• NPR sports reporter Mike Pesca is leaving the network to host a daily current-events podcast for Slate, Business Insider reports. The show will begin this April. Pesca has co-hosted Slate’s sports podcast, “Hang Up And Listen,” since 2009. He tells BI he will have more license to share personal opinions as a podcast host, something he couldn’t do as an NPR reporter. Slate earns upwards of 10 percent of its total advertising revenue from podcasts and expects to grow that share in coming months, according to BI. • A network of nonprofit organizations has joined an effort to prevent the sale of public TV station KMBH in Harlingen, Texas, to a commercial entity, reports the Rio Grande Guardian.

Pubcasting execs and elected officials welcomed the American Archive of Public Broadcasting to the Library of Congress Feb. 10 during a celebration ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The FCC is giving interested parties another 30 days to weigh in on comments already made regarding proposed rule changes that would benefit AM radio stations. For the first time since 1987, the FCC is taking a comprehensive look at AM radio to review possible policy changes. A window for filing comments closed Jan. 24, and the deadline for responses to those comments was set to close Feb. 18. The commission announced Friday to extend the deadline to March 20. The Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers had asked for the extension, arguing that it needed more time to pore through the 150-plus comments that have been made to date.

After going off the air last fall, Free Speech Radio News is resuming production, but on a relaunched version of its website. Beginning Feb. 11, FSRN producers will post audio, photos and articles online as the progressive news operation charts a path back to ongoing radio production. The FSRN board drew on support from major donors and other contributors for the web-based relaunch, wrote Sang Hea Kil, FSRN’s president, in a Feb. 2 post on FSRN’s website. FSRN cut staff and ended its weekday radio show in September 2013 when it could not collect $200,000 in payments owed by its biggest customer, the cash-strapped Pacifica Foundation.

PBS filmmaker Ken Burns put a new spin on U.S. history today, debuting his first app and a new website dedicated to his films.

• In his annual review of objectivity and balance in CPB-funded programming, CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan noted “far fewer complaints directed at public media,” continuing a trend of the past few years. “Whether that is because public media has improved in this area; people have grown tired of complaining about a lack of balance; or there were just not that many controversial stories this year is not clear,” he noted. Looking back over 2013’s controversies, Kaplan also criticized NPR’s reaction to a lengthy report by its own ombudsman that found fault with an award-winning NPR investigation. As Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos reviewed the three-part series about South Dakota’s foster-care system for Native American children, he “took the unusual step of re-reporting the story,” Kaplan wrote.

Public Radio International and e-publishing startup Byliner will bring “enhanced e-book” versions of Studio 360 episodes to audiences this month.

A grassroots group will push to keep PBS content available over the air in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, reports the Rio Grande Guardian. The Catholic Diocese of Brownsville announced in January that it would sell KMBH-TV in Harlingen. The licensee is pursuing a local management agreement (LMA) with a commercial entity as a first step. But the station advisory board is concerned about the impact the loss of the station could have on children in lower-income colonias communities. “If KMBH is sold, it would be a great loss for our Hispanic community,” said Lupe Saenz, a member of the KMBH community advisory board.

Two NPR staffers are leaving public broadcasting for prominent positions with other media outlets. Lisa Chow, a reporter for NPR’s Planet Money economics unit, is heading to FiveThirtyEight, the new data-journalism website from Nate Silver. Chow will serve as senior features editor at the ESPN-owned website and host and develop a podcast, according to a series of tweets by Silver. Before joining Planet Money, Chow covered economics for New York’s WNYC and worked as an assistant editor for NPR’s Morning Edition. Also, Anna Bross, NPR’s media relations director, is leaving to become senior director of communications for The Atlantic.

• Former NPR social-media maven Andy Carvin has accepted a job with First Look Media, the new nonprofit digital journalism venture founded by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Carvin announced the move on his website. His role is still being fleshed out, but he will help First Look “craft a newsroom where engaging the public is a fundamental aspect of everything we do,” he wrote. Carvin accepted a buyout from NPR late last year. • SoCal Connected, the award-winning news series from KCETLink in Los Angeles, will soon return to the station thanks to a $1 million grant. The program went on hiatus in March 2013 when funding ran out.

PBS is hosting its first Independent Film Summit at its headquarters Thursday, gathering public television’s top documentary supporters for a wide-ranging discussion about the future of the genre in pubmedia. “The goal of the meeting is to come together to think through how we can raise the profile of our collective work in independent film,” PBS chief programmer Beth Hoppe told Current, “making it clear to the industry and public that PBS is the television home of independent film.” Participants include top execs from both documentary showcases: Simon Kilmurry, e.p. of POV, and Jim Sommers, content s.v.p. for Independent Lens from the Independent Television Service.

Ted Krichels, CPB’s senior v.p. for system development and media strategy, recently talked to Current about the 50-page “Public Media Models of the Future” report he co-authored this fall with PBS Director of Strategy Stephen Holmes. Edited, rearranged and condensed excerpts from that conversation follow. Current: How did you start the process? Did you survey the entire system, or was it more word of mouth? Ted Krichels: Stephen and I initially were collecting stations, ones you would have heard about. We would then correlate the models we were interested in with other material that we could pull, including financial reports, and try to see how it came together.