A Boston Globe article places Ira Glass among a throng of semiotics grads from Brown University that, “if they don’t exactly dominate the cultural mainstream, certainly have grown famous sparring with it.” Via randomWalks.

NPR’s Tavis Smiley appears tonight as a “Power Player” on Jeopardy.

Morning Edition without Bob Edwards will succeed by featuring energetic hosts and “fewer interviews with novelists,” among other changes, predicts commercial broadcaster Randall Bloomquist in the Wall Street Journal.

WFUV-FM in New York has at long last found a site for its broadcast tower, ending a decade-long struggle with the New York Botanical Garden.

Early commenters to the FCC raise concerns about supplemental audio channels and other issues, reports Radio Magazine.

Gerald Slavet, creator of PRI’s From the Top, won the company’s 2004 Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. And NPR gave its first-ever Public Radio Leadership Award to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Bob Edwards tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer his next book might be an autobiography. “The audience is writing it for me,” he says. “You should see the e-mails.”

Native producer Peggy Berryhill discussed new media’s effect on Native stations and many other topics in a recent chat on AIR’s website.

In a May 11 ruling, the D.C. Circuit Court upheld the FCC’s point system for resolving mutually exclusive noncommercial applications, rebuffing challenges from the American Family Association and Jefferson Public Radio. (PDF.) The decision removes a major obstacle to the FCC’s acceptance of new applications for reserved spectrum.

CPB gave more than $2.3 million in grants to 29 public radio stations to help them convert to digital broadcasting.

NPR’s Anne Garrels received CPB’s 2004 Edward R. Murrow Award this week, the most prestigious honor in public radio.

Bill O’Reilly reportedly is barring Fresh Air from relicensing segments of his much-discussed appearance on the show.

A McSweeney’s writer recasts Bob Edwards’ book tour as a Grateful Dead experience: “With the NPR tours, it’s like, I can’t even express it, it’s just too big, spiritually, and nobody else understands. Unless you’re on tour you can’t understand.”

“It kind of bothers me two people are doing it, because they’re going to do half my job,” says Bob Edwards in the Seattle Times. “No one’s ever going to know what my job was like.”

Researchers at Ball State University’s Center for Media Design found by observing a (small) sample of media consumers that Americans use media much more than they acknowledged in phone surveys. People used TV and online more than twice as much as indicated in phone surveys and used radio almost twice as much. Users’ diaries yielded usage data closer to those obtained by observation. [PDF file of full study. Center for Media Design.] Thanks to benton.org and other postings.

Filmmaker Michael Moore calls Democracy Now host Amy Goodman a “national treasure” in the Buffalo News.

The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher touches on the ongoing tussle between news and music programming on public radio.

In the New York Times Magazine, Ira Glass reflects on how the FCC’s crusade for decency brings him closer to Howard Stern.

Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the Justice Department reopened the 1955 Emmett Till murder case after recent films about the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, including Stanley Nelson’s American Experience doc indicated that participants in the murder may still be living, AP reported. The films were Nelson’s “The Murder of Emmett Till” and Keith A. Beauchamp’s “The Untold Story of Emmett Till.”

Native radio: at the heart of public radio’s mission

Ride the school bus on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona and you’ll hear Shooting Stars, a program for kids produced mostly by volunteers at KUYI, the three-year-old public radio station on the reservation. Tune in during the day and you’ll hear an update on living with diabetes or asthma. Keep listening and you’ll hear junior- and senior-high school interns reading the news. Stop to chat with someone on the reservation about what they’ve heard on the radio. Everyone knows you’re talking about the same station.