Quick Takes
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Public Radio International will distribute Here and Now, a midday news program produced by WBUR-FM in Boston. The show airs on 40 stations.
Quick Takes
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The Boston Globe profiles Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s On Point: “Fans praise Ashbrook’s interruptions, his injection of urgency, his tendency to summarize guests’ points in his own tart words. Critics grumble about those same traits, saying he steps on answers and dampens thoughts.” (Via Romenesko.)
Quick Takes
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NTIA announced $21.4 million in Public Telecommunications Facilities Program grants yesterday, more than half for public TV digital conversion. Projects will bring first public radio service to 700,000 people, NTIA estimated.
Programs/Content
What makes public broadcasting ‘public’ is engagement
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The authors head the Public Media ThinkTank at American University in Washington, D.C. With backing from the Ford Foundation they’re working to distill the means and motives of a broader realm of public media, including public broadcasting. This is one of their first efforts. Public engagement is the semisecret success story of public broadcasting, and it shouldn’t be. The many community partnerships that flourished with public TV’s June broadcast of the special on caregiving for seniors, And Thou Shalt Honor, and the amazing insights that Story Corps brings to public radio shouldn’t be heartwarming, exceptional stories. They should be the norm.
Quick Takes
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Bruce Drake will step down Sept. 30 as NPR’s v.p. of news. He will move on to help launch the network’s Local News Initiative, a project to expand and strengthen reporting at NPR member stations.
PBS
Getler to measure PBS journalism against its goals
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For the first time PBS has hired a journalist to critique the programs it distributes.
Quick Takes
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A coalition of media reform groups called on CPB to completely open its board meetings, the best parts of which are generally off-limits to the press and public, and otherwise encourage openness and transparency.
Quick Takes
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Blogger Rex Sorgatz has temporarily stopped selling T-shirts that say “A Prairie Ho Companion” after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Garrison Keillor’s lawyers. “[I]t annoys the living hell out of me that Garrison Keillor thinks he can bully me,” says Sorgatz. (St. Paul Pioneer Press article.)
Quick Takes
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“Tune in for a crash course in the sounds your favorite record store clerk was grooving to, like, two years ago,” says Pitchfork of the NPR concert series.