Now to the fight for freedom of the media. A former co-chair of the Republican National Committee is the leading candidate to take over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That is the US-tax payer funded agency that funds public media in this country. Patricia de Stacy Harrison is reportedly the favored candidate of the CPB’s chairm, Kenneth Tomlinson. Harrison is currently a high-ranking official at the State Department. She was co-chair of the RNC from 1997 until January 2001, helping to raise money for Republican candidates, including George W. Bush. In her State Department role, Harrison has praised the work of the department’s Office of Broadcasting Services, which in early 2002 began producing feature reports, some coordinated by the White House, that promoted the administration’s arguments for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The reports were distributed free to domestic and international TV stations. In testimony before Congress last year, Harrison said the Bush administration regarded these “good news” segments as “powerful strategic tools” for swaying public opinion.