Quick Takes

Foundation pledges $2.4 million for Philly collaborative news project

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The William Penn Foundation has approved a $2.4 million grant for a Networked Journalism Collaborative project in Philadelphia, based in part on input from the American University School of Communication’s J-Lab. Jan Schaffer, executive director of J-Lab, announced the grant in her blog. A c.e.o. search begins in January.The money will come in a three-year grant to Temple University to create a center to incubate a new organization to produce original journalism, aggregate other news, and support the city’s growing group of news websites. J-Lab’s mapped the Philadelphia news ecosystem in late 2009. “Philadelphia has become a hotbed of journalistic networking and innovation,” Schaffer noted.

Quick Takes

Moon over Miami: WPBT and hundreds of its fans worldwide watch the lunar eclipse online

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Several staffers at WPBT2 in Miami may be still asleep this winter Tuesday afternoon, after staying up overnight (Dec. 20-21) for a unique event: The station presented a live stream of the lunar eclipse, along with an online chat. The full eclipse of the moon was also a perfect time for a 30-minute episode of its revamped Star Gazer series that directed folks to the web activities. Three chatrooms were full of visitors within five minutes, and the station now has about 1,000 new Facebook friends.”It was a remarkable night and the feedback has been terrific,” Neal Hecker, v.p. of programming services told Current. Here’s Hecker’s fave Facebook comment: “Thank you WPBT2! I live in Japan, and was clouded over for the eclipse.

Quick Takes

Do you aspire to Packardness?

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Jim Packard, longtime radio sidekick to host Michael Feldman on Whad’Ya Know?,” is retiring at the end of January. He’s also a familiar voice to Wisconsin Public Radio listeners; he’s been there since 1981. So the popular show is searching for a new (temporary) Packard, literally, with its “Being Jim Packard” contest. (“If you can say . .

Quick Takes

Tavis Smiley leaving KCET partnership for WNET

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Tavis Smiley is severing his producing partnership with KCET in Los Angeles, and will collaborate instead with WNET/Thirteen in New York city beginning in January. WNET President Neal Shapiro told station staff in an e-mail: “Tavis will celebrate his 20th year in broadcasting in 2011, and we are truly privileged to have the opportunity to work with him as he continues to bring his nightly half-hour talk show to PBS stations across the country.” Smiley said in November that he had not been aware of KCET’s plans to drop its PBS membership in January.UPDATE: WNET issued a press release today (Dec. 21) on the new partnership.

Quick Takes

Scrooge lives in a Dallas mall. Who knew? KERA did.

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Hey, how about sharing some station seasonal cheer in the Current blog for the next couple weeks? We’ll start with this feature from KERA in Dallas, where for more than three decades a Scrooge puppet has been hurling insults at NorthPark Center mall shoppers during the holidays. KERA’s Stephen Becker talked to John Hardman, the voice behind the grump.Is your station covering a fun tradition in the community, or planning any special events? Let us know. And don’t forget to send along photos!

Quick Takes

Debbi Aliano, CPR development director, dies October 2010

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Debra Aliano, a fundraising executive for Colorado Public Radio and former g.m. of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s radio and television stations, died in October after a six-month battle with cancer. She was 57. Aliano joined CPR in late 2007 as executive director of development and major gifts. Under her leadership the public radio network’s major giving revenue grew by more than 50 percent, according to CPR. She also managed a 2008 donor event featuring NPR journalist Robert Siegel that raised more than $100,000 toward operations expenses.

Quick Takes

Cookie Monster gets his fave treat, live from New York

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Cookie Monster’s campaign to host Saturday Night Live didn’t work — but did get him on the show. He made an appearance on Dec. 18 next to host Jeff Bridges at the opening of the popular NBC show. What did Cookie want for Christmas, Bridges asked. “An iPad!”

Quick Takes

More than 90 percent of large cities can view government meetings on PEG channels

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Of 276 U.S. cities of 100,000 or more residents, 256 of them — that’s 93 percent — televise routine meetings of one or more of their governmental bodies on PEG (public, educational and government access) channels, says Rob McCausland on the Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age blog. McCausland, who has been involved in community access television since 1979, continues mining facts in his comprehensive study of PEG channels nationwide. Check out his ever-growing database. Local cable access channels have been struggling in recent years as support wanes: Since 2005, some 600 community access stations have shut down, according to the Alliance for Community Media.

Quick Takes

After a decade, Local Community Radio Act is on its way to the president

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It’s official: After nearly 10 years on Capitol Hill, the Local Community Radio Act has passed both the House and Senate and now heads for the president’s signature. The House approved it Friday (Dec. 17) and the Senate, on Saturday.Free Press released a statement that said in part, “Woo hoo!”The law will repeal restrictions on the LPFM (low-power FM) spectrum approved by Congress in 2000 at the request of commercial broadcasters. The restrictions limited the frequencies available to LPFMs to every fourth frequency instead of every third. When low power FM was approved by the FCC in 2000 (Current, Jan.

Quick Takes

Funeral and endowment announced for MJ Bear; early and influential leader in interactive pubmedia

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MJ Bear, a former vice president for online at NPR and a founding board member of the Online News Association, died Friday (Dec. 16) in Seattle after battling leukemia for seven months. At the time of her death she was based in Vienna for Microsoft as an executive producer in central and eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. She was 48.Bear ran NPR online operations from 1996 to 2001, as manager and director of new media services, and vice president for online. She created more than 35 NPR.org websites; acquired online properties such as Fresh Air with Terry Gross; and created the web-only music destination All Songs Considered.

Quick Takes

So long, KOCE; welcome, PBS SoCal

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KOCE in Orange County, Calif., stepping up to the primary station role in the L.A. market in January, will now be known at PBS SoCal. It’s launching a new website where viewers can find the schedule for their fave shows. KOCE used to be secondary to KCET in the second-largest media market, but that station is dropping its PBS membership — and all PBS programming — as of Jan. 1 (Current, Oct. 18).

Quick Takes

Who, me? Patrick Stewart gets SAG nod for “Macbeth”

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Actor Patrick Stewart had no idea the Screen Actors Guild nominations were to be unveiled Thursday (Dec. 16) so he was especially stunned when his name was among them, for his title-role work in the Great Performances presentation of “Macbeth.” “That is always the nicest way to receive good news,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “When you’re not expecting it and it comes, it’s especially pleasing.” His was PBS’s sole nomination.

Quick Takes

Berkes wins Sidney Award for reporting on Massey Energy

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NPR’s Howard Berkes won the November Sidney Award for a seven-month investigation into Massey Energy, which owns the West Virginia Upper Big Branch mine where 29 miners died in April (a Dec. 13 Berkes piece on Massey here). One finding: NPR obtained court documents and state and federal records citing persistent and widespread safety violations. Berkes spearheaded a team of NPR journalists that included Susanne Reber, deputy managing editor of investigations; producer Robert Benincasa; and reporter Frank Langfitt. Berkes conducted a dozen on-air stories for NPR about Massey, and wrote or co-wrote another 15 pieces for the NPR website.

Quick Takes

PBS Kids programs score high in fall ratings

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According to Nielsen ratings, PBS Kids had four of the top 10 spots in children’s programming among kids 2 to 5 years old for September, October and November. Curious George was ranked No. 1 in September and tied for the spot in November. And The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That was No. 1 in October.

Quick Takes

Sesame Street returning to Chinese TV Dec. 22

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There’s been lots of coverage of Sesame Workshop’s recent news out of China. But Hollywood Reporter has the coolest photo. Interesting story, too, of the Workshop’s history in the country, from the movie “Big Bird in China” in 1983, through Sesame Street’s run on Shanghai TV from 1998 to 2001.

Quick Takes

CPB seeks organizational consultant for L.A. work

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CPB is continuing its work to support the burgeoning collaboration among the three PBS member stations in Los Angeles (Current, Aug. 9, 2010) with an RFP for an organizational consultant. Deadline is quickly approaching: Jan. 3, 2011.

Quick Takes

Quite a year for HistoryMakers

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HistoryMakers, the nonprofit African-American archive of oral histories and a longtime contributor to PBS programming, is wrapping up a busy year. Its archives — already the largest of its kind in the world — increased are still growing; this year brought interviews with Maya Angelou, Bishop T.D. Jakes and Minister Louis Farrakhan. Appearances by individual history makers at schools reached 10,000 students at 105 schools in 50 cities. That led a four-week National Endowment for the Humanities-funded Summer Institute on oral history techniques and African American political history. It also received a $2.3 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct 180 ScienceMakers interviews, provide educational public programming for children and adults, and produce a ScienceMakers DVD Toolkit .

Quick Takes

Several pubradio stations say Williams furor didn’t affect fall pledge

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NPR station execs tell the Washington Post today (Dec. 16) that the controversy over the firing of commentator Juan Williams in October didn’t significantly affect their fall pledge campaigns. New Hampshire Public Radio raised $473,000, a record amount. Another record set at WAMU in Washington, D.C., which hit $1.7 million — up $400,000 from last year’s fall drive. WMFE in Orlando is running pledge this week; contributions are above the goal.

Quick Takes

Elvis Mitchell dropped as co-host of Roger Ebert’s new show

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Elvis Mitchell, host of KCRW’s The Treatment, will not co-host the new Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies as was announced in September.The reason remains somewhat of a mystery. Since the pilot was shot, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, there had been “growing concern about whether Mitchell was the right person for the job.” A source who saw the show’s pilot said that Mitchell and his co-host, Associated Press movie critic Christy Lemire, had “little on-air chemistry.” But Ebert shot down that possibility in a Tweet: “Elvis and Christy had great chemistry, as anyone could see who bothered to watch the pilot we posted.” A new co-host will have to be announced soon: The show debuts Jan. 21.

Quick Takes

Virginia governor takes another stab at zeroing out pubcasting

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Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has made good on his promise to slice public broadcasting out of next year’s budget. His office announced today highlights of his budget proposal that will be unveiled Dec. 17. McDonnell said that ending support of public broadcasting by the Commonwealth will save $2 million in fiscal 2012 and a full phaseout by the end of FY 2013. His total package of recommendations would save Virginia some $191 million.McDonnell included pubcasting cuts in budget amendments he submitted to the legislature in the spring; they were rejected.