Among the new reporters for Al Jazeera America’s 12 U.S. news bureaus are several with public media backgrounds. The New York City–based AJA announced the bureaus and personnel today in anticipation of the network’s Aug. 20 launch. Ash-har Quraishi will be AJA’s Chicago correspondent. Quraishi has reported for WTTW’s Chicago Tonight since 2011. Previously, he divided his reporting time between that program and the Chicago News Cooperative, the nonprofit newsroom that closed in February 2012. Quraishi won a regional Murrow Award for investigative journalism. Jennifer London will report for the network from Los Angeles. London was a correspondent on KCET’s SoCal Connected from September 2011 through March 2013.

Pacifica station WPFW in Washington, D.C., is in “a pretty critical financial situation,” according to Summer Reese, interim executive director of the network. Reese discussed the state of WPFW during a July 25 Pacifica board conference call. Responding to a board member’s question about a WPFW on-air fund drive planned for in September, she said: “The concern there is, frankly, that you don’t have enough money to get through until September.” WPFW has fallen into a “perpetual” state of on-air fund drives, Reese said. “It’s not giving listeners much of a break.” Reese told the board she was following up with WPFW staff about which of the station’s bills must be paid most urgently.

Ophira Eisenberg, host of NPR and WNYC's bar trivia game show Ask Me Another, is taking her saucy memoir to the movies.

American Public Media Group is selling off the for-profit arm of its business that publishes boutique magazines in order to concentrate on its public media offerings, the company announced today.

Northern California’s KQED-TV is revamping its Friday evening public affairs show by reviving a title from its distant past.

A recent PBS Research analysis found that donors who contribute the most money to public TV rarely if ever watch its programming.

Torey Malatia, longtime president and c.e.o. of Chicago Public Media, has resigned effective immediately.

WFUV in New York has introduced UKNY, a weekly broadcast mixing new and classic rock music from the United Kingdom.

Former KPCC host Madeleine Brand, who left the Los Angeles station in September 2012, will host a new midday show on competitor KCRW. Brand will join the station in mid-September to begin work on the hourlong program, which will begin airing shortly thereafter, she told Current. “I’m really excited and I love KCRW,” she said. “I’ve been a big fan for many years, so I’m really happy to work with them.” Brand’s show, yet to be named, will be a host-driven, “news-based cultural show” in the vein of the show she hosted on KPCC, she said. She’ll return to the air as a solo host, as she was before the addition of a co-host to her KPCC show.

Colorado Public Radio filed a trademark infringement and violation suit in federal court in Colorado earlier this month against Minnesota's Twin Cities Public Television over the name Open Air.

Retiring from public radio finally afforded audience analyst David Giovannoni the time to turn his hobby, collecting antique phonographs and early sound recordings, into a full-time pursuit.

The House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over CPB is pushing once more for eliminating government funding to public broadcasting in its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, according to the New York Times.

The House Appropriations Committee has proposed cutting funding to the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities by 49 percent for fiscal year 2014.

Why did Tess Vigeland leave her Marketplace Money hosting gig back in November 2012? The reasons are complicated, she revealed in a July address to the World Domination Summit in Portland, Ore., an annual conference where the audience hears from “amazing people with big plans.” Next Avenue, Twin Cities Public Television’s resource for the over-50 crowd, posted an abbreviated version of what it called her “courageous speech.” Turns out Vigeland had been unhappy for a while at Marketplace. “Partly I was tired of the subject I covered,” she said. “It got to the point where I wanted to reach through the radio, take listeners by the shoulders and say: ‘Don’t you get it?!

The University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents has returned a construction permit for a new Wisconsin Public Radio station in Niagara that would have extended the network’s reach to 39,000 additional people.