Current (https://current.org/2006/05/page/2/)
Chicago’s Center for Arts Policy presents a lengthy profile of pubradio indie Jay Allison and his myriad projects (PDF). “He is not a man of moderation but living a life at full tilt, waving the flag from his post where the individual gives way to something beyond himself,” writes Lauren Cowen.
Broadcasting & Cable breaks down the ongoing development of PBS’s Next Generation Interconnection System, scheduled to go online this fall. (subscription req.)
Todd Mundt and Mark Fuerst aim to answer the question: “Why do we need aggregation and consolidated technologies?” (Stephen Hill comments here.)
John Barth, managing director of the Public Radio Exchange, shares his thoughts and concerns about the public radio’s recent New Realities National Forum. One idea: “[W]hy shouldn’t NPR, PRI, APM and PRX all merge? . . .
The interim president of the Public Radio Partnership in Louisville, Ky., will step down June 30, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal. Bob Irvine cited “disappointments and frustration” with the Partnership’s board in a letter to senior staff and board members.
After attending the Beyond Broadcast conference, Dennis Haarsager considers the nature of public media and says “a bright line definition” probably won’t be found.
Public radio’s StoryCorps is taking pains to distance itself from the “Story Booth,” a promotional tool launched by the JetBlue airline. It just so happens that both will be in Washington, D.C., next week.
KILI-FM, a Native station in Pine Ridge, S.D., hopes to get back on the air with emergency government funding after lightning hit its antenna, reports AP. “When I go out into the community, everybody asks, ‘When you gonna be on?'” says business manager Tom Casey.
House appropriators, apparently unsatisified with Smithsonian regents’ response to House leaders’ concerns about the controversial Showtime programming deal, yesterday cut $15 million from the Smithsonian’s proposed budget and sought a cap on salaries, the Washington Post reports (see also, the New York Times).
Washington Post business columnist Jerry Knight points up the differences between the iconic, pun-cracking Louis Rukeyser, recently-deceased original host of Maryland Public Television’s Wall Street Week, and over-the-top stock modern stock pickers such as Jim Cramer. “Watching Jim Cramer on CNBC, ripping the head off a toy bear, then raking his audience with machine-gun sound effects, left me longing for the days when Louis Rukeyser was considered ‘too showbiz’ to be talking about stocks on television,” he writes. (See earlier post for Rukeyser obit.)
Public Radio’s Regional Organizations gave their 2006 PRRO Award to Dennis Harsaager, associate v.p. and g.m. of educational telecommunications and technology at Washington State University. “His is a constant voice pushing the envelope of exploration of the most effective ways in which technology can help public radio best enhance its service to the American people,” said Ron Kramer, president of Western States Public Radio.
“One of my takeaways from the New Realities forum is that we simply haven’t organized our thinking to effectively deal with the two separate but inter-related challenges of nurturing our core service while embracing new opportunities,” writes John Sutton in his latest blog post. “About the time a station manager gets around to thinking about audience loss, she has to turn her attention to the latest big announcement about podcasting technology.”
“It’s very simple and it’s very complicated at the same time,” says Meryl Streep of the new film adaptation of A Prairie Home Companion, which opens nationwide June 9. “Nobody says much about this, but the theme of this film is about death,” says director Robert Altman in a Minnesota Public Radio article about the film. The Los Angeles Times says Keillor comes across onscreen as “a sort of hulking Jimmy Stewart.”
Talking Communications presents a podcast interview with John Hendren, NPR’s Pentagon correspondent, who discusses his experiences reporting from Iraq.
Answering a reader’s complaint, NPR’s Ken Rudin says the network’s newish blog is “not seen by anyone here as a ‘by the way'” and remains a “work in progress.”
A House funding committee yesterday moved to cut Smithsonian salaries and expense accounts by $5 million and limit the institute’s “ability to execute any contract or legal agreement which could limit public access to the Smithsonian collections.” (See also the Washington Post.) The action was a response to recent revelations about the Smithsonian-Showtime programming deal, which gives Showtime first look at programs that aim to incorporate more than an “incidental” amount of the Smithsonian’s resources, and about high salaries at the Smithsonian’s commercial sales division, which are the subject of an investigation by the institution’s inspector general. Former Citibank exec Lawrence Small, head of the cash-strapped institute, earns roughly $813,000 annually, including a housing allowance. Last week, leaders of the House subcommittee that funds the Smithsonian also called for a probe into the Showtime deal.
Have a few hours to kill and a love for pubcasting inside baseball? The CPB Board released its 70-page response to a November report by Inspector General Ken Konz that documented contracting, hiring and oversight problems within the corporation. Konz’s investigation was spurred by press reports about former Board Chair Kenneth Tomlinson’s transgressive efforts to “balance” pubcasting. For the first time in its 40-year history, says the executive summary, CPB has “initiated a top-to-bottom review of its operations and procedures. Never before has the organization undertaken a major organization of every task, operation and practice.”
“I think Katrina firmly entrenched WWOZ as the keeper of the groove,” says dj Black Mold in a Times-Picayune feature on the New Orleans community radio station.
The CPB Board adopted new governance policies and approved changes to others earlier this week as part of its ongoing effort to reform operations within the funding agency in the wake of last year’s controversy. The Board approved changes to its Code of Ethics for Directors and Conflicts of Interest policy; outlined new procedures for ensuring that the corporation follows all open meetings requirements and does not include “political tests” in hiring decisions; more explicitly spelled out the responsibilities of board members, the board chair and president; and created a new “whistleblower policy” to protect CPB staff from retaliation for reporting suspicions of waste, fraud or other violations of the law or CPB policy (see also Broadcasting & Cable, subscription req.). CPB Inspector General Ken Konz, whose November report on former Board Chair Kenneth Tomlinson’s misdeeds spurred the reform effort, must report back to Congress by June on the work CPB has done to right the ship. Audio of the Board sessions and copies of resolutions and new policies are available here.
Independent public radio producer Sandy Tolan’s new book, The Lemon Tree, has been published by Bloomsbury USA. The book explores the relationship between an Arab family and a Jewish family in the Middle East.