Scrapbook
Scrapbook Tomlinson Agonistes The weird campaign of abuse against Ken Tomlinson gets weirder. Not long ago, you may recall, Tom-linson dared to suggest that public television and radio, which he...
...Not long ago, you may recall, Tom-linson dared to suggest that public television and radio, which he oversees as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, should meet minimum standards of balance in its public affairs programming...
...Miller appeared shaken and scared as she left the courtroom...
...Rich won't come out and accuse Tomlinson of being a spook—indirection is always the better course when tiptoeing through libelous territory— but Canning did, almost, and quickly regretted it...
...The RNC's municipal liaison, the Houston Host Committee, handed the job off to its volunteer legal counsel...
...Miller remembered having been primarily concerned, from a fashion point of view, with the fact that the U.S...
...In the Times, the left-wing columnist Frank Rich launched an attack that, in its viciousness, spineless insinuation, and inaccuracy surpassed even his own high standards...
...With her sensible pageboy and its trim bangs, she has the look of an English lecturer at Barnard...
...Yes, a lot of the clichés about public broadcasters are true...
...District Judge Thomas F. Hogan sends New York Times reporter Judith Miller to prison for contempt of court—thus gravely imperiling the public's sacred right to know...
...According to Section 19 of the Public Telecommunications Act, this is what the CPB chairman is supposed to do...
...Shortly after the book came out, Canning and his publisher were forced to furnish Tomlinson a letter (which Tomlinson happily furnished us) repudiating any hint of a connection between the Digest's editor and intelligence agencies...
...Given the panic and confusion of the moment, of course, it was more than understandable that eyewitness accounts might slightly differ on certain minor details...
...Speaking later to Liptak by phone from the Alexandria Detention Center across the Potomac in Virginia, Ms...
...With a mention of Tomlinson's tenure as head of Voice of America in the 1980s, Rich dismissed him as a "professional propagandist...
...Expertise with computers and in math is required...
...These guys play dirty, and they play for keeps...
...And the black reads like a nod to glamour and chic and the thing that proclaims: I'm a New Yorker and not some well-to-do lady from Chicago...
...federal district court dressed in black trousers, a quilted black jacket, a yellow shirt and tortoise frame sunglasses...
...And yes, their devotion to a more peaceful world is beyond questioning...
...But mostly, it's flexible...
...They really do drive Volvos, and they really do like Birkenstocks and woolen turtlenecks, and every single one of them has a weakness for Ben Shahn prints...
...The polemicists have been mobilized as well...
...Ensuring compliance took up a lot of his time...
...stuff like this: Miller arrived at U.S...
...The Spoils System THE SCRAPBOOK spent its week off flipping through back issues of Texas Lawyer magazine and came across this fascinating historical footnote: In 1992, you may recall, the Republicans held their quadrennial convention in Houston, Texas, a city known for its waterways, megachurches, and . . . well, myriad minority set-aside contracting regulations, otherwise known as "Minority/Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) Procedures...
...But what do you expect...
...marshals who escorted her out of Judge Hogan's courtroom "put shackles on my hands and feet...
...No doubt Rich was merely recasting (in his vigorous, muscular prose...
...It may be, for example, that Ms...
...Fine—that's what professional propagandists do, and Rich long ago abandoned claim to any other job title...
...The idea made sense...
...Mail résumé and cover letter with salary requirements to Personnel Department, The Weekly Standard, 1150 17th St., NW, Suite 505, Washington, DC 20036...
...He left VOA a far more reliable and objective news outfit than he found it, as professionals there said at the time...
...Beyond the real estate and food sections, readers seldom have reason to suspect that a Times columnist will know what he's talking about, but really, Rich might have asked around a bit before making his choice of smears...
...Her quilted jacket speaks of Barbour and the Upper East Side...
...Tomlinson's VOA stint—as those with long memories will recall—was most notable for his resistance to efforts to "politicize" the agency's broadcasts...
...There's a lesson here, for Tomlinson and others...
...To her Times colleague Adam Liptak, quite the contrary, "Ms...
...Under Houston law, you see, "prime contractors" must apportion anywhere between 11 and 25 percent of their contracts to businesses owned by women, blacks, Latinos, "Asian-Pacific Americans," Native Americans, or any combination thereof...
...Responsibilities include the usual ones involved with magazine distribution and marketing...
...Miller was smiling...
...Magazine or other publishing experience is preferred...
...The public broadcasting establishment struck back, quickly mobilizing its surrogates in the press—beat reporters like Stephen Labaton of the New York Times, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, and David Folkenflik of (gasp) NPR—to stoke the story day by day with "leaked emails," tremulous comments from "officials who requested anonymity fearing retribution," and the other artifices of scandal journalism...
...But don't be fooled...
...Moreover, her style may have been shouting something a bit more complicated than just "smart, organized, and efficient...
...And ensure a good-faith effort he did...
...Miller's smile was not still spread across her face as she was driven off to jail...
...Without complaint or criticism...
...Would you listen to The Diane Rehm Show unless you were being paid...
...Will Rich make a similar retraction...
...Rich also cites a 1996 book by Peter Canning about Reader's Digest, where Tomlinson worked as editor in chief after leaving VOA...
...Her style shouts smart, organized and efficient...
...As editor, Rich says, Tomlinson was a "kind of Manchurian candidate" figure, responsible for a "spike" in the magazine's "pro-CIA spin...
...But it's odd that such a figure should lecture other people about journalistic standards, and odder still that public broadcasters should orchestrate the abuse...
...She was wearing the sort of practical, comfortable and just-stylish-enough clothes that can be worn in any situation, never looking quite right but never looking too terribly wrong either...
...And it was still spread across her face as she was driven off to jail...
...The steps Tomlinson took to ensure that such an obligation was being met were rather mild—including hiring "consultants" to monitor PBS and NPR programs for balance...
...a sheaf of raw research handed to him by his friends in the public broadcasting establishment...
...So confusing that compliance became an issue for the Republican National Committee in 1992...
...It took up so much of his time, in fact, that a few days before the convention began, the assistant counsel—a partner at the Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins—told Texas Lawyer that "most of the work in the weeks leading to the convention dealt with ensuring that the host committee made a good-faith effort to see that at least 15 percent of the city's contribution" was "spent with minority- or women-owned businesses...
...The assistant counsel was none other than current U.S...
...Help Wanted THE WEEKLY STANDARD is looking to hire a circulation director...
...Attorney General, and possible Supreme Court nominee, Alberto R. Gonzales—probably not the top choice of those legal eagles who've spent the better part of recent decades litigating against minority set-asides...
...It was a pleasant smile...
...An Embattled Free Press Bravely Perseveres The Washington Post's Robin Givhan, ace fashion critic, reporting from ground zero as U.S...
...We'd explain more, but it gets a little confusing...
Vol. 10 • June 2005 • No. 41
