SOUTHERN ILLINOIS - The day the U.S. House voted to restore $100 million for fiscal year 2006 to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the same day the CPB chose former Republican National Committee Co-Chair Patricia Harrison as its new president and chief executive officer.

Coincidence?

Democrats are now questioning whether executives have caved in to criticisms about liberal slants in public broadcasting news programs and whether GOP infiltration will destroy what they call "political neutrality" in the CPB.

Public broadcasting has been led by known Republicans in the past, but Democratic lawmakers, like U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, have expressed doubts about Harrison's qualifications for heading up the corporation.

"I believe that the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting should be someone with a strong background in broadcasting or education,"

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Durbin said. "This position shouldn't be partisan."

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Chicago, agreed politics should be left out of the debate.

"The mission of Public Broadcasting should be to produce high-quality news and educational programming, period. I don't believe that the partisan agendas of Democrats or of Republicans have any place in this discussion," Obama said. "I believe that the Senate should fully fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

Harrison currently serves as the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, but liberal groups have denounced her as having no public broadcasting experience.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale political scientist and local WSIU Public Broadcasting supporter John Jackson said it is apparent conservatives have been turning the screws on a perceived liberal bias in PBS.

"I think it really started with (Kenneth) Tomlinson," Jackson said.

Tomlinson, a Republican and CPB chairman, has accused PBS programming of being too liberal.

Too liberal is a term with a vague measuring stick, Jackson indicated. It depends on what you compare it to.

"Everybody is liberal compared to Fox News," Jackson said. "(PBS) certainly gives analytical and sometimes critical coverage of the administration, but no one seemed to say too much when they were doing it with the Clinton administration."

Linda Taira, executive vice president of KOCE-TV in Orange County, Calif., and one of the designated spokespeople in the argument for public broadcasting funding, said PBS has been accused of one political bias or another ever since it was created.

"We feel the programs we produce locally and those we get nationally have been balanced," Taira said. "Of course, we say we are balanced during the course of the year."

Taira said stations generally air programs that contain conservative and liberal views and not necessarily always at the same time.

"We just simply can't satisfy everyone at the same time," she said.

Taira said she doesn't expect the CPB to dictate one political view over the other, just because Harrison is heading up the corporation.

Jackson said Harrison's presence in the CPB could have its benefits. He said she may have already helped in the U.S. House's decision to restore some funding for public broadcasting in 2006.

That is something most stations, especially WSIU, can't afford to lose.

"Bottom line, I don't think WSIU can raise any more money than what we're getting right now, so any cut would be particularly devastating to us," Jackson said.

caleb.hale@thesouthern.com

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