Tomlinson now favors defunding CPB

Ken Tomlinson, the former CPB chair who was forced off the board after campaigning secretly and successfully to get two weekly political programs of his liking onto PBS, wrote in the Washington Examiner Friday (Oct. 22) that the public broadcasting he wanted can never be achieved: "I had long believed that the many tentacles of public broadcasting should be reformed — not defunded. I now realize I was wrong. Federal funding for NPR should be eliminated — as should handouts to CPB and PBS." NPR's firing of Juan Williams was "outrageous, but these people did the nation a favor," he wrote. "And after we defund public broadcasting, we will wonder why it took us so long."