Quick Takes

Ombudsmen respond to complaints of biased coverage of Gaza conflict

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Pubcasting ombudsmen Alicia Shepard of NPR and Michael Getler of PBS have received hundreds of complaints about biased coverage of the Israeli incursion into Gaza, and their latest columns analyze to what extent the criticisms are justified. Some listeners say public radio coverage is so biased that NPR is actually “National Palestinian Radio,” Shepard writes, but the biggest issue appears to be a lack of historical or political context in NPR’s reporting. “Context is critical but there are certain time constraints that simply won’t allow the kind of detail some listeners want in every four-minute piece,” she writes. At PBS, Getler agrees with viewers that a Bill Moyers commentary on the Israeli-Hamas conflict was “not only inflammatory but wrong.” The commentary, which aired Jan.

Quick Takes

Journalists! Free lunch today, thanks to Google, Yahoo and the Web

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If you thought that media can adopt Web 2.0 commercialism without content- and news-distorting consequences parallel with those that operate so effectively on commercial TV and cable, check out the critique coming from Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, as reported in Britain’s Guardian and on Journalism.co.uk. “Publishers are in danger of being reduced to the digital equivalent of a windsock, shaped by the short-term whims of the news consumer,” says Oxford economic geographer Andrew Currah in a release. If they follow the revenue lure of online traffic, journalists will feel steady pressure to reconsider content decisions, homogenize their subject matter, bend their values and favor star journalists, celebrities and opinion over hard news. The report debuts Thursday at the Oxford Media Convention, organized by Oxford’s Said Business School. Currah earlier looked at how Hollywood is trying to subdue the forces of the Internet.

Quick Takes

Qualcomm vs. PBS

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Qualcomm, looking to use analog channels for its MediaFLO mobile TV service after the digital transition, sent letters Jan. 19 to legislators asking stations in Boston, Miami, San Francisco and Houston to drop their signals on the original Feb. 17 date. But Northern California Public Broadcasting, with one of the analog channels Qualcomm wants, says it wants to keep that analog signal on until Congress orders otherwise. Stay tuned.

Quick Takes

A Libertarian’s view of CPB’s stimulus request

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If the service pubcasting provided “was indeed so valuable that we, the American people, could not do without it,” writes libertarian blogger J.J. Jackson, “they would not need to beg their government benefactors for a single dime. ” Instead of a bailout, Jackson adds, “What they need is programming that people will tune in to hear!”A reply: Upstate New York pubradio engineer Aaron Read replies to Jackson: Why are so many liberatarians hypocrites when it comes to NPR?

Quick Takes

Torture doc starts airing

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The doc Torturing Democracy is bubbling into the news again. AU media associate prof Rick Rockwell, writing on the blog iVory Towerz, says Maryland’s MPT has run the documentary, “but only a few weeks before the new Obama administration takes office.” By showing the doc, which deals with torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, “this late in the Bush years also gives the program more the ring of history rather than a documentary about a current topic.” Dozens of stations aired the show last year before this week’s scheduled PBS airing.

Quick Takes

Rocky Mountain PBS hires new president

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Rocky Mountain PBS in Pueblo, Colo., recently named Doug Price president, reports the Pueblo Chieftain. Price formerly served as president of FirstBank of Colorado and co-founded Educare Colorado, a nonprofit focused on child care. At Rocky Mountain, he replaces James Morgese, who left the station in October after 15 years as president.

Quick Takes

June 12 may be the new Feb. 17

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It’s been a week of uncertainty and lots of talk regarding the Feb. 17 DTV date, but now comes action. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), incoming Commerce chair, on Jan. 15 introduced a bill that would move the conversion date to June 12. “I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition,” Rockefeller said in a statement.

Quick Takes

Al Jazeera partners with Worldfocus

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The Al Jazeera Network, which broadcasts news in Arabic and English, has signed on to provide daily content to WLIW’s Worldfocus. All Al Jazeera content will run with its logo on the screen.

Quick Takes

Writers Guild backs pubcasting stimulus funds

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Layoffs and budget woes in the pubcasting system have “negatively impacted the quality of news and public discourse in the country,” the Writers Guild of America, East, told President-elect Obama’s transition team in a meeting last week. Its members write and produce for such shows as Frontline, Nova, Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, American Experience, Sesame Street and The Electric Company.

Quick Takes

Stimulus package: $650 million DTV, $6 billion broadband

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A summary from the House Appropriations Committee of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009, a.k.a. the stimulus package, proposes $650 million in additional funds for the DTV converter box program and $6 billion in broadband and wireless grants to reach underserved areas. Broadcasting & Cable has the details.

Quick Takes

What you’re NOT missing at NETA

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Hundreds of pubcasters at the NETA conference plus two elevator outages equals close quarters. With half of the four hotel lifts temporarily shut on Jan. 15, many attendees are finding themselves, well, getting to know each other very well. As one pubcaster quipped in a stuffed ‘vator, “This is the typical office layout of a public television station.” Judging from the hearty guffaws, fellow riders were in agreeance.

Quick Takes

CPB reaches SoundExchange pact

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SoundExchange and CPB finally have an agreement on Internet performance royalties to be paid to artists and copyright holders. The agreement sets royalties to be paid by CPB for the noncomm pubradio system for streaming music on their websites from Jan. 1, 2005, through Dec. 31, 2010. The pact covers some 450 pubradio webcasters, including CPB-supported stations, NPR, NPR members, NFCBroadcasters members, APM, Public Radio Exchange and PRI.

Quick Takes

FCC OKs analog nightlight

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The FCC on Jan. 15 approved the analog nightlight program, which allows stations time after the DTV transition to keep analog signals for DTV educational and community emergency messages. The rule applies to 310 of the 1,749 stations making the DTV transition; they must prove the nightlight won’t cause more than 0.1 percent of interference to digital stations. Stations can still apply to be included.

Quick Takes

Pubcasting awards

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Forget station budget woes and towers falling over and that pesky, moving-target DTV transition. Let’s talk awards. On Jan. 15 at the NETA conference, 23 pubcasters received 39 trophies for 2008 program production, promotion, outreach, and instructional media. Special recognition — “The Best of the Best” — went to two stations, OETA in Oklahoma City for its Gallery: The People’s Art (program production) and WETA in Arlington, Va., for The War (outreach).

Quick Takes

Your NETA, CPB, PBS, APTS update

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Leaders of CPB, PBS and APTS related both pubcasting challenges and victories Jan. 15 to a crowded ballroom at the NETA conference, ongoing in Tampa. First, the good news: PBS head Paula Kerger said some 44 percent of pubTV website traffic now consists of visitors 35 or younger. After years of talking about how to lure the younger audience, “we’ve got them. Now we need to figure out how to draw them in, get them even more involved,” she said.

Quick Takes

New FCC may be more Internet-tech oriented

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A Washington Post analysis piece on the probable next FCC head Julius Genachowski says that President-elect Barack Obama’s choice may signal increased focus on new Internet technologies for the regulatory agency.

Quick Takes

A new underwriting avenue?

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Penn State Public Broadcasting is exploring taking underwriting into an additional and creative direction: Multiplatform opportunities. In a Jan. 14 session at the ongoing NETA conference in Tampa, Greg Petersen, WPSU director of programming services, said there may be room for underwriting spots on, say, streaming video or archived clips on the Internet. One attractive aspect is that Internet content doesn’t have noncomm restrictions, so the spots can actually suggest that viewers visit underwriters — more of a true ad. Petersen envisions, for instance, a spot before a video clip saying it’s sponsored by an underwriter.

Quick Takes

Creative ways to meet DTV challenge

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Pubcasters brought many questions and nearly as many suggestions for handling the DTV transition to NETA’s Jan. 14 session on the topic. Stations are struggling with the possible date shift and wondering, will they be required to remain in analog until that later date? An NTIA rep said legislation is still pending so it’s impossible to know. What if the station advises a viewer to purchase equipment that ultimately doesn’t work, is there a liability issue?

Quick Takes

Downsizing plan in the works at KQED

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A spokesman for San Francisco’s KQED-TV/FM confirmed the gist of a Jan. 10 blog report about imminent lay-offs at the station but denied that they would be the largest in station history, as reported by BNET media analyst and former KQED exec David Weir. KQED is “seeing declines and looking to the future of how do we preserve what we have with integrity and all of that, but no decisions have been made,” said Scott Walton, communications director. Layoffs are “not necessarily coming from radio or tv production,” but will probably “a few here and around the building,” he said.

Quick Takes

Stations must be involved in broadband future, Liroff says

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“If we were starting out today as public service media,” said David Liroff, “universal broadband would be our distribution method of choice.” Liroff, former CPB sr. v.p. and longtime pubmedia analyst, opened this week’s NETA conference Jan. 13 in Tampa with his keynote speech. He discussed how universal broadband will affect pubmedia for better and worse, and what role the industry should play during development of the nationwide high-speed network. It’s absolutely necessary for stations to get involved at the state level during planning for increased broadband access, he contends, because pubmedia “needs to ensure that the public interest is served” in broadband decisions.