NYT Saturday: Ex-public broadcasting chair under investigation by State

RAW STORY

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said Friday, the New York Times' Stephen Labaton is set to splash on Saturday's page one, RAW STORY has learned. Tomlinson was ousted from CPB Thursday.

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Tomlinson remains an important official in Washington as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The board, whose members include the secretary of state, plays a central role in public diplomacy. It supervises the government's foreign broadcasting operations, including Radio Marti, Radio Sawa and al-Hurra; transmits programs in 61 languages; and says it has more than 100 million listeners each week.

People involved in the inquiry said that investigators had interviewed a number of officials at the agency and that, if the accusations were substantiated, they could involve criminal violations.
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In recent weeks, State Department investigators have seized records from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, officials said. They have shared some material with the CPB inspector-general, including e-mail traffic between Tomlinson and senior White House officials, including Karl Rove.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Tomlinson_1104.html

That's a hit. The whole thing is falling down on Rove and the junta.

Indictment coming soon...

Most knew these charges were coming. He was appointed to make PBS more conservative and less liberal. Just another Republican crook wrongly promoted to a position of power by the W corrupt administration.

These guys just cannot help themselves. Not content with what they now control, they just have to push further.
It is another link in the chain that will be their undoing.

Talk about piutting the Con in conservative.

All of this (alleged) criminality explains much about the workings of their minds. They really are evil!

Man, you scratch a Repug you'll find a crook. They are scum, lock them all up.

or it`s these guys

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/about/cast/

Spending Inquiry for Top Official on Broadcasting
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/politics/05broadcast.html?hp&ex=1131166800&en=19b2a34c9561ab7e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Salient snippets:

...Mr. Rove and Mr. Tomlinson became friends in the 1990's when they served on the Board for International Broadcasting, the predecessor agency to the board of governors. Mr. Rove played an important role in Mr. Tomlinson's appointment as chairman...The content of the e-mail between the two officials has not been made public but could become available when the corporation's inspector general sends his report to members of Congress this month.

That inspector general examined several contracts that were approved by Mr. Tomlinson but not disclosed to board members. The contracts provided for payments to a researcher who monitored the political content of several shows, including "Now" with Bill Moyers, and payments to two Republican lobbyists who were retained to help defeat a proposal in Congress that would have required greater representation of broadcasters on the corporation's board.

The inspector general also examined the role of a White House official, Mary C. Andrews, in Mr. Tomlinson's creation of an ombudsman's office...Mr. Tomlinson has said he took those steps to counter what he called a clear liberal tilt of public broadcasting. But broadcasting executives and critics of the corporation say the steps violated the corporation's obligations to insulate broadcasting from politics.

On Thursday Mr. Tomlinson was forced to step down from the corporation, which directs nearly $400 million in federal money to public radio and television, after the board was briefed about the conclusions by its inspector general. In that inquiry, examiners looked at accusations that Mr. Tomlinson improperly used corporation money to promote more conservative programming.

crack and cranny! We are just teaming with a swarm! Get them out. It's about time they start paying the piper!

Their little Hitler experiment didn't really work, did it?

When will they learn that they can't control the message.

Glad to hear this shill is out and public radio/tv is free of the GOP influence.

Good news.

government that Rove has not infested?