CPB crusaders for Fox-style "balance" apprenticed with radio reactionary

[BurtWorm]

"Fair and balanced" -- the McCarthy way

CPB head Kenneth Tomlinson, who is leading a jihad against "liberal bias" in public broadcasting, and one of his two new ombudsmen both worked for the late Fulton Lewis, a reactionary radio personality associated with Sen. Joe McCarthy.

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By Eric Boehlert



http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/26/fulton_lewis_connection/print.html


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What's interesting about Lewis now is that two men at the forefront of the effort to rid public broadcasting of its presumed liberal bias both learned journalism at his knee. One, CPB chief Tomlinson, worked as an intern for Lewis. The other, William Schulz, whom Tomlinson recently named as one of the CPB's two ombudsmen, was a writer for Lewis.

To some, the idea that these two are in charge of promoting objective journalism in public broadcasting is appalling. "It's shocking and disgraceful," says former New York Times columnist and reporter Anthony Lewis, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage during the McCarthy era. "If both men wrote for Fulton Lewis it means they were dedicated to an extreme-right position that should disqualify them from determining somebody's objectivity."

While there is no mention on Tomlinson's official CPB bio of his association with Lewis, an Oct. 16, 2002, NewsMax.com article reported: "Tomlinson's résumé also includes an internship with the late Fulton Lewis Jr., a conservative network commentator in the 'pre-Rush' days of AM radio."

Likewise, the bio of Schulz that the CPB posted online after he was named one of its ombudsmen fails to mention his connection with Lewis. But in a 1997 interview, Schulz recalled, "I went to Antioch College in Ohio, and they had a work-study program, and I got a couple of newspaper jobs, and then I worked for Human Events. Then I went to work for Fulton Lewis Jr., who was a radio commentator and columnist."

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