Former public-broadcasting chief quits board

NEW YORK — Kenneth Tomlinson, whose leadership of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board of directors sparked an internal investigation into his tenure, resigned from the board Thursday in advance of the imminent release of the report, which is expected to contain criticism of his actions.

Tomlinson's abrupt departure — characterized in a statement as a mutual decision by him and the rest of the board — came after they met in a closed session for three days in an undisclosed location near Washington, D.C., to review the findings of the corporation's inspector general, Kenneth Konz. Tomlinson had a little more than a year left before the end of his six-year term.

For the past six months, Konz has been investigating claims by Democratic lawmakers that Tomlinson broke federal law and violated corporation policies in his efforts to balance what he has called a liberal tilt in public broadcasting.

Konz does not plan to make his report public until mid-November. But the eight-member board suggested that the inspector general has concluded that at least some of Tomlinson's actions were inappropriate.

"The board does not believe that Mr. Tomlinson acted maliciously or with any intent to harm CPB or public broadcasting, and the board recognizes that Mr. Tomlinson strongly disputes the findings in the soon-to-be-released Inspector General's report," the statement read.

Corporation spokesman Michael Levy declined to elaborate on the statement. Tomlinson, 61, did not respond to a phone message or e-mail.

A Republican who served as director of Voice of America in the 1980s, Tomlinson was a reporter and eventually editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest. He was appointed to the CPB board by President Clinton in 2000 and was elected its chairman in 2003.

In the past six months, Tomlinson, whose two-year term as chairman expired in late September, provoked a heated debate with his aggressive efforts to incorporate more conservatives into public broadcasting, on the air and behind the scenes.

He said he was merely following federal law requiring the corporation to ensure objectivity and balance in public broadcasting, and argued that his actions would expand the appeal of PBS and NPR.

But Democrats and liberal watchdog groups accused him of politicizing the corporation, which is charged with shielding public broadcasting from partisan meddling.

On Thursday, many of them — including Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who initially requested the investigation in May — applauded Tomlinson's exit.

Among other issues, Konz examined Tomlinson's secret hiring of a consultant, Fred Mann, who tracked the political leanings of guests on shows such as PBS' "Now With Bill Moyers." Mann dubbed those who expressed opposition to White House policies, including Republicans, as "liberal" or "anti-Bush." Critics of the study, included PBS President Pat Mitchell, denounced it as wasteful and unproductive.

Konz also investigated Tomlinson's involvement in awarding contracts to Republican lobbyists without informing the board and his efforts to establish Patricia Harrison, a former Republican Party chairwoman, as the corporation's new chief executive this summer.