[Dialogue] Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Proposed Reforms Fall Short

[Harry Wainwright]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 1, 2006
2:14 PM

CONTACT: Common Cause
Mary Boyle, (202) 736-5770

Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Proposed Reforms Fall Short

WASHINGTON - May 1 - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has taken
important first steps to ending political tests in hiring and offering
protection to whistle-blowers.  However, the CPB appears unwilling to make
changes that would ensure more transparency and accountability.  That's the
conclusion of a new analysis of CPB governance policies by Common Cause and
the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). 

Common Cause and CDD urged the CPB board, at its meeting today, to
demonstrate that it is willing to adopt the substantive and necessary
reforms that would restore integrity and public accountability to the
scandal-plagued agency.  As the attached analysis illustrates, the proposals
under consideration by the CPB Board to date fall far short of what has been
recommended.

"The CPB must realize that these governance and ethics issues aren't going
away," said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree.  "Creating committees to
recommend anemic reforms isn't good enough.  It's long past time to adopt
unimpeachable policies that ensure the CPB - which makes decisions about how
taxpayer dollars are to be spent - operates above board and with complete
public transparency."

The CPB has been struggling to change its flawed governance process for
nearly a year.  In July 2005, public interest groups, including Common Cause
and CDD, asked for specific governance reforms in the wake of scandals
involving former CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson.  In November 2005, the
CPB's own Inspector General also made a series of recommendations to improve
the agency's corporate governance processes, after finding evidence of
partisan hiring and other wrongdoing by CPB's top management.  To respond to
these calls for reform, the CPB created a Corporate Governance Committee and
an Executive Compensation Committee. 

On April 7, the CPB's Corporate Governance Committee rejected proposed
financial disclosure requirements, questioning whether such disclosures were
material to their work at CPB, and raising concerns that personal
information could be leaked.  "CPB board members should have nothing to hide
from the public.  Yet, the board sent back for revision a safeguard
recommended by staff that would require full financial disclosure," said
Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy.  "It appears that the
current CPB board leadership isn't interested in serious governance rules."
 
The full CPB Board is meeting on May 1 and 2 to consider a slate of policies
related to ethics, conflicts of interest, open meetings procedures,
whistle-blower protections and other public accountability measures. 

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