Public Radio Program Directors Association Inc., Bylaws, 2008

Revised and adopted Sept. 15, 2008

ARTICLE I. BASIC POLICY
It is the basic policy of the corporation to be noncommercial, educational, nonsectarian and nonpartisan. The corporation shall operate for the mutual benefit of noncommercial radio stations, organizations and individuals serving the public radio community, and carry on activities as a business league exempt from federal income tax pursuant to Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended. ARTICLE II. MEMBERSHIP
Section 1.

Public Broadcasting Act of 1967

Public Law 90-129, 90th Congress, November 7, 1967 (as amended to April 26, 1968)
This law was enacted less than 10 months after the report of the Carnegie Commission on Educational Broadcasting. The act initiates federal aid to the operation (as opposed to funding capital facilities) of public broadcasting. Provisions include:

extend authorization of the earlier Educational Television Facilities Act,
forbid educational broadcasting stations to editorialize or support or oppose political candidates,
establish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and defines its board,
defines its purposes,
authorize reduced telecommunications rates for its interconnection,
authorize appropriations to CPB, and
authorize a federal study of instructional television and radio. Title I—Construction of Facilities
Extension of duration of construction grants for educational broadcasting

Sec. 101.

CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund weekly series RFP

Three years after Latino activists bitterly criticized Ken Burns’s The War for omitting interviews with Hispanic soldiers and sailors, CPB and PBS concluded negotiations to create a Diversity and Innovation Fund to seed new productions, Current reported. PBS issued this RFP on its website. CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund
Request for Proposals
Weekly, Primetime Television Series
Objective
This RFP, the first from the Diversity and Innovation Fund, is designed to solicit proposals to provide the NPS with a new, weekly, primetime series – content that will expand viewership and usage, reaching an adult audience on-air and online that reflects the diversity of the 40-64 year old US population. Specifically, the DI Fund seeks to:

Diversify the NPS by attracting more racially and ethnically diverse viewers and Web visitors within the target demographic;
Expand the current NPS audience through the increased use of content created by a diverse group of producers and through the effective use of new and emerging technologies;
Leverage the talent and creativity of executive producers and producers from minority and underserved communities;
Build capacity for the public media system from within those communities; and
Encourage innovation in the planning, production and distribution of public media content. The content should be conceived and budgeted with multiple-platform use (broadcast, VOD, Internet, mobile, DVD, etc.) in mind from the outset.  As producers develop their proposals and ultimately their pilot programs, they should consider not only the traditional broadcast components but also the digital strategy which may include web presence, mobile applications, social media, inclusion in the Digital Learning Library and/or PBS Teachers, etc.

With RFP, PBS pursues ‘Explorer Archetype’ in productions

From PBS’s June 2010 request for primetime series proposals to be funded by the CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund. See also Current feature on the Explorer Archetype. The Explorer Archetype
Research shows the most successful brands embody a single archetype. To define and fully leverage PBS’s brand, we are employing Archetypal Branding, a proven strategy in which an organization aligns all activities behind a single unifying concept. We believe adopting this strategy will help us increase audience engagement, raise money and build brand loyalty.

Fanning on a ‘big bang’ moment for Frontline: bringing online depth to reporting

David Fanning, e.p. of Frontline, discussed the WGBH program’s evolving use of the Web Aug. 23, 2010, in accepting the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism at Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. At the same time, the Center honored the winner and finalists for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. One of the four finalists was a reporting project, including a Frontline doc, “Law & Disorder.” The film about white vigilante activities in New Orleans was prepared in collaboration with ProPublica, the Nation Institute and the New Orleans Times-Picayne.

David Fanning’s Loper Lecture, 2009

David Fanning, the founding executive producer of PBS’s Frontline series, gave this talk in 2009 as the annual James L. Loper Lecture in Public Service Broadcasting sponsored by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. Thank you, Geoff Cowan and Dean Wilson, for your kind words, and especially for your invitation to come here to the Annenberg School to give the annual Loper Lecture. This also gives me a chance publicly to thank Jim Loper, for the years of work he gave not just to KCET but as a leader in public broadcasting. It’s an honor to be invited in his name. I would also like to thank Mr. Russell Smith for his sponsorship of this lecture.

Latino producers object: PBS diversity data ‘incomplete and often anecdotal’

The Diversity Committee of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers sent this letter to PBS about its November 2008 Report on the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content. The letter was released by Defend the Honor, a Latino civil rights group that led the protests against Ken Burns’ series 2008 The War. March 4, 2009

Ms. Paula Kerger, Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Haydee M. Rodriguez, Director, Diversity Initiative
Public Broadcasting Service
2100 Crystal Drive
Arlington, VA 22202-3785

Dear Ms. Kerger and Ms. Rodriguez:

We would like to thank you for the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content (November, 2008). As you know, NALIP strongly supports and encourages PBS in its efforts to accurately reflect the diversity of American life in its programming and staffing. While we applaud the effort to generate an assessment of the system’s diversity practices, we are concerned by the report’s statement that PBS “cannot paint the full picture of its ‘diverse’ content or the diversity of its staff.”

Latino producers to PBS: Diversity data ‘incomplete and often anecdotal’

The Diversity Committee of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers sent this letter to PBS about its November 2008 Report on the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content.  The letter was released by Defend the Honor, a Latino civil rights group that led the protests against Ken Burns’ series 2008 The War. March 4, 2009

Ms. Paula Kerger, Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Haydee M. Rodriguez, Director, Diversity Initiative
Public Broadcasting Service
2100 Crystal Drive
Arlington, VA 22202-3785

Dear Ms. Kerger and Ms. Rodriguez:

We would like to thank you for the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content (November, 2008). As you know, NALIP strongly supports and encourages PBS in its efforts to accurately reflect the diversity of American life in its programming and staffing. While we applaud the effort to generate an assessment of the system’s diversity practices, we are concerned by the report’s statement that PBS “cannot paint the full picture of its ‘diverse’ content or the diversity of its staff.”

Field guide to CPB’s conflicting mandates

When Congress adopted the Public Broadcasting Act 40 years go, it put its contribution to public TV and radio into the hands of the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting with a structural characteristic and two mandates that have caused conflict and inertia ever since. The law has the President nominate the CPB Board and the Senate confirm the CPB Board. Rather than keeping political appointees off the board, it splits them almost equally. The majority are chosen by the White House from its own party and the minority of board members named, in practice, by Senate leaders of the other party. The appointment has become a mid-level plum for political appointees.

Florida, Minnesota donors question sale of favorite stations

Fans of two now-defunct college stations are pursuing legal actions against the sale of the stations to Minnesota-based American Public Media Group.Two supporters of Florida’s Christian Family Coalition filed suit Oct. 18 [2007] in a state court in Miami to overturn Trinity International University’s September sale of former Christian music station WMCU to APMG, which aims to start a classical music station in Miami. In the Twin Cities area, where a classical station was on the losing side, a group of former listeners to St. Olaf College’s bygone WCAL has questioned its sale to APMG’s Minnesota Public Radio, which converted it to The Current, a contemporary music station. On.

We’re deep into news — let’s walk that walk

“Let’s face it,” writes a prominent pubradio station news director, “despite 40 years of evolution, we have produced a lot of journalism, but we still lack full commitment. Especially local news commitment.”

Latino critics of The War seek assurance from PBS, WETA

Advocacy groups protesting Ken Burns’ upcoming World War II doc asked PBS and WETA in Washington, D.C., Aug. 20 [2007] for assurance that the producers would work harder to include Latinos in “current and future programming. The statement about Burns’ The War bore the signatures of 53 individuals, ten media, policy and educational organizations and Defend the Honor, the coalition that first challenged Burns. In a response, PBS said it “continues to build upon our track record of inclusion in programming, in front of and behind the camera.” WETA has issued no response. The full statements from Defend the Honor and PBS are below.

Minority consortia to PBS: PubTV’s ‘stunning lack of diversity’ allowed the Burns flap to occur

Public broadcasting’s five CPB-funded minority consortia sent this letter to PBS President Paula Kerger on April 9, 2007. Dear Paula:

I’m writing to you on behalf of my colleagues of the National Minority Consortia (NMC), which, along with the National Black Programming Consortium, includes the Center for Asian American Media, Latino Public Broadcasting, Native American Public Telecommunications and Pacific Islanders in Communications. We would like to offer our support to you in helping to address in a positive manner what we view as legitimate community concerns over the omission of Latino voices from Ken Burns’ The War. It is not the idea of an intentional exclusion that raises the flag of indignation from the American public – and not only, as has been suggested, Hispanic Americans. It is the idea that the perspective of those within the public broadcasting system empowered to make decisions about what is and is not appropriate for a public television event of this magnitude do not fundamentally represent the diversity of this society.