Politicizing ‘Buster’
Somewhat surprising news out of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting today: It has decided to appoint two veteran journalists as the first in-house ombudsmen.
Ken Bode, who was a NBC correspondent for many years but probably is best known for being the moderator of Washington Week in Review, and William Schultz, a former editor at the conservative Reader’s Digest, will review the standards and programming of both public radio and public television.
As the Post’s Farhi explains, “The appointments come after a long history of conservative complaints about alleged bias on PBS and NPR.” While CPB executives hailed the move, an unnamed public broadcasting official told Farhi: “Even a casual read on this is that this is the [fallout] from ‘Buster.’ By disputing our content, [CPB] can get more involved in what we do. This is another step forward in the politicization of [public] broadcast content.”
It’s an especially confusing move given that NPR has an ombudsman, and public television was in the process of hiring one–will viewers and listeners now have competing ‘watchdogs’?
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