THE SCRAPBOOK'S favorite liberal columnist, Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix, last week updated the long-running saga of America's self-dealing PBS aristocracy, aka Bill Moyers, Inc. As recounted here a few weeks ago, Moyers moralizes at ponderous length about the malign influence of money on everyone's ethics but his own. And his son, it turns out, is a chip off the old man's block. Kennedy describes the origins of the new Web publication TomPaine.com, now being promoted with an ad campaign in the New York Times and elsewhere. "What's most interesting about TomPaine.com," he writes, "is who runs it: John Moyers, the son of Bill Moyers and a fellow traveler with his father in the murky world of bigtime foundations.
"Until February of this year, John Moyers was the executive director of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation; his father was and is the president. Bill Moyers got in trouble when it was revealed that his PBS reports on campaign-finance reform focused favorable attention on organizations to which the Schumann Foundation has given millions of dollars, such as the Center for Public Integrity. Schumann also helps pay for public broadcasting, and Knight Ridder's Frank Greve reported recently that John Moyers was not averse to pressuring National Public Radio to cover projects of interest to him.
"Now John Moyers heads the $ 5 million Florence Fund, spun off from the Schumann Foundation to back various reform efforts. TomPaine.com is among the Florence Fund's beneficiaries, and the younger Moyers serves as its publisher. . . . TomPaine.com . . . is promising, but it's got a way to go before it will be taken seriously. Maybe it simply needs more resources. Perhaps publisher John Moyers can find out whether Florence Fund executive director John Moyers would be willing to fork over some more dough.
"Dad, after all, would understand."