That Old Canard Liberal Bias

"We were biased, all right - in favor of uncovering the news that powerful people wanted to keep hidden," veteran journalist Bill Moyers told Broadcasting & Cable. In an interview with the trade publication, Moyers responds to accusations by the now chastened Kenneth Tomlinson, the controversial former head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting who has close ties to the White House, that he is the "exemplar of liberal PBS bias." Moyers added, "If reporting on what's happening to ordinary people thrown overboard by circumstances beyond their control and betrayed by Washington officials is liberalism, I stand convicted. It is an old canard of right-wing ideologues like Tomlinson to equate tough journalism with liberalism. They hope to distract people from the message by trying to discredit the messenger."