism circles.” Said NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin: “I don’t think ombudsmen should be in the Crossfire business.” Salon also posts excerpts from Bill Moyers’ speech at last weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis. (day-pass required)

The progressive Capital Times in Madison, Wisc., recounts Bill Moyers’ Sunday speech at the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis, his first public response to CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson’s well-documented quest for “balance.” “I should put my detractors on notice,” Moyers, 70, said. “They might compel me out of the rocking chair and into the anchor chair.” Regarding Tomlinson’s claim he kept his investigation of Now secret to protect PBS’ image, Moyers said, “Where I come from in Texas, we shovel that stuff every day.” Democracy Now! airs much of the speech in its Monday broadcast, and has posted a partial transcript on its website.

After a week as target of dark accusations and suspicions, Ken Tomlinson was weary. “We’ve all said what we had to say,” the CPB Board chairman told Current. “Let’s all declare victory and move on.” That may make sense to many public broadcasters, but Tomlinson’s critics aren’t likely to give the issue a rest. CPB’s independent inspector general, Kenneth Konz, said he will investigate charges by two key House Democrats that Tomlinson violated the Public Broadcasting Act by commissioning a political content review of Now with Bill Moyers and recruiting a White House staff member to write guidelines for CPB’s new ombudsmen.

CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson worked to initiate outside studies of public radio as well as TV, the New York Times reports. “Late last year, without notifying board members or NPR, Mr. Tomlinson contacted S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a research group, about conducting a study on whether NPR’s Middle East coverage was more favorable to Arabs than to Israelis,” according to the report. Tomlinson, also head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees international broadcasting programs such as Voice of America, has continued to block NPR programming from a U.S.-owned

Six months after retiring as host of PBS’s Now with Bill Moyers, the longtime journalist spoke to activists gathered for the conference in St. Louis May 15, 2005. This prepared text was posted by Free Press [website], the sponsor of the conference. I can’t imagine better company on this beautiful Sunday morning in St. Louis. You’re church for me today, and there’s no congregation in the country where I would be more likely to find more kindred souls than are gathered here. There are so many different vocations and callings in this room — so many different interests and aspirations of people who want to reform the media — that only a presiding bishop like Bob McChesney with his great ecumenical heart could bring us together for a weekend like this.

In 10 years, former APTS and CPB exec Ric Grefe built the American Institute of Graphic Arts from what was perceived to be a “New York club” for designers into a national organization with 52 chapters and 17,800 members, writes designer William Drenttel on his group blog, Design Observer. (Extraneous treat for dog lovers: Drenttel’s dog had puppies.)

Cartoonist Mark Fiore envisions a “Corporation for Politicized Broadcasting.”