• A new round of unrest is brewing at Pacifica. Current reported last week on the radio network’s board voting to oust executive director Summer Reese and this week on Reese’s defiance of the vote. An LA Weekly feature offers more details, including Reese removing a padlock from the doors of the network’s offices with bolt cutters and reading Bible passages to staff. The article recaps the history of the network and includes comments from former employees of Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles. It’s reminiscent of the Village Voice‘s September feature on New York’s WBAI (the Voice Media Group owns both publications).
• PBS, CPB and APTS have joined the National Association of Broadcasters and commercial networks to warn the FCC about potential interference between TVs and wireless devices after spectrum repacking. The organizations filed the comments Tuesday in response to a repacking methodology proposed in January by the FCC’s Office of Engineering Technology. The groups insist that the proposed approach “will produce significant interference between broadcast and wireless services across the country” because it “systematically underestimates inter-service interference due to its reliance on clearly erroneous inputs and technically unsound assumptions.” They suggest the FCC “reject the proposed methodology, and instead use a far simpler, more accurate model based on protected and interfering contours.” Repacking must take place after spectrum auctions, set for mid-2015.
• This week Harvard University’s Digital Law Media Project unveiled new resources for journalists seeking to create 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofits. The documents are designed to help journalists learn what to expect when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service and include legal guides, an archive of successful application materials from other media groups and a video about common IRS myths.