THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

THE PRESIDENT NAMES KENNETH Y. TOMLINSON AS MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF

DIRECTORS OF THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING

The President today announced his intent to nominate Kenneth Y. Tomlinson as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Mr. Tomlinson, was editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest before retiring in 1996 after a career that spanned 28 years. From 1982 to 1984, Mr. Tomlinson was the Director of the Voice of America, which broadcasts to the world in 41 languages. As director, Mr. Tomlinson was noted for his innovative program reforms and his activist leadership style that greatly increased budgetary support for modernizing VOA facilities.

In his tenure as editor-in-chief, Mr. Tomlinson authored 50 articles for Reader's Digest where he created popular Digest features such as Crime and Punishment, That's Outrageous, My First Job and the Verbal Edge. From 1984 to 1990, Mr. Tomlinson was managing editor of Reader's Digest. Mr. Tomlinson was a correspondent in Vietnam and co-authored the book P.O.W., a history of the American prisoner of war experience in Vietnam. Mr. Tomlinson is currently the President and Director of the National Sporting Library in Middleburg.

Mr. Tomlinson received a B.A. in History from Randolph-Macon College.

The CPB is an independent, non-government, not-for-profit corporation that was initially authorized by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Its purpose is to facilitate the development of non-commercial educational radio and television broadcasting. The Board of Directors sets the policies and establishes the programming priorities for the Corporation. The CPB then distributes direct grants for operations and programming to approximately 340 CPB-supported public radio stations and approximately 200 public television grantees operating 355 stations in the United States and its territories.

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