Trained as an interior decorator? Fundraiser? Congratulations...

[paineinthearse]

You qualify to be chair or co-chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601598.html

CPB Taps Two GOP Conservatives for Top Posts

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; C02



A leading Republican donor and fundraiser was elected chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting yesterday, tightening conservative control over the agency that oversees National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. Cheryl F. Halpern, a New Jersey lawyer and real estate developer, won approval from the CPB's board. She succeeds a close board ally, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who stirred controversy earlier this year by contending that public broadcasting favors liberal views. Tomlinson's term as chairman had expired, but he will remain a member of the board.

The board also elected another conservative, Gay Hart Gaines, as its vice chairman. Gaines, an interior decorator by training, was a charter member and a chairman of GOPAC, a Republican fundraising group that then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) used to engineer the GOP takeover of the House in 1994. With the changes, conservatives with close ties to the Bush administration have assumed control of every important position at the agency, which distributes about $400 million in federal funds to noncommercial radio and TV stations and is supposed to act as a buffer against outside political influence.

Gaines succeeds the CPB's highest-ranking Democrat, Frank Cruz. Her election came after the agency's board, which is dominated by Republicans, rejected a bid for the vice chairmanship by its lone independent member, Beth Courtney. In June, the board named former Republican National Committee co-chairman Patricia Harrison as the CPB's president and chief executive, angering Democrats. "It's mind-boggling," Ernest J. Wilson II, one of two Democrats on the eight-member board, said in an interview. "They had an opportunity to send a bipartisan signal. They took the opportunity to send a very different kind of signal."

Halpern and her husband, Fred, have for years been financial supporters of Republican candidates, including President Bush and Republican Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Conrad Burns (Mont.) and Christopher Bond (Mo.). Mother Jones magazine ranked the Halperns among the nation's top 100 "hard" money donors (contributions made directly to candidates, not party organizations) during the 2004 election cycle, estimating their contributions at $81,800. She has in the past been critical of NPR's reporting on the Middle East, particularly its coverage of the Israeli government. During her confirmation hearings for a seat on the CPB board in 2003, Halpern suggested that CPB members should have the authority to penalize public broadcasting journalists who air biased programs. When she was a member of the federal agency that oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, she said during her confirmation hearing, "We were able to remove physically somebody who had engaged in editorialization of the news."

more....

[WildClarySage]

1. There goes the CPB. So long NPR, Sesamie Street, Red Green,

Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage, Mystery...

Hello Faux News Redux

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. I think without Sesame Street my daughter will go crazy!

It is the glue that holds her day together, with two in diapers.

[paineinthearse]

3. Gaines' PBS bio

http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/leadership/board/gaines.html




Gay Hart Gaines was named to the CPB board as a recess appointment by President Bush in December 2003, and confirmed by the Senate in November 2004 to a term ending in 2010. Gaines, an interior designer by training, has been active in a wide range of charitable, civic, and arts organizations.

Gaines is the newly elected Regent of the Board of Directors of Mount Vernon, where she previously represented the state of Florida as vice regent. She is currently a member of the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Madison Council of the Library of Congress. She has served as a board member of the Hudson Institute, the Best Friends Foundation, and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, where she was also president of the Palm Beach Chapter for three years. She was a charter member of GOPAC, which she chaired from 1993-1997, and chairman of the National Review Institute from 1991-1993.

Long active in Republican Party affairs, Gaines is a trustee of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, and a board member and president of the Palm Beach Republican Club. Gaines has also been involved with the New York City Ballet, and served on the board of the Guthrie Theater of Minneapolis, the Auxiliary board of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the McCarter Theater board in Princeton.

A graduate of Sweet Briar College, Gaines resides in Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband, Stanley. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/leadership/statements/gaines/gainestestimony041118.html">Testimony before Congress, November 18, 2004

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. I am reminded of Douglas Adams's Trilogy

in which a planet decided to rid itself of interior decorators, phone sanitizers and advertising executives by sending them away in a huge rocket that would later crash on earth.

Realty, it seems, has against lost its battle against fiction.

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. Cronyism = incompetence, bias, and corruption - and for NPR, censorship

and propaganda presented as facts.

Jen Sorenson got it right, as usual, after the FIRST round of neocon-driven PBS management:



Recommended. We need to know about this.

[Contrary1]

6. I'll leave you to your own conclusions...

"Cheryl F. Halpern is the new chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. "

[paineinthearse]

7. .

For the Newshour, Nova, American Masters, Great Performances evening crowd.

:kick: