![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/images\/MoyersB5-16.jpg\")
<\/A>The demonization of Bill Moyers is not limited to conservative\nvenues. It also finds a warm, comfy outlet on supposedly liberal PBS. George Neumayr, executive
\neditor of the hardline right-wing American Spectator Magazine, was given ample time last night
\nto spew his venom<\/B><\/FONT><\/A> on PBS’s
\nNewsHour in a softball interview with Jeffrey Brown. But that’s the least of it. <\/P>
\n
Kenneth Tomlinson, head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is on a mission to Confronted with “the apparent discrepancy” between the contract and what he claimed in a <\/P> I’ve written before about Moyers, more than half a dozen times. A year ago, I said his speech <\/P> Public broadcasting has “to get back to the revolutionary spirit of dissent and courage” that The demonization of Bill Moyers is not limited to conservative venues. It also finds a warm, comfy outlet on supposedly liberal PBS. George Neumayr, executive editor of the hardline right-wing American Spectator Magazine, was given ample time last night to spew his venom on PBS’s NewsHour in a softball interview with Jeffrey Brown. But that’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-iA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ndestroy PBS by targeting Moyers and “Now,” his former program, with outright lies.
\n[has] surfaced”<\/B><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A> indicating he dissembled at best when
\nhe claimed that former CPB President Kathleen Cox “approved and signed” a contract to hire
\nsomeone “to monitor the political leanings” of the the guests who appeared on “Now.” This
\nmorning’s New York Times reports that “a copy of the contract … shows that Mr. Tomlinson
\nsigned it on Feb. 3, 2004, five months before Ms. Cox became president.” <\/P>
\n
\nletter to Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Tomlinson had no comment. “If he signed the contract, he was
\nnot telling the truth, which would be very troubling,” Dorgan told the Times. “He’s trying to pawn
\nsome responsibility for this on others, which is very troubling. This guy has some real credibility
\nproblems.” Lies are the default setting for the Bush White House and its minions. (It’s not Moyers
\nbeing demonized in the campaign against him and PBS, Neumayr told Brown on the NewsHour,
\nit’s Tomlinson who is the target of “a ridiculous smear … for simply doing his job.”)<\/P>
\n
\n
\non truth and journalism at the first National Conference on Media Reform in May 2004 is
\nmorning.”<\/B><\/FONT><\/A> He said then that “our democracy is in danger of being paralyzed.”
\nHis speech to the second conference last month was
\nYou can see why<\/B><\/FONT><\/A><\/B><\/FONT><\/A> on
\nthis morning’s Democracy Now! <\/STRONG>“I don’t want to make any easy
\ncomparisons, but I do sense that there is a desire to silence any dissent in this country by the
\nadministration,” Moyers said.<\/P>
\n
\nThey practice extraordinary media manipulation. They’re the most secretive
\nadministration in my 70 years. And this whole attack on me is indicative of how when anyone
\nrises up to speak an alternative truth, an alternative vision of reality, they try to discredit them. …
\nI’m targeted because my reporting on “Now” was telling the stories that they didn’t want told
\nabout secrecy in government, about Cheney’s energy task forces, about a cover up at the
\nDepartment of Interior, about the relationship between business, corporations, and the
\nadministration. We were reporting what good muckraking journalism always reports, and they
\ndon’t like that. So that’s why they’ve singled me out.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\ninspired it “in the first place,” Moyer noted, “and this country does, too.” So
\npublished Monday in The Washington Post, a version of which is online
\nhere<\/B><\/FONT><\/A>, Moyers also laid out the assumptions on which PBS was founded. Read
\nthem. And if you’re at all interested in previous Straight Up posts about “Exhibit A” of PBS’s
\nso-called liberal agenda (Neumayr’s term for him), here are some of them: Moyers Moves On<\/B><\/FONT><\/A>,