"Still Another Conservative Putsch" Against PBS

A Monday New York Times editorial, "Public Broadcasting's Enemy Within," goes way over the top in its rhetorical assault on Kenneth Tomlinson, the former Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman who had the audacity to attempt to bring some political balance to PBS, which has long used tax money to fund liberal programming:

"As chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson proved to be a disastrous zealot. Internal investigators found he repeatedly broke federal law and ethics rules in overreaching his authority and packing the payroll with Republican ideologues."

Most galling, the Times employs the historically freighted term "putsch" (as in Hitler's 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch)  to describe conservatives who would dare to reduce taxpayer funding of "public broadcasting": "Defenders of public broadcasting now must guard against still another conservative putsch -- a Congressional move to cut financing for the corporation's $400 million budget of vital aid for local stations. This time, the 'balance' zealots may resort to irony by citing the very chaos wrought by Mr. Tomlinson."

The editorial page used the same frenzied tone in June, warning "the public's faith and donations could be threatened if audiences sense the Republicans are succeeding with an ideological putsch."

For more examples of New York Times bias, visit TimesWatch.