Calling it a “first-of-its-kind agreement,” the Washington Post is reporting today (Dec. 7) that noncom Pacifica Radio is adding the Middle East-based news channel Al Jazeera English to its five outlets nationwide. Stations in New York, Houston and Berkeley, Calif., will begin to carry the audio portion of Al Jazeera’s TV news broadcast this week; Los Angeles and Washington will do so next year. Pacifica is the first American radio broadcaster to air programming from AJE, the English-language offshoot of the Arabic-language Al Jazeera network. Read the Pacifica press release here. Houston NBC affiliate KPRC/Local 2 shot a segment this morning at Pacifica’s KPFT.

Four ITVS films were honored last week (Dec. 3) at the IDI Documentary Awards ceremonies, presented by by the International Documentary Association: “Waste Land,” which received the IDA Pare Lorentz Award; “For Once in My Life,” for music documentary; “Bhutto,” the ABC News VideoSource Award; and “The Oath,” the IDI Humanitas Award. Watch clips here.

Hollywood’s The Wrap eyeballs the overall public broadcasting picture — “Massive budget shortfalls, vicious in-fighting and a power shift in Washington” — and predicts even more dire times ahead. Congressional champions are few, it says, and the incoming GOP members are even more anti-pubcasting than during the mid-1990s, when CPB was nearly extinguished. “These people are more conservative to the point where the only media they see as legitimate is Fox, and everything else is unreliable,” says Raphael Sonenshein, a professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton. And just how relevant is public broadcasting? “All media is being asked to reinvent itself — and that includes public media,”says Tom Glaisyer, a Knight Media Policy Fellow at the New America Foundation.

PBS documentarian Ken Burns has some strong opinions about reality television — and all are negative. In an interview for a Kansas City Star series on the subject, he tells TV critic Aaron Barnhart: “The nomenclature is what’s infuriating to me. This is not reality. Nobody proposes or dates or checks people out in front of millions of people. The notion that this is reality is beyond the pale. What it does is just become a vehicle for the same shallow consumerist mentality that is driving our country into the dirt.” Burns continues: “There is an aspect of voyeurism that is interesting, but what we’ve done — and it’s the definition of decadence — each generation of reality shows has to up the ante.

PBS NewsHour is partnering with The Economist to run docs on subjects that the magazine covers, including politics, health, technology, religion and government. Starting in January, “The Economist Film Project” will accept films for review. Segments will air on NewsHour and the project’s website through 2012.

Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that CPB is close to announcing an initiative to help stations fund the cost of deploying mobile DTV. CPB issued an RFP for a Mobile/Handheld Digital Television Program in July. Jay Adrick, broadcast technology v.p. at Harris Corp., a major broadcast equipment manufacturer, told the mag that stations can launch basic MDTV services for around $130,000 to $160,000 a year.

The recent nuptials of Larry Sidman, former president of the Association of Public Television Stations, and his bride Jana Singer were featured in Friday’s (Dec. 3) New York Times. She is a law professor at University of Maryland. Their first date, after meeting at a dinner party in March 2009: “I asked her to go for a walk around the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms,” Sidman said. Less than a year later, he proposed while the two were vacationing in California.

Add Vanderbilt University’s WRVU to the list of student-operated radio stations that may be offered for sale to the highest bidder. Vanderbilt Student Communications, license holder of the 10,000-watt underground music station broadcasting on 91.1 FM, is exploring whether to sell WRVU and use the proceeds to establish an endowment supporting “innovative student media experiences . . . in perpetuity.” Unlike the pending license transfer of Houston’s KTRU, the Rice University station that’s to be converted into classical music pubradio outlet by aspiring owner KUHF, the proposal for WRVU is a trial balloon, according to the New York Times.

“Halt to federal funding could doom KVCR-TV” reads a headline in today’s (Dec. 6) Sun newspaper in San Bernadino, Calif. With Republicans ramping up the fight to annihilate CPB funding, the local station is concerned: More than 13 percent of its $6 million operating budget comes from the corporation. “We’d end up having to cut the budget significantly,” Larry Ciecalone, president of KVCR, told the paper. “I’m not really sure we could sustain an instant cut. If we were to wean us from that over a period of four to five years, it’s doable. It’s just not doable immediately.” But that immediate cut is what some Republican lawmakers, including California Rep.

John Ross is the new president of television and radio operations at KMBH in Harlingen, Texas, which has been mired in controversy for several years (Current, March 16, 2009). Ross has been general manager since April 12 when its former president, Monsignor Pedro Briseño, was reassigned to full-time parish work by the station’s owner, the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville. Ross has been with the station 16 years.

Public Radio Exchange, a leading developer of iPhone applications for public radio stations and programs, is promoting an online petition that asks Apple to change its policy barring charitable giving on the iPhone. “Apple is a leader when it comes to producing life-changing innovations, but at the moment, the company is also making it harder to do good in the world,” the petition, addressed to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, states. As of this morning, the petition has garnered more than 1,150 signatures. PRX Project Director Rekha Murthy compiled a round-up of blog links on Apple’s ban on nonprofit gifting.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday (Dec. 3) announced $6.2 million in grants to public television licensees in 13 states to complete digital TV conversion projects. The money comes through the Public Television Digital Transition Grant Program, administered by USDA’s Rural Utilities Service. The program provides equipment funding to public stations that serve substantially rural populations. Work includes a $677,920 project by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television (KATV) to place digital translators in eight isolated rural communities. A grant to the West Virginia Education Broadcasting Authority for $366,000 will be used for a digital translator to serve a rural part of state that had previously received analog service.

Looks like the “Big Bird defense” (Current, Nov. 29) might not be as effective in preserving public broadcasting funding as it was in the mid-’90s, when the yellow-feathered, towering character showed up on Capitol Hill to save the day. Back then, “it was Big Bird that killed us,” former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.) acknowledged to Fox News just last month. In an interview published today (Dec. 4) with Americans for Limited Government, Rep. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a leader in the effort to defund CPB, said that shows such as Sesame Street “are thriving, multimillion-dollar enterprises.”

ValleyPBS in Fresno, Calif., has eliminated three positions due to budget constraints, reports the local Business Journal. Paula Castadio, ValleyPBS c.e.o., said two receptionist positions were eliminated, in addition to the director of marketing. He said a drop in funding “across all fronts” led to the layoffs. “Our philosophy is to live within our means in the current environment,” Castadio said. “We believe that’s what our donors expect us to do.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has decided that the New Jersey Network may remain on the air after Jan. 1, when state funding for the network ends, in order to provide more time to work out NJN’s future, he told the Star-Ledger. Christie proposed ending state support earlier this year (Current, July 6) and the legislature has been researching the situation since then. The state wants to retain ownership of the licenses and would like to use a consortium of broadcasters to provide content. Possible partners include WNET/Thirteen in New York City and WHYY in Philadelphia.