At NPR’s blog, Robert Smith is sizing up the competition: the new Washington Post radio station that launched this morning. “You want to take this outside for a debate over globalization? I didn’t think so.”

“National Public Radio recently issued a testy note to Boston Acoustics, complaining about reception problems with a radio NPR had bought in huge numbers for giveaways,” reports the Philadelphia Daily News.

Public radio reporter and producer Kathy McAnally died March 24 of cancer. She was 55. This remembrance aired on San Francisco’s KQED-FM, where McAnally worked for many years.

Rebecca Roberts, daughter of Cokie, will host a new local talk show on WETA-FM in Washington, D.C., starting this summer. (Second item.)

PBS ombudsman Michael Getler addresses viewer complaints about pledge programming and posts letters from pledge-weary pubTV fans in his most recent column. “PBS needs to change its name!” writes a viewer in Grand Rapids, Mich. “My suggestion is to call PBS the ‘Please Buy Something’ network.”

CPB is accepting applications for another round of digital conversion grants to public radio stations.

Reverbiage is “a news feed aggregator featuring NPR News Headlines.”

CPB plans to launch a Station Renewal Project for pubradio stations that could fall short of new audience service criteria for Community Service Grants. A recent Request for Proposals seeks a pubradio professional to serve as a consultant on the project.

See Chicago Public Radio’s Torey Malatia get all Glengarry Glen Ross at his station’s pledge drive. Also, the station is offering a This American Life 100th Anniversary mug as a premium (that’s right, 100th anniversary).