Armed with a two-year CPB grant, five Pennsylvania pubcasters are collaborating to explore issues facing cities in the Keystone State. CPB spokesperson Kelly Broadway confirmed that the grant supports the specialized reporting unit as one of two new Local Journalism Centers, multi-station news operations that produce multimedia reporting on topics of statewide or regional interest. “Once we have received signed contracts from all the stations involved, CPB will issue a press release” with details on both, she said. The Pennsylvania center will focus on the causes and cures of the financial distress of urban communities throughout the state, according to an online report published by WITF in Harrisburg, one of five participating stations.

The Association of Public Television Stations, CPB and PBS on Monday filed comments with the FCC regarding issues related to the spectrum repacking that will follow incentive auctions clearing bandwidth for mobile devices. Responding to the commission’s request for comment on the process for assisting stations with the costs of spectrum repacking, the three organizations “strongly encourage the Commission to adopt reimbursement policies and procedures that ensure noncommercial educational television stations are made whole and held fully harmless in the repacking,” they said in the filing (complete document here). Broadcasters are concerned that costs of the transition may exceed the $1.75 billion Congress has set aside to reimburse them.

Myrna Johnson, a former government relations associate for NPR who now directs a Boston nonprofit, has been named the next executive director of Iowa Public Radio. The Iowa Public Radio Board of Directors  announced Johnson’s appointment Nov. 5,  ending a  seven-month nationwide search for successor to Mary Grace Herrington, who was dismissed in February.  Herrington contested the firing and both parties agreed to a $197,000 settlement in May. Johnson departs the Boston Schoolyard Initiative, a public-private partnership that oversees renovation of  schoolyards in Boston’s urban neighborhoods, where she has worked as executive director since 2009. Her previous experience in public radio includes eight years on NPR’s government relations staff and service on the board of directors at KUNC-FM, in Greeley, Colo.

Twin Cities Public Television has adopted the name ReWire for the statewide network’s youth programming and engagement initiative. TPT settled on the name after its previous branding, Open Air, attracted a trademark infringement and violation suit from Colorado Public Radio. “Our vision is to rewire public media’s relationship to the world, and your relationship with public media,” Andi McDaniel, ReWire’s project manager, wrote in a re-introductory blog post Oct. 25. “[ReWire is] about connecting with our audience in new ways — through digital content, through collaborative approaches to storytelling, through interactive events, fresh takes on classic and new programming and much more.”

Vermont Public Radio said Monday that test results show that 11 of the 34 mugs in its Artist Mug Series, which the station gives as pledge premiums, contain lead — one at a level above the federal limit. Responding to safety concerns raised in September, VPR had mugs produced from 2002-13 tested by an independent lab. The lab found 10 had lead on the exterior of the mug that fell within FDA regulated levels. One, produced in 2005 with a design by Chris Varricchione, had “unacceptable” levels of lead. VPR is recommending the mug not be used. “Our goal from the beginning was to be open and transparent about this issue,” VPR said on its website.

Pat Fitzgerald, g.m. of WBGU-TV in Bowling Green, Ohio, for more than two decades, died Oct. 30 of a stroke in his home. He was 69. Fitzgerald was known among colleagues as a strong advocate for educational television and community service. “He was in essence my mentor, my education,” said Tony Short, g.m. of production, engineering and educational services at WBGU and one of two managers who took over Fitzgerald’s duties at the station after his 2010 retirement. “What I know about public broadcasting, I learned from Pat Fitzgerald. . . This is hitting us real hard. This is sort of a shock.”

KACV in Amarillo, Texas, is marking 25th anniversary by changing its name to Panhandle PBS, the station announced Sunday, to reflect its location in the Texas Panhandle. “Market research tells us that ‘Panhandle PBS’ is really what viewers think of when they think of KACV,” said Linda Pitner, the station’s general manager. Pitner told Current that no one in the region equates the word with its alternate definition of asking strangers for money — which PBS member stations are known to do from time to time. “We completed a market research project before changing our name and feel that the new name better identifies the product we are providing and the place we are serving,” Pitner added.

Veteran public broadcasting newsman Ray Suarez, who resigned from PBS NewsHour Oct. 25 after nearly 15 years, will host Inside Story on satellite news channel Al Jazeera America starting Nov. 11. The program, an interview-driven newsmag airing at 5 p.m. Eastern time weekdays, covers the major stories of the week from AJA’s Washington, D.C., bureau. Suarez interviewed Al Jazeera EP Bob Wheelock in January, when the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network bought Al Gore’s Current TV. Suarez told Current that back then, “heading there was not on my agenda, but I started to think about it. Then a close friend headed there, then another friend and colleague headed there, and said, ‘It’s a start-up, it’s a little frantic, but it’s fun, and they’re trying to do this the right way.’

Longtime pubcasting consultant Michael Marcotte is weighing in on the new Knight Foundation report on nonprofit journalism sustainability, which examines 18 news organizations nationwide, several of which partner with public broadcasters. Marcotte notes that CPB “has not been open about sharing comparative data like Knight is doing here. Nor does it seem as concerted in its effort to grow public media through a national conversation about the future of news, as Knight is so good at doing.” He adds: “I suggest public media leaders borrow a page from the Knight Foundation and initiate a concerted look at our long range plans for growth and sustainability, especially as it relates to the future of journalism in America.

Tom Scharpling is ending his The Best Show on WFMU on Dec. 17, according to Radio Survivor. Scharpling, who has been hosting the quirky program for 13 years, announced the news on Tuesday. “It is a huge commitment . . . It’s hard to do something that’s more or less a full-time job for free,” Scharpling told listeners. “I’ve done it for as long as I can do it . . . the reality of this is I can’t sustain my life and this show and the commitment it takes to do it right.” Radio Survivor noted that The Best Show has “a uniquely strong audience for a community radio program.”

A grass-roots organization that protested Ken Burns’s exclusion of World War II Latino soldiers’ experiences from his 2007 documentary The War is speaking out in the wake of PBS NewsHour Chief National Correspondent Ray Suarez’s resignation from the program. Defend the Honor, headed by Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, sent an Oct. 31 email to its 5,000-member database saying it is “distressed that PBS has treated veteran journalist Ray Suarez so disrespectfully.” Suarez left the show Oct. 25 after nearly 15 years and subsequently told Fox News Latino in an Oct. 28 interview that he felt his contributions to the program had been minimized during his tenure.

Next week PBS will host the annual conference for Public Broadcasters International (PBI), expected to draw hundreds of broadcasters from around the world. This year’s event will be Nov. 6-8 at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. PBS last hosted in 1997. The agenda includes panels on “Public Media in Times of Public Challenge,” children’s programming, digital-content opportunities, historical and cultural documentaries, and financial sustainability. The audience will hear from broadcasters such as PBS President Paula Kerger; Noel Curran, director general of Ireland’s RTÉ; Masayuki Matsumoto, president of Japan’s NHK; Jane Vizard, legal director of the European Broadcasting Union; and Ralph Rivera, the BBC’s director of future media.

Space agency NASA helped develop segments for a children’s show heading to public TV in spring 2014 from presenting station Maryland Public Television, reports Entertainment Weekly. NASA reps worked with Space Racers creator and E.P. Richard Schweiger and his team on 50 segments, 11 minutes each, for the show’s first season. Each half-hour episode includes two of the NASA shorts. Directing is Mark Risley, who won an Emmy in 2003 for the Nickelodeon series Rugrats. Schweiger raised $2.2 million from 27 investors for the series, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier this year. He is a partner in Pilot Mountain Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.