Bill Moyers: Whose PBS Is It?

Whose PBS is it? The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was set up to protect the people’s airwaves from political interference. Now, that very safeguard leads the interference.

As some of you know, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established almost 40 years ago to set broad policy for public broadcasting and to be a firewall between political influence and program content. What some on this board are doing today, led by its chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, is too important, too disturbing and yes, even too dangerous for a gathering like this not to address.

We’re seeing unfold a contemporary example of the age-old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable.