PBS Head Challenges Her Own Chairman

Good for Pat! Looks like the outgoing president of PBS, Pat Mitchell, ain't buying what Kenneth Tomlinson, the Republican Bushite chairman of the parent Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is selling. Here's the AP story.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The president of the Public Broadcasting Service on Tuesday rejected criticism by conservatives that public TV is guilty of liberal bias, and she offered a strong defense of PBS' Bill Moyers, a target of right-wing wrath.

"PBS does not belong to any one political party," Pat Mitchell said.

Mitchell's remarks at the National Press Club follow the disclosure that Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, hired a consultant to keep track of guests' political views on a program hosted by Moyers, who was White House press secretary during the Johnson administration.

"The facts do not support the case he makes" for political bias, Mitchell said of Tomlinson. Surveys show that the overwhelming majority of the public does not perceive bias in public broadcasting, she said.