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“The old-fashioned idea of the airwaves as public property still excites both ends of the political spectrum . . .,” reports The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher from the FCC’s media consolidation hearing in Richmond.
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NPR’s Bob Edwards interviewed Pacifica’s Brian DeShazor about the radio network’s efforts to preserve its valuable archive of historic audio tapes. NPR’s page includes an extended version of the DeShazor interview and clips from archive recordings.
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The Onion needles NPR’s Corey Flintoff this week–see fifth item, “News in Brief.” (Warning: gratuitous explicit language.)
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Pubcasters are again calling on FCC Chairman Michael Powell to require cable to carry both public TV’s analog and digital signals during the DTV transition. The new request follows a similar appeal made in June 2001. Read the letter to Powell (PDF).
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CPB honored Ted Stevens, Alaska’s senior senator, with its Ralph Lowell Award, public TV’s highest honor. As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens has steered millions of dollars in financial aid to pubcasters.
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New York’s WAMC will buy an AM station to complement its stronger FM signal in Albany.
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College radio stations are fuming that College Music Journal, their sole tie to the record industry, seems to be fiddling with their playlist data to promote its own ventures.
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Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen tells Adweek he’s working on a second novel (set in the 19th century) and hates Craig Kilborn.
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Fred Rogers died of cancer early today at the age of 74. There’s additional information at the Family Communications website. Current covered his retirement in 2000. And in a Current commentary, media scholar George Gerbner explained how Rogers’ storytelling addresssed childrens’ needs. “In this world of too many manufactured dreams, Fred Rogers is hand-crafting–for us as well as for our children–the dreams that heal,” he wrote.
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New research from the Sesame Workshop reveals children worry more about the bully next door than Osama bin Laden, reports the Washington Post.
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NPR has hired GetActive Software to provide member stations with fundraising software and e-marketing tools. PBS hired the company for the same purposes in March 2002.
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NPR President Kevin Klose visited Baltimore to face critics of his network’s Middle East coverage, reports the Sun. “There are people on all sides of this issue who want us to tell only their story using their names and their nomenclature — and we’re not going to do it,” he said.
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“We’re always up front with the fact that this is advocacy journalism,” says a producer at WPKN in Bridgeport, Conn., a community radio station profiled in the Hartford Courant.
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NPR named Walt Swanston director of diversity management and Michael Riksen v.p. of national affairs.
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Nielsen Media Research announced plans to expand its use of people meters, a change likely to boost cable ratings, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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“Unsettling hours about the airborne evils that Americans have been told to await”–“Dirty Bombs,” airing tonight on PBS’s Nova, and “Bioterror: The Invisible Enemy,” debuting tomorrow on the Discovery Channel. The New York Times reviewer says both offer “dreadful insights and fodder for fear.”
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“A woman whose first child was born nine months and five days after her wedding recalls that the realization of ‘how easy it was to get pregnant’ was quickly followed by panic.” The New York Times reviews “The Pill,” airing tonight on PBS’s American Experience.
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WHYY in Philadelphia upped Terry Gross’s salary from the $85,000 she made in 2001, reports the Inquirer. The paper also reports what hosts including Bob Edwards and David Brancaccio pulled in.
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WDET-FM in Detroit stopped its Web audio stream today because of new limits on how Internet broadcasters can program music.
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A live chat on eating disorders gets underway at 2 p.m. ET today at washingtonpost.com. Author Marya Hornbacher, whose book “Wasted” chronicles her struggle with anorexia and bulimia, participates in the chat. She is one of several young women profiled in “Perfect Illusions: Eating Disorders and the Family,” a documentary airing tonight on many PBS stations.