Your Tax Dollars at Work

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has as its primary duty the dispensing of taxpayer dollars to PBS and NPR stations. The current president of CPB has openly claimed that he believes PBS and NPR have a 'liberal' bias and he apparently has found a way to 'fix' the evidence in support of his claims.

From The Washington Post we learn that he paid $14,000 to a consultant to do a study on just that issue:

A consultant who monitored news and talk programs on public radio and TV found that liberal and anti-administration views were widespread, but critics said the consultant's work was itself biased and riddled with errors.

One of the critics of the study pointed out that the consultant never bothered to define the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative.' That probably would have been helpful, because it would then be possible to understand why Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) and former Congressman Bob Barr (R) were considered 'liberal' in the published report.

The report labels guests on these programs "liberal," "conservative" or "neutral," or categorizes them by such descriptions as "pro-Bush," "anti-Bush," "support administration," "oppose administration."

Mann's work was released yesterday by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who had requested a copy from the CPB. ...Dorgan pointed out that "red-blooded" conservatives such as Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and former congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.) were classified as "liberal" and "anti-administration" apparently for briefly expressing views that differed from administration policy.

Ah... it's the old "you're either with us or you're against us" philosophy.

Well, at least there's this:

CPB hasn't released Mann's $14,000 study, which is the subject of an investigation by the CPB's inspector general as a possible abuse of taxpayer funds. [emphasis added]