Moyers Again Smears Me

Human Events, Jul 14, 2008 by Tomlinson, Kenneth

You can't make it up.

That's a basic rule of journalism, and those who violate that standard usually pay dearly-as did Jason BIair at the New York Times and Janet Cooke at the Washington Post,

Then there is Bill Moyers.

Once again now, in his latest book, Movers on Democracy (Doubleday), Moyers suggests that in the early 1980s when I was director of the Voice of America, I was involved in the infamous USlA blacklist controversy.

Back in May of 2005 when Ï first heard Moyers making this charge in a PBS-televised speech, I literally thought to myself, "You can't make this stuff up, Bill." His assertions were absolutely false-and I called him on it. I waited for Moyers, like Blair and Cooke, to suffer the consequences.

I'm still waiting. In the world of public broadcasting. Bill Moyers is king. Even his fabrications are beyond reproach.

Here is his latest version of the slander: "The right-winger who took the fall for the blacklist resigned. Shortly thereafter, so did Kenneth Tomlinson, who had been one of the people in the agency with the authority to see the lists of potential speakers and allowed to strike people's names. More than seven hundred documents had been shredded that contained evidence as to how these people were chosen Io be blacklisted"

Moyers, always the clever one, then adds: "There is no record, apparently, of what Ken Tomlinson did."

Of course, Moyers knows full well that I left VOA to become managing editor of Reader's Digest-a job that soon would lead me to become the magazine's editor-in-chief. During the next two decades, the Senate would unanimously confirm me to five different presidential appointments. Hardly the fate of an official who had been involved in a blacklist.

You can no more believe Bill Moyers on Tomlinson and blacklists than you can accept his declaration that his programs are politically balanced because he can give you a list of conservatives who have appeared on his show. You have never seen an honest debate over the merits of NAFTA on any Moyers program any more than you have seen a real debate over U.S. involvement in Iraq. Every conservative we saw on Moyers when we examined his program, was there because on some particular topic he or she agreed with Moyers.

That is why public broadcasting owes us a real analysis of balance on the Moyers show. After all, political balance on PBS is required by law.

Why did Jeremiah Wright select the Moyers show as his first interface with the public? Could it be because he expected questions like, "1 think of how important music is to your church in times like this.... That's intentional, isn't it?"

When asked why he didn't ask the Rev. Wright about the preacher's declaration that the federal government created AIDS to eliminate minorities, Moyers explained, "We ran out of time." The interview was an hour long.

Maybe it's no accident that since I left CPB, Moyers never again has been challenged by those charged with oversight of public broadcasting. Frankly, when you reflect on Moyers's smear of me in his new book, you may understand why.

Mr. Tomlinson is ihe former editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest. Between 2004 and 2006, he served a terai-limiled tenure as chairman of the CPB.