Quick Takes

KUNC music director jumps 42 stories to his death in Denver

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Kyle Dyas, the popular music director and on-air personality at KUNC-FM in Greeley, Colo., jumped to his death from atop the 42-story Spire building in Denver on Sunday (March 6). The city’s medical examiner ruled the manner of death was suicide. As of Tuesday morning, more than 200 listeners had posted remembrances on the station’s website. “The two words that keep showing up (on the online posts) are ‘gentle soul,’” KUNC President Neil Best told the local Tribune newspaper. “I think in radio you can’t fool people on how you come across.” Dyas, 42, joined KUNC in 1996 as a staff announcer and became music director in 2002.

Quick Takes

NPR’s Ron Schiller caught in video sting

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A covertly recorded video of NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller meeting with prospective donors was released by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe this morning. Schiller, whose appointment to a new job with the Aspen Institute was announced last week, was recorded in February describing members of the Tea Party as “white, middle America, gun-toting…..They’re seriously racist, racist people.” Schiller was having lunch with two men from a fake Muslim foundation who said they were interested in donating $5 million to public media. In the heavily edited, 11- minute video, Schiller told them NPR would “be better off in the long run without federal funding.” Coverage by Slate’s David Weigel, the Daily Caller and NPR’s own news blog, The Two-Way.Clarification: An earlier version of this post linked Schiller’s departure to the video sting, but NPR denies the connection.

Quick Takes

Ron Schiller exiting NPR for Aspen Institute

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NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller has taken a new job as director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence Program. Schiller, who joined NPR in September 2009, worked to build fundraising collaborations between NPR and member stations through projects such as Impact of Government. Schiller starts his new position on April 1, and will work out of the Institute’s offices in Aspen, Colo., where he has lived on at least a part-time basis since 2006.

AIR

Are we here for 11% of the public or for all of it?

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Usually the only speakers in the “public comment” period after an NPR Board meeting are several regional reps of stations, but they were joined Feb. 25 by Sue Schardt, executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio. Schardt spoke extemporaneously to the board and NPR execs about how public radio could address criticism that has undercut its case for continued federal aid. This is an edited transcript. I speak as someone who has 23 years of experience in the industry.

Programs/Content

Panel to NPR: Rein in punditizing

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NPR should have its journalists phase out any long-term contracts for appearances on other media outlets, monitor those appearances more carefully and make clearer distinctions between reporting, analysis and commentary in its programming, the network’s ethics-policy task force advised Feb. 25 [2011]. Bob Steele, head of the task force, presented recommendations for revising the ethics code to the NPR Board last month. Steele, director of the Prindle Institute for Ethics and distinguished professor of journalism ethics at DePauw University and a journalism values scholar with the Poynter Institute, was retained by NPR President Vivian Schiller to head the task force. The 13-member task force included NPR employees, outside journalists and citizens at large.

Quick Takes

WNET hopes for $40,000 for guitar autographed by Keith Richards

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WNET/Thirteen has a unique fundraising offer: A guitar autographed by Rolling Stones legendary musician Keith Richards. “To show his personal support of music programming on New York Public Television, he has generously donated an autographed Midnight Wine Fender Telecaster Electric Guitar,” it reports on its Inside Thirteen blog. Add it to your collection for a “generous donation” of $40,000.”Like public broadcasting, Keith Richards is a towering original, who continues to walk his own path, speak his mind, and do his own thing,” the blog adds.

Quick Takes

Watch Schiller’s speech to National Press Club at 1 p.m. today

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UPDATE: Text of the speech is online here.NPR President Vivian Schiller’s speech to the National Press Club is being live-streamed here starting at 1 p.m. Eastern today (March 7). From the Press Club’s release: “As NPR celebrates its 40th anniversary, listening to public radio is at an all-time high and the audience for NPR’s digital services has sky-rocketed. In a keynote speech today at the National Press Club, Schiller will address the powerful journalism at the root of public radio’s mission – evident no more so than in recent weeks of continuous coverage from the Middle East – and NPR’s vision for the future. Schiller will speak to how NPR and its member stations are meeting the dire need to provide all Americans with broad, free access to news and cultural programming by aggressively expanding reporting, launching new radio and digital initiatives – and growing audience as a result.”

Quick Takes

APTS’ Butler calls effort to defund CPB a “mortal threat”

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Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations advocacy group, calls the Congressional attempts to de-fund CPB a “mortal threat” in today’s (March 7) USA Today. He also notes that the $430 million reduction in aid would do little to reduce the $1.6 trillion federal deficit. He tells the paper that APTS has hired two lobbying firms, and that its 170 Million Americans outreach has generated some 300,000 notes to Congress. (More on 170 Million Americans in the Dec. 13, 2010, issue of Current.)

Quick Takes

Give pubcasting three more years of funding to migrate to Internet-only, digital wonk says

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Shelly Palmer, host of NBC’s Live Digital with Shelly Palmer, a weekly half-hour show about living and working in a digital world, writes on his blog that public broadcasting needs just three more years of government funding to see it through to its next incarnation. “I have listened (and been drawn into) many cocktail conversations debating whether or not Public Broadcasting should be an Internet-only service,” he says. Now is the time for that decision, he contends. “Would an online, broadband, app-centric, wireless, wired, fixed wireless, over-the-top, IPTV, Internet-Television, 4G, WiMax, Digital Tier ATSC, MSO Public Channel, LPTV, Web, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Social Media-ized version of Public Broadcasting work?” he ponders.

Programs/Content

Wits: Writers banter, tweeters tap in new MPR variety show

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After a four-show trial run last spring, Minnesota Public Radio is mounting another season of Wits, its concept for a next-generation stage-show broadcast pairing smart, literary humor with contemporary music and powered in part by social media. For the season’s opener, March 25, host John Moe welcomes comedian Patton Oswald and musician Grant Lee Phillips to the stage of MPR’s F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, the St. Paul home of A Prairie Home Companion. That performance of Wits will be live-tweeted, webcast with video on Ustream.net, and recorded for statewide radio broadcast. Lineups for subsequent shows, monthly through June 24, will feature pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman, comedian Sandra Bernhard and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman.

Programs/Content

Public television, 50, dies of apprehensive innocuity

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Whenever public broadcasting is threatened by hostile politicians, the conventional wisdom is to circle the wagons and fire back. As a member of the public television community for almost 50 years, I would rather see today’s challenge as an opportunity to reassess public television’s goals and achievements. Perhaps we should do this every few years to make sure we haven’t gone astray in our aims and practices. In many ways I think NPR has surpassed its original goals and promises, but public television is another matter. We have accomplished many things.

Quick Takes

Nonprofit DFM News gets funding infusion

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The nonprofit DFM News, launched in June, last week received a big (but undisclosed) funding boost from a major and ongoing sponsorship from the Corporation Service Co., a Wilmington-based business, legal and financial services firm, reports Delaware Online. The site focuses on state and local government, business, science and education. At the helm is Micheline Boudreau of WHYY’s Delaware Tonight newscast, which ended production in 2009. Delaware First Media’s staff is currently made up of three full-time employees and a dozen freelancers, and is planning to add more of each as it expands over the next two years.

Quick Takes

CPB’s investment so far in reporting initiatives: $90 million

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In the past three years, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has invested more than $90 million in federal funds on new journalism initiatives, points out the Associated Press. In one of CPB’s local news initiatives, stations in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico have hired nine reporters for its Fronteras: The Changing America Desk bureau. “I think we have a place at the table,” and more respect, said Natalie Walsh, senior news producer, “now that we have the boots on the ground to back it up.”

Quick Takes

Classical WSMR in Sarasota still experiencing signal problems

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Tampa-based WUSF bought WSMR for $1.2 million last year to shift its classical music to the Sarasota station and offer daytime NPR programming (Current, Aug. 9, 2010). But technical delays and interference issues delayed the station’s full-power debut from Sept. 15 to Feb. 22 — and even now, signal woes continue, reports the St.

Quick Takes

World TV and WorldCompass.org continue to aim for younger, diverse viewers

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The World TV channel, launched in 2007, re-imagined over the past couple years (Current, Sept. 8, 2009) and relaunched last year (Current, June 7, 2010), continues to evolve in its quest to lure younger viewers to its PBS documentary programming and website, reports the MediaShift blog. “Currently, a majority of our viewers are your usual PBS demo of 50- to 60-year-olds,” said Matey Odonkor, WorldCompass.org’s manager of online communications. “Not that this is a bad thing.” However, “we want to offer age-relevant programming to young adults who grew up watching PBS programs with their parents but stopped watching.”

Quick Takes

GOP senators introduce another bill to kill federal funding to public broadcasting

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Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced a bill Friday that would end federal funding for public broadcasting, reports the National Journal. “Americans struggling to make ends meet shouldn’t be forced to fund public broadcasting when there are already thousands of choices for educational and entertainment programming on the television, radio and web,” DeMint said.

Quick Takes

Annual Celebration of Teaching & Learning nears

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Here’s a look at WNET/Thirteen’s upcoming 2011 Celebration of Teaching & Learning from the Brooklyn Eagle. More than 10,000 educators from all 50 states are expected at the sixth annual event March 18 and 19 at the Hilton New York in Manhattan. Speakers include NBC News anchor Brian Williams, author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, and ABC News co-anchor Cynthia McFadden. Participants have access to six plenary sessions, some 40 featured speakers, more than 100 hands-on “In the Classroom” workshops, and two exhibitor halls.

Quick Takes

Judith LeRoy finds art in sports

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You may know Judith LeRoy as co-founder (with husband David) of TRAC Media, the audience analysis service for public broadcasters. But you may not know that when she’s not crunching numbers she’s painting sports scenes. She’s presented several exhibitions of her work, including in January at the Art Garage in Green Bay, Wisc. Here’s a video of how that show came together, with LeRoy discussing details of her work — such as her careful depictions of different types of football cleats.