PBS funding fight heats up in Capitol

WASHINGTON -- As the House of Representatives prepares to vote this week on legislation that would slash funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Democrats staged a flurry of press conferences on Capitol Hill yesterday denouncing Republicans for the threatened cuts and calling on President Bush to fire the corporation's chairman, who they say wants to remake public broadcasting in the image of the GOP.

Democrats trotted out child-friendly icons designed to highlight the importance of children's programming on public stations. Using infants and young children, puppets, and cartoon images of popular PBS television characters, Democrats argued that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting plays a vital role in educating American children.

And they faulted public broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson for failing to defend the corporation from potentially crippling budget cuts, linking the cuts to his stated attempts to rid public broadcasting of what he has perceived as a liberal bias.

Spokesmen for Tomlinson said last night that there is no reason for him to step down because he has done nothing inappropriate, and earlier in the day brushed off the charge that he had not lobbied hard enough for the cuts to be restored. The White House, meanwhile, said it has no intention of firing Tomlinson.

''We stand by the chairman," said White House spokeswoman Erin Healy.

The House is expected to vote this week on a bill that would cut $100 million from the corporation's $400 million budget

''If PBS is saved this week, it will not be because of Ken Tomlinson, it will be in spite of Ken Tomlinson," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, who held the first of the afternoon's two press conferences with six other Democratic representatives and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York.

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, in a later press conference with Senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, accused Republicans of trying to stamp their imprint on a public resource that should remain independent and free from political control.

''Americans do not want PBS to turn into 'The O'Reilly Factor' or another means of propaganda for the Republican party," Lautenberg said, displaying a poster that showed ''Sesame Street" characters fleeing from a herd of stampeding elephants.

House Republicans have largely framed their argument for budget cuts in terms of fiscal responsibility. When the bill including budget cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting passed the House Appropriations Committee last week, the committee chairman, Representative Ralph Regula, Republican of Ohio, said looming budget deficits made the cuts an unfortunate but necessary choice.

Democrats countered yesterday that any cuts to the public broadcasting budget would be insignificant in overall savings.

This is not the first time that funding for public broadcasting has caused a heated battle in Congress. In 1995, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and fellow Republicans pledged to eliminate the corporation's funding altogether but later backed down. A similar controversy erupted in 1985 amid President Reagan's efforts to cut discretionary spending.

''Public broadcasting should not be the political football that it is," said Horace Newcomb, who directs the George Foster Peabody Awards for broadcasting at the University of Georgia. ''But my guess is that it will continue to be."