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The New York Times reviews Afghanistan Unveiled, a film created by young Afghan women who were trained as video journalists after the fall of the Taliban. The documentary debuts tonight on PBS’s Independent Lens.
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WESU-FM, the student-run station at Wesleyan University, will simulcast some programming from WSHU-FM in Fairfield, Conn. Students had resisted the plan, but WESU’s g.m. says that “our initial fears have been addressed to our satisfaction.”
Programs/Content
Is Bill Moyers the last of a breed or was he the first?
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When Bill Moyers signs off after the Dec. 17 [2004] broadcast of Now with Bill Moyers, he will leave behind one of the longest and most productive careers in the history of public television.He came to PBS in 1971, the first of the crossover journalists — Tim Russert and George Stephanopolous are among his heirs — who parlay experience in government and politics into high-profile journalism. He’s produced and appeared in more than 400 hours of programming — the equivalent of almost 20 years of Frontline, American Experience or Nova. And the equivalent in variety as well: covering not only news and public affairs, but also addiction, death, religion, sports, music, China and the Hudson River. He’s won a raft of awards, among them 30 Emmys and 11 Peabodys, including a rare individual Peabody for career achievement.
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The University of North Dakota sold noncommercial KUND-AM to a Catholic broadcaster, reports the Grand Forks Herald.
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Doug Bennet, president of Wesleyan University and a former president of NPR, has suggested that his school’s freeform radio station simulcast a Fairfield NPR station during the day, reports the Hartford Courant. Students are protesting the idea and have presented their own proposal (Word document). (Read the university’s press release.)
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NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin looks at the network’s decision to remove All Things Considered host Michele Norris from recent political stories because her husband was an adviser to John Kerry’s campaign. “. . . I worry that news organizations will in effect censor their own journalists because of what their partners and spouses do.
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Broadcast news hosts using sentence fragments. A Chicago Tribune article takes note of this increasingly popular trend, which has at times swept up a few NPR anchors as well.
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Microsoft expects Slate, its online magazine, will be sold by the end of the year, reports the Online Journalism Review. Media reports have named the Washington Post Co. as the likely buyer. NPR and Slate co-produce the network’s Day to Day. (Via Romenesko.)
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Pacifica has hired Roy Campanella II as g.m. of KPFA in Berkeley, Calif. The Internet Movie Database details Campanella’s television career, which includes directing Baywatch, Knight Rider and Boston Public. Meanwhile, Pacifica announced the weekly audience of its five stations recently topped 1 million for the first time in the network’s history.
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Public radio stations in Minnesota not affiliated with Minnesota Public Radio have launched a marketing campaign to distance themselves from the megacaster, reports the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.
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Boston University has concluded its investigation of WBUR-FM and found merit in some of the allegations leveled against the station and its former g.m., Jane Christo. Coverage in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.
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Sarah Vowell, whose voice can be heard in the new Pixar blockbuster The Incredibles, discusses her role with the Hollywood Reporter. “[I]t’s a nice thing to be part of a juggernaut once in your life, especially when it’s a really cool juggernaut like this,” she says.
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NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin raises questions about the ties between the network’s Day to Day and Slate in light of the Microsoft-owned mag’s announcement that most of its staffers would vote for John Kerry. As Day to Day also noted, Slate joined other media outlets and bloggers in sharing exit-poll data on Election Day that at first favored Kerry to win. The Poynter Institute’s Steve Outing and Online Journalism Review’s Mark Glaser look at the use of these polls.
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FCC Auction 37 began Nov. 3. You can follow it at this FCC site (follow the link to “Bidding System and Results”—the page can’t be linked to directly). Earlier articles in Radio World summarized the bidding process and presented a nice map that shows where the frequencies at stake are located.
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Citing declines in traditional revenue sources, KERA-TV/FM in Dallas announced job cuts and schedule changes that trim $1.1 million from its budget, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. (Registration required.)
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NPR has combined its operations and engineering departments and promoted longtime employee David Argentieri as their senior director, reports Radio World.
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Congressmen from Hawaii have asked the FCC to expedite approval of a Hawaii Public Radio transmitter that would serve Maui, reports Pacific Business News.
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“Focus requires discipline and, in this case, a painful choice.” The New York Times is restructuring its TV unit and shuttering its production facility in lower Manhattan, according to an internal memo leaked to Romensko.
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Two keynote speeches from a recent production workshop held by American Public Media’s Classical Music Initiative are online.
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NPR has hired David Folkenflik, media reporter at the Baltimore Sun, reports the Baltimore Business Journal (second item). (More in the Baltimore City Paper. Via Romenesko).