MHz Networks has extended Al Jazeera English’s live coverage of the upheaval in Egypt, the Virginia-based pubTV distributor said Tuesday (Feb. 1). Al Jazeera English newscasts on MHz Worldview reach more than 35 million households nationwide. And viewers are finding other ways to watch Al Jazeera English, the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, KSMQ in southern Minnesota received donations Tuesday from viewers specifically pleased with the additional Al Jazeera English coverage on Worldview.

The Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media gathered a group of experts Tuesday (Feb. 1) at the Erikson Institute in Chicago to begin building a framework for judging excellence in children’s digital media, reports the Early Education Initiative blog of the New America Foundation. “Today children are gaining access to media that encourages – no, requires – some interaction on their part,” writes Lisa Guernsey, director of the initiative and conference participant. “Couldn’t that interaction bring with it the potential for harnessing that media to enrich children’s learning in many promising ways, in and out of school?” The group is developing broad outlines for creators and parents trying to determine “how to define quality amid the burgeoning number of products, websites, shows, social media outlets, immersive games and apps that are designed to both engage and excite children’s learning,” Guernsey said.

NPR has hired the search firm of Spencer Stuart to identify candidates to replace Senior Vice President of News Ellen Weiss, NPR chief exec Vivian Schiller told staff in a memo Monday (Jan. 31). A search advisory committee also will consult with Schiller before her hiring decision, later this spring. Committee members include Steve Inskeep, senior host of Morning Edition; Joel Sucherman, program director for ARGO/Digital; and Sharahn Thomas, deputy director of news. Weiss resigned in January, (Current, Jan. 10) in the wake of her controversial firing of NPR correspondent Juan Williams and its subsequent political firestorm.

The Texas Watchdog combed through the paper trail on the sale of Rice University’s KTRU to Houston’s KUHF, and reported on broker’s fees and efforts to keep the deal secret. The University of Houston, which has a $9.5 million deal to acquire Rice’s student-operated KRTU pending at the FCC, signed a $200,000 contract to retain Public Radio Capital as its broker in June 2009, months after it had gone through a round of painful budget cuts, according to this report by the Watchdog‘s Steve Miller. Efforts to conceal the formative deal from public meeting notices of the University of Houston’s Board of Regents may have violated Texas Open Meetings Act, he reports.

Public Radio Capitol’s roles as broker and buyer in sale transactions that are pending in several markets are coming under increasing scrutiny by localism advocates and public radio insiders, who question whose interests are being served in the sales of Pittsburgh’s WDUQ, Houston’s KTRU, and the New Jersey Network. Keeping the Public in Public Radio, a blog that watchdogs public radio format changes and station sales, has published a round-up of recent posts that criticize PRC. It’s headlined “College Radio and the Grim Reaper” and includes excerpts from blogs by public radio news veteran Michael Marcotte and Ernesto Aguilar, programmer at Pacifica’s KPFT in Houston.

Mykalai Kontilai, who purchased Nightly Business Report in August 2010, is cited in the latest Esquire magazine as a “reengineer.” More than 20 persons were identified as “men and women who have rebuilt, rethought, or happily dismantled their industries, their influences, and themselves.” Kontilai, a former mixed-martial arts agent and educational video distributor, was noted for “snatching up the rights” to NBR and “pledging to reinvent the sleepy half-hour public news into the impossible and improbable – a must-see business report that will be syndicated in two hundred countries.” Others on the list include President Obama, actor Alec Baldwin and NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

Say, “Rick Steves,” and what do you think? Congenial public TV travel host. Think again. According to a blogger at Examiner.com/Chicago, Steves made quite the speech at last weekend’s (Jan. 29 and 30) Chicago Travel and Adventure Show. Referring to himself as a “provocateur,” he held forth on topics including legalization of marijuana, infrastructure reinvestment, housing prices, health care reform, American “torture” of prisoners, the growing gap between rich and poor, gun control, “racist” incarceration policies, legalized prostitution and the “hysterical” American media. Steves also defended his 2009 TV special on Iran, saying, “I think you should know people before you bomb them.”

An intriguing alliance has formed among ivi TV, the brash startup that’s selling Internet access to specially encrypted TV signals, and four public interest organizations that have filed an amicus brief in its defense. The groups, Public Knowledge, the Media Access Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Technology Initiative of the New America Foundation, identify themselves in the “friends of the court” Jan. 31 filing as “public interest organizations concerned with maintaining an open, competitive, and diverse communications infrastructure.” The Seattle-based ivi is being sued by 25 broadcasters including WGBH, WNET.org and PBS, which seek a restraining order to stop ivi from selling their content (Current, Oct.

What does a free and open Internet mean for the future of journalism? Quite a lot, writes Kat Aaron, a journalist with the Investigative Reporting Workshop and media policy fellow, on MediaShift. Net neutrality, the principle protecting equal treatment of all content on digital networks, provides the foundation for innovative crowd sourcing projects and platforms for minority and low-income communities to amplify their voices via online dialogues and specialized reporting. “Despite journalism’s increasing reliance on a neutral network, most journalists and their trade associations have been silent on this issue,” Aaron writes. “To preserve the tools and technologies most reporters take for granted requires vigilance, organizing, and yes, the a-word: advocacy.”

Regina Fraser, co-host of Grannies on Safari, says the group just heard from the U.S. State Department today (Feb. 1) and is standing by for a flight out of Egypt, as the revolution there continues to intensify. Fraser, co-host Pat Johnson and 10 Americans are stranded in Luxor after arriving on Jan. 26. Maria Dugandzic of MediaPros 24/7 in Chicago has been monitoring the situation and is in close contact with the group. “The State Dept just called them and told them to pack their bags because they may have a flight back to the U.S. in the next hours,” Dugandzic said.

Nonprofit news entities are beginning to explore the possibilities of partnering with commercial broadcasters. NBC agreed to have at least five local affiliates collaborate with the nonprofs as part of its agreement with the FCC to merge with Comcast. Joe Bergantino, co-founder of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting in Boston, is in talks with several television outlets, including one commercial. “I think [the FCC order] sends a strong message that partnering with nonprofit investigative reporting centers makes a lot of sense for commercial news outlets,” he tells TVNewsCheck.“It makes journalistic sense and it makes economic sense.” Thus far, nonprofit journalism entities, which are springing up to fill coverage holes left by dwindling newspaper staffs, have been collaborating with major metro newspapers, public TV stations (Current, March 30, 2009) and regional news networks.

University licensee Penn State Public Broadcasting has produced a video advising Penn State students how to react if faced with a gunman on campus. The Daily Collegian says the pubcasters worked with psychologists and police officers before screening the project. It’s part of a course teaching the “Five Outs” – get out, call out, hide out, keep out and take out. In one scene, students fight back against a gunman, one using a backpack to knock him down. Penn State University Assistant Police Chief Tyrone Parham said that “take out” is a last resort, when no other options are left. “Remember, at this point, you may be literally fighting for your life,” Parham said.

CPB’s website, as of February 2013, carries this document, “Revised February 1, 2011,” redefining the assignment of its ombudsman. Kenneth Tomlinson, past chair of the CPB Board, had prompted controversy by hiring two ombudsmen in April 2005. Charter Establishing the CPB Office of the Ombudsman The founders of public broadcasting saw a clear need for a “system-wide process of exerting upward pressure on standards of taste and performance.” (The 1967 Carnegie Commission Report, p.36) In addition, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was expected to become the “center of leadership” with a “primary mission…to extend and improve . . . programming.”

PBS member station KBTC in Seattle/Tacoma is picking up the new Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies. Why is that news? Because some local viewers were mightily peeved that Seattle’s KCTS decided not to run it – one of the few pubTV stations that passed on the popular critic’s latest program. KCTS programmer Randy Brinson told a Seattle Times blogger that the decision not to carry the show was based on “scheduling logistics and financial reality.” In another word, pledge. It would “get pre-empted on a regular basis, as a normal course of events due to our occasional pledge programming.”

MHz Networks is alerting its 31 pubcasting affiliates nationwide that the shutdown by the Egyptian government of Al Jazeera’s bureau there does not affect broadcast of Al Jazeera English programming on Worldview. Some media were erroneously reporting that Al Jazeera English’s shows in the United States were also blacked out.