Nice Above Fold - Page 448

  • WYSO explores industrial city's reinvention

    The recession in Dayton provides the backdrop for ReInvention Stories, a multimedia Localore project that brought together the Association of Independents in Radio, a local NPR station, and a pair of Academy Award–nominated veteran documentary filmmakers.
  • OK Go's Tiny Desk concert makes for an epic NPR move

    In a single video, for the song “All Is Not Lost,” rock band OK Go performed both the last-ever Tiny Desk concert at the former NPR headquarters and the first-ever concert at its new building. As Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton, Carl Kasell and others packed up and moved equipment from one location to another, the band played continuously (with the help of some creative editing) and even worked in some public radio–specific lyrics. OK Go, whose bandleader Damien Kulash formerly worked as an engineer for Chicago Public Radio, filmed the bit over two days in late March during NPR’s actual crosstown move.
  • Frank Lautenberg, pubcasting champion in the Senate, dies at 89

    Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the last World War II veteran to serve in the Senate and a longtime supporter of public broadcasting, died today from complications of viral pneumonia. The five-term senator was 89.
  • PRNDI to honor John Dinges at June banquet

    Journalist and educator John Dinges will receive this year’s Leo C. Lee Award for significant contributions to public radio news. As head of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s radio curriculum, Dinges revamped the program to emphasize public radio journalism and helped launch the careers of award-winning pubradio journalists “from Wyoming to Washington, D.C.,” according to PRNDI’s award announcement. Earlier in his career, Dinges was a freelance correspondent in Latin America and contributed to Time, the Washington Post, ABC Radio, the Miami Herald and other news organizations. He became an assistant editor on the foreign desk at the Washington Post and later joined NPR to help bolster its foreign coverage.
  • On hunt for more midday carriage, APM and BBC alter Newshour clock

    Beginning July 1, the BBC’s Newshour will alter its show clock, ceding 4.5 additional minutes from its newscast for local cutaways. The change boosts the total allowance of local minutes within each Newshour broadcast to 16.
  • NPR's Code Switch digs into racial discomfort

    When Southern country singer Brad Paisley shared his awkward view of race relations in his controversial song “Accidental Racist” last month, the team at NPR’s Code Switch couldn’t have asked for better timing. The unit devoted to multimedia reporting and opinionating on matters of race, culture and ethnicity had just debuted on NPR’s website and social media under the Code Switch banner April 7. Two days later, Paisley’s cringe-inducing tune, which also featured LL Cool J delivering the lines “If you won’t judge my do-rag / I won’t judge your red flag,” whipped up a frenzy of dumbfounded disgust on Facebook and Twitter.
  • WXXI ends 54-year run of Assignment: The World due to lack of funding

    Assignment: The World, the longest-running social-studies instructional TV program in the country, broadcast its last episode May 23. WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., which produced the ITV series for 54 years, announced the cancellation May 20. “Assignment: The World has experienced an increase in news acquisition costs, which were unfortunately not offset by program funding,” said Elissa Orlando, WXXI v.p. for television, in the announcement. “WXXI is saddened by this decision, but will continue to discover new ways to serve the educational needs of students.” Every season, students could watch 32 weekly episodes, 15 minutes in length, in classrooms, either on the air or on-demand over the Internet.
  • Alaska Public Media's new web-first series is part of its 'video renaissance'

    Alaska Public Media has introduced a new weekly web-first series in what promises to be its “larger video renaissance.” Indie Alaska, a weekly YouTube series profiling unique Alaskans, is co-produced with PBS Digital Studios and partially funded with a $10,000 Digital Entrepreneurs Grant from PBS. The show launched May 6 with an episode about a ski train polka band. Producers will deliver 52 episodes in total, with new ones debuting each Monday. Patrick Yack, chief content officer at Alaska Public Media, said the dual licensee plans to eventually repackage the episodes in a magazine-like format for TV broadcast and may adapt some for radio as well.
  • Off-duty deputy charged with murder in NewsHour shuttle driver shooting

    Craig Patterson, the Sheriff's deputy in Arlington County, Va., who allegedly shot and killed PBS NewsHour shuttle driver Julian Dawkins May 22 while off-duty, has been arrested and charged with murder.
  • Former Iowa Board of Regents head files open-meetings suits against IPR Board

    Michael Gartner, a former president of the Iowa Board of Regents, has filed a 41-page lawsuit complaining that the Iowa Public Radio Board of Directors violated state law when it conducted a closed meeting last December before terminating IPR C.E.O. Mary Grace Herrington in February, the Des Moines Register is reporting. The Board of Regents will next week consider a renewal of its operating agreement with Iowa Public Radio that includes a provision requiring it to follow state open meetings and open records laws, according to the Gazette in Cedar Rapids. This is Gartner’s second such lawsuit, the Gazette also notes.
  • PubTV stations move to pitch sustainer gifts during pledge

    “Sustainers,” as this increasingly commonplace breed of member is called, renew at higher rates than those responding to traditional pledge pitches.
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation solicits help to battle podcasting lawsuit

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation is waging a public battle against Texas-based technology company Personal Audio over a pending patent lawsuit over podcasts, and now it's taking the fight a step further.
  • Overnight and online, WDET turns listeners on to Detroit's techno music

    WDET-FM in Detroit drew on the Motor City’s musical heritage by devoting its overnight broadcast schedule to Alpha, a new music block combining "electronic and progressive soul music."
  • William Miles, documentary filmmaker

    William Miles, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and chronicler of the black experience, died May 12 in Queens, N.Y., from uncertain causes.
  • APTS chief sees renewed battle over CPB aid

    APTS President Patrick Butler is warning public broadcasters of continued threats to their federal funding this summer as Congress takes up work on appropriations for the next federal budget. During an appearance at the Public Media Business Association conference this morning, Butler recalled a private meeting with a key House Republican from Georgia who opposes federal aid to CPB. Rep. Jack Kingston, chair of the House appropriations subcommittee with oversight over CPB, told Butler that he plans to zero-out CPB funding. “He told me point blank, in January, that he was going to do everything he could to eliminate our funding,” Butler said during a PMBA breakfast meeting at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C.