Quick Takes

Three workers hurt in fall from transmission tower

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Three Alpha Antenna Services workers hired by PBS affiliate WCNY in Syracuse, N.Y., to repair its 350-foot transmission tower were injured in a fall, according to the Utica, N.Y., Observer-Dispatch. State police said accident occurred at about 11:45 a.m. Monday (Oct. 25) when an antenna atop of the tower buckled during the repairs. The three were 20 to 30 feet up when they fell, police said.William Fox, 49, suffered severe facial injures; Kelly Dougherty, 30, suffered a foot injury; and Gregory Campbell, 44, went to the hospital for evaluation and was discharged.

Quick Takes

WXXI host retiring after 20 years of questions

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WXXI’s Homework Hotline is losing its co-creator and host, Carol Smith, who is retiring after 20 years with the program in Rochester, N.Y., reports the Daily News Online. The Hotline enables students in grades four through 12 to get help with homework problems live on the air. It has received numerous honors, including nine New York State Broadcasters Association awards for best program or series designed for children, and Silver and Bronze Tellys. Smith is also one of the founders of Rochester’s Dial-A-Teacher program. She’ll be honored on WXXI-AM’s 1370 Connection at noon Wednesday (Oct.

Quick Takes

The Hub nonprofit news resource site now online

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If you’re interested in nonprofit news, be sure to check out the Hub. It’s a new online resource from the Voice of San Diego, a successful indie public service news site, and professors from San Diego State University. The Hub is targeted at folks who want to start their own public service news organization, offering help including legal and tax tips, an editorial toolkit and sustainability strategies. As its creators say on the site, the Hub “is intended to be a lively forum for discussion and information. We depend on the entire virtual community to add to its content.

Quick Takes

IdahoPTV debate clip used without permission in campaign ad

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Some 45 seconds of a controversial 60-second ad in the heated election race for Idaho schools superintendent consists of copyrighted material from an Idaho Public TV debate, reports the Spokesman-Review. IPTV General Manager Peter Morrill told the paper the network will “vigorously” defend its copyright. “We are not issuing them a license to utilize footage for their campaign purposes and … we would ask them to cease and desist,” he said, adding that manipulations of the clip include slow motion, digital zoom and a digital insertion of an out-of-date Idaho Public TV logo. The ad, for GOP Superintendent Tom Luna, criticizes his Democratic challenger, Stan Olson, recently retired superintendent of the Boise School District. In their recent debate on IPTV, Olson made reference to his difficulty with math.

Quick Takes

ProPublica editor speaks out on new public media business models, funding

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Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of the indie nonprofit news source ProPublica, pointed out some of the many challenges that need to be addressed by members of the new public media, as part of the McGill lecture series at the University of Georgia last week (Oct. 21).”If we create business models that depend largely on page views,” he said, “we should not be surprised if they drive publishers to favor content with a high prospect of ‘going viral’ over content that is primarily thought-provoking, or challenging, or discomfiting, or even educational.” Also: “To sustain this kind of reporting as part of the fundamental underpinnings of our democracy, we need to nudge the sources of philanthropy in our society – ordinary citizens, foundations, and wealthy donors alike – to widen their view just a bit and see investigative reporting as a public service just as worthy of aid as museums, orchestras, ballet companies, clinics and private universities.” His full speech is here.

Quick Takes

PBS NewsHour goes live on-air and online for election night

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PBS NewsHour has big plans for midterm election evening on Nov. 2. Anchor Jim Lehrer will host a live interactive special from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. both on-air and online, according to a show statement. After 10 p.m. online there’ll also be live blogging, interactive graphics, an election night mashup video and a social media stream highlighting comments on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and AIM.

Quick Takes

Vocalo blogs shifting to WBEZ.org

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Robert Feder, media blogger on Chicago Public Radio’s Vocalo.org, writes that its blogs are taking “a short break” and will return in a week or two on the redesigned website of WBEZ.org.Vocalo, which kicked off as a multimedia public-square discussion space in 2007, is having a rough go of it. A strategic plan (PDF) presented to Chicago Public Radio’s board last October said, “As a website Vocalo must be seen as unsuccessful so far” (Current, Jan. 11, 2010).

Quick Takes

Sesame Street via Christopher Street?

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A Twitter from Sesame Street’s Bert, longtime pal of Ernie, prompted Sesame Workshop to declare that, no, the two are not gay. In Bert’s posting, he used the term “mo,” referring to his hairstyle. In a Sunday (Oct. 24) story the Los Angeles Times reports: “Reading ‘mo’ as slang for homosexual, gay bloggers rejoiced.” The paper notes that “the show’s latest season feels more LGBT-friendly than ever,” with guest stars including openly gay comic Wanda Sykes.

Quick Takes

College students to accompany Freedom Riders for 50th anniversary trip as part of outreach

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American Experience’s “Freedom Riders” doc is giving 40 college students the chance to ride along with the civil rights activists on the route of their famous 1961 trip. Students will be on board May 6-16, 2011, the 50th anniversary of the freedom rides (background from the Civil Rights Movement Veterans). The trip is the centerpiece of the unique outreach for the series, airing that month. College students may apply here.UPDATE: Also, don’t miss the National Center for Media Engagement/WGBH webinar Nov. 10 on the Freedom Riders outreach; more here.

Quick Takes

ivi asks for change of venue in ongoing fight to stream TV signals, including pubcasters

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In a U.S. District Court filing in New York on Friday (Oct. 22), ivi TV asked that the case against it by several broadcasters including PBS be moved to Seattle, where the company is based, reports Broadcasting and Cable. The broadcasters are asking the court to stop ivi’s streaming of their TV signals online either by restraining order or preliminary injunction (Current, Oct. 4). ivi says online TV station streaming is legal with its license from the U.S. Copyright Office.

Quick Takes

CPB’s Boles talks digital pubmedia innovation at FedTalks 2010

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Rob Bole, CPB’s v.p., digital media strategy, spoke on “Public Media in a Digital Age” Oct. 12 at the FedTalks 2010 confab. Innovators from sectors such as citizen engagement, cyber security and open government addressed administration officials and other government reps at the one-day event. Check out Boles’s presentation here.

Quick Takes

Seven ITVS films heading to prestigious film fest

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The Independent Television Service (ITVS) reports that seven of its productions have been chosen as official selections for the 23rd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Nov. 17-29, the world’s largest doc showcase. Many ITVS films received critical acclaim at recent IDFA’s, including last year’s best feature length film winner, Last Train Home, and The Most Dangerous Man in America, with its special jury award to a film not in competition. Here’s a list of ITVS’s 2010 IDFA films at the Beyond the Box blog.

Quick Takes

NBR partnering with Planet Forward on environmental programs

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Planet Forward, a multimedia environmental innovation project at George Washington University, will be collaborating with Nightly Business Report to develop environmental programming, NBR has announced.   Viewers will submit ideas to tackle energy and climate challenges through PlanetForward.org, and the partners will jointly produce stories around the most interesting. The series premiered Oct. 21 with Planet Forward host Frank Sesno appearing. The first episode looked at the new 100 percent electric Nissan Leaf.

Public Media Policybase

Schiller apologizes to pubradio colleagues for handling of Williams firing

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NPR President Vivian Schiller dispatched this apology Sunday evening, Oct. 24 [2010], six days after the network set off a pre-election political firestorm with its firing of news analyst Juan Williams. She stands by the decision but not the way it was handled. Dear Program Colleagues,

I want to apologize for not doing a better job of handling the termination of our relationship with news analyst Juan Williams. While we stand firmly behind that decision, I regret that we did not take the time to prepare our program partners and provide you with the tools to cope with the fallout from this episode. I know you all felt the reverberations and are on the front lines every day responding to your listeners and talking to the public. This was a decision of principle, made to protect NPR’s integrity and values as a news organization.

Quick Takes

Tomlinson now favors defunding CPB

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Ken Tomlinson, the former CPB chair who was forced off the board after campaigning secretly and successfully to get two weekly political programs of his liking onto PBS, wrote in the Washington Examiner Friday (Oct. 22) that the public broadcasting he wanted can never be achieved: “I had long believed that the many tentacles of public broadcasting should be reformed — not defunded. I now realize I was wrong. Federal funding for NPR should be eliminated — as should handouts to CPB and PBS.” NPR’s firing of Juan Williams was “outrageous, but these people did the nation a favor,” he wrote.

Quick Takes

NPR fires news analyst Juan Williams

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NPR fired news analyst Juan Williams late yesterday over comments he made about Muslims during an Oct. 18 appearance on Fox News. Williams, a news pundit and commentator who had contracts with both networks, was reacting to remarks by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly when he said: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried.

System/Policy

Frontline’s producer on pledge shows and online ads

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… This is our deepest embarrassment as public broadcasters. I have heard the arguments, and I understand the imperatives, but to think that, hucksters aside, we spend more of our energy and on-air promotional time, pushing programs that have nothing to do with our mission, is shameful….

Quick Takes

Vegas PBS wins TOBY Award for unique green station and building management

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The Vegas PBS Educational Technology Campus has been awarded the Outstanding Building of the Year (TOBY) Award in the Earth category by the Building Owners and Managers Association, the station announced today (Oct. 20). The TOBY recognizes excellence in building management and acknowledges the Educational Technology Campus’ green operations and maintenance practices. The Vegas PBS Educational Technology Campus is the first television building in the United States to receive LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (Current, Jan. 8, 2010).

Quick Takes

Ebert selects WTTW to record his latest series

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The new Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies will be recorded at WTTW, “returning to the roots of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s original Sneak Previews program,” the station announced today (Oct. 19). Production is expected to begin in January 2011 for the 26-episode season, which premieres Jan. 21. Series co-exec producers are Chaz and Roger Ebert.

Quick Takes

Got a phone? Got NewsHour

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Don’t lose this number — 712-432-6610 — because that’s yet another way to get PBS NewsHour. The show announced today (Oct. 19) that the audio is now available anytime via mobile or land line. AudioNow lets listeners hear the daily one-hour PBS NewsHour broadcast without downloads or data services.