Voice-Over America

Submitted by Laura Miller on

"The story of Kenneth Tomlinson's efforts to impose his right-tilting version of 'balance' on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has incited national controversy. But while that tale is well-known, Tomlinson's malign influence on another respected media institution, the Voice of America (VOA), has received far less attention," Art Levine writes for The American Prospect. "What's happened at the VOA -- which the longtime Karl Rove ally Tomlinson oversees as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) -- has done considerable damage to the value and credibility of international broadcasting. According to interviews with current and former VOA staffers and e-mails obtained by The American Prospect, under Tomlinson's watch, VOA administrators have pressed the agency's journalists to report pro-White House spin and too often directed them to downplay hard-hitting news in favor of puffery."

Main Source: 
The American Prospect Online, August 14, 2005

Comments

N M Postlethwaite replied on

The "begging" is going to have to stop! "Viewers like you" and those who also pay taxes, have learned to turn off "beg week" ... and will forget to turn public stations on again if all they get is privately underwritten propaganda ... At our house, we're finding alternatives left and right (but not so much as left). We like Sundance Channel and Air America Radio, and the C-SPANs even! VOA has way more competition than it ever had before. It's hard to imagine what the White House is hoping to accomplish.