When Scott Finn begins his new job as executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Feb. 1, he faces an uphill task of re-energizing a network that has been beset over the past several years by funding declines and conflicts over its governance.

WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., is teaming up with a local museum to encourage a community dialogue on race relations. The Rochester Museum & Science Center is hosting “Race: Are We So Different?” The traveling exhibit from the American Anthropological Association examines the history, human variations and personal experiences surrounding racial differences. WXXI-FM produced five feature-length reports prior to the exhibit’s Jan. 19 opening. The reports aired during Morning Edition and All Things Considered and examined the political and cultural history of racism, the science and genetics of human biological diversity, the link between race and health, and other matters. WXXI Radio’s daily 1370 Connection public affairs show also is producing four one-hour programs with WDKX-FM, a local urban contemporary station, which run weekly through Feb.

WGBH is defending its underwriting practices in the wake of complaints from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) over Lockheed Martin’s sponsorship of Nova‘s “Rise of the Drones.” In a statement late Tuesday afternoon, WGBH, the presenting station for the science series, said:  “WGBH fully adheres to PBS funding guidelines and takes our public trust responsibility very seriously.  With regard to Nova “Rise of the Drones,” Lockheed Martin’s sponsorship of Nova  is not a violation of the PBS underwriting guidelines.” “First and foremost,” the statement continued, “Lockheed Martin, like all WGBH/PBS program funders, had no editorial involvement in the program.

A volunteer DJ has been charged with stealing donors’ credit card information from a Houston radio station and using it to make personal purchases. Michael Whitfield was arrested in December after police found him in possession of credit card information taken from more than 300 donors to KTSU, a jazz station licensed to Texas Southern University in Houston. He is being held on $200,000 bond. Police began their investigation in July 2012 after a KTSU donor reported unauthorized charges on their credit card, and they traced them to an IP address to Whitfield’s apartment. Investigators have confirmed 25 cases of theft so far, according to Donna Logan, an assistant district attorney for Harris County, Texas.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter is recommending that Idaho Public Television receive $1.6 million in the coming fiscal year’s budget, about a 2.6 percent bump from the current year’s funding. In 2010, Otter had considered zeroing out funding to IPTV, and last year, the state network faced loss of service due to cuts. IPTV President Peter Morrill told IdahoReporter.com this week that the agency was asking for $2.8 million to fund capital equipment requests as part of a total budget of $7.7 million. “It is effectively a flat budget recommendation,” Morrill said.

Veteran pubcaster Peter Dominowski, a founder of the Public Radio Program Directors Association, is the new president and general manager of Northeast Indiana Public Radio in Fort Wayne, the station announced today. Dominowski has worked as a researcher, facilitator and consultant with more than 100 pubradio stations, as well as the major national networks and professional organizations. Before forming his consulting company, Market Trends Research, he was a program director at WFMT, a commercial classical station in Chicago, and WMFE, a pubradio station in Orlando, Fla. He succeeds Will Murphy, who now leads WFIU, the Indiana University Public Radio station in Bloomington.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), a progressive press watchdog group, is criticizing Nova over sponsorship issues surrounding its recent report, “Rise of the Drones.” The report was underwritten by Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the unmanned aircraft. FAIR says that is a “clear violation of PBS’s underwriting guidelines.” The program included comments from Abe Karem, known as “the father of the Predator” drone. His company has a business relationship with Lockheed Martin, FAIR said, citing reporting from a blog on FireDogLake, a collaborative progressive news site. “The program’s sponsorship tie to the drone industry were never mentioned — though there were opportunities to disclose that relationship,” according to FAIR.

WMVY radio on Martha’s Vineyard has successfully raised $600,000 to continue programming on the web for another year, reports The Martha’s Vineyard Times. After nearly 30 years, the station lost its 92.7 FM spot on the dial when Boston’s WBUR acquired its signal late last year.

Dan Schiedel, the new executive director of the Oklahoma pubcasting network, on Monday asked the state legislature for a 50 percent increase in state funding for the upcoming fiscal year — despite some lawmakers still calling for the entire elimination of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, reports The Associated Press. OETA, which got some $3.8 million in state funding during the last two fiscal years, wants a $2 million hike for items including statewide satellite distribution, expanded state legislative coverage and increased employee benefits. State support covers about 36 percent of OETA’s budget. The chairman of the Senate budget committee that oversees the funding said he wants to give the agency time to develop other sources of income before cutting its budget.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Felipe “Phil” Estrada Olvera Jr., a former interim vice president of engineering at Oregon Public Broadcasting, died Jan. 19 of complications from cancer. He celebrated his 55th birthday just six days earlier. Olvera began his career at ABC station KVEW-TV in Kennewick, Wash., working his way to assistant chief engineer. In 1992, he moved on to what was then Eastern Oregon State College in La Grande, Ore., to take over as an ED-NET teleproductions engineer. He arrived at  Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland in 1995, starting out as a maintenance engineer and progressing to interim v.p.

This article has been updated and reposted with additional information. Stanley Karnow, whose book Vietnam: A History became the basis of the critically acclaimed 13-hour PBS documentary, Vietnam: A Television History, died Jan. 27 at his home in Potomac, Md., reports the New York Times. He was 87. “Unlike many books and films on Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s and the nightly newscasts that focused primarily on America’s role and its consequences at home and abroad,” the Times noted, “Mr. Karnow addressed all sides of the conflict and traced Vietnam’s culture and history.” The WGBH series premiered on PBS in 1983, and was re-edited to 11 hours for rebroadcast on American Experience in 1997.