More than 100 people joined a picket outside Pacifica’s KPFA-FM in Berkeley yesterday (Nov. 4), protesting staff cuts proposed by Pacifica Foundation Executive Director Arlene Englehardt to help close a reported $1.1 million budget shortfall. “We’re here because we understand there is a plan afoot to cut ¼ of the staff at the station,” Sasha Lilley, protest organizer and KPFA co-host, tells the local news website Berkeleyside. “These are difficult times economically but there are alternatives to cutting staff.” The station has lost more than $500,000 in listener support and other funding over three years, KPFA and Pacifica Foundation board member Tracy Rosenberg told the San Jose Mercury News.

State support for Ready to Learn at KEET-TV in Eureka, Calif., was discontinued last month, ending the program that had been a staple of the station’s outreach for 14 years, reports the local Times-Standard. KEET Executive Director Ron Schoenherr told the paper that the cut, which wiped out the vast majority of the program’s budget, came as a shock to him. Station staff are scurrying to replace the $30,000 annual state cash with local donations and grants. California Department of Education Child Development Division Director Camille Maben said the cut was part of a line-item veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the $50 million Child Development Block Grant from the federal level.

After a hiatus and reorganization, Integrated Media Association will hold its 2011 conference on March 10 and 11 at the start of the insanely popular South by Southwest Interactive Festival in the preposterously cool Texas capital, IMA said today. The festival begins Friday, March 11 and runs through Tuesday, March 15. Saturday has been designated Public Media Day. IMA, now based at Public Broadcasting Atlanta and headed by Jeanne Ericson, former head of PBA’s Lens on Atlanta portal, which is rebuilding its membership and looking for pubTV webheads to join, is selling IMA/SXSW tickets at a $300 discount to its members through January.

Frontline has re-cut a broadcast interview with an administration official in which one of his responses was used to answer a different question. Every reporter and editor knows that shouldn’t be done, writes PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler. “That’s just fundamental journalistic ethics,” he notes. Both the broadcast and transcript versions of Frontline’s interview with Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, David J. Hayes are online in the latest Ombudsman Column. After the show on the BP oil disaster, The Spill, ran on Oct. 26, Matt Lee-Ashley, communications director at Interior, complained to Frontline. An excerpt: “The version of the Frontline piece that appeared last night does not accurately reflect the transcript of the interview.

Arizona Public Media’s The Desert Speaks, winner of 24 regional and national Emmys and distributed nationwide by American Public Television, is ending production. Tom Kleespie has produced the show since it began in 1989. “We’ve had a great run with the series, which has lasted longer than most national television series that started around the same time with the exception of The Simpsons,” Kleespie told the Arizona Daily Star. The final episode airs in May; reruns will continue for at least four years.

KCET is developing a community-based content and blogging operation, and has created a new position to oversee the work, it announced today. Zach Behrens is the new editor-in-chief and will report directly to Mary Mazur, KCET’s chief content officer. For the past three years, Behrens has been editor-in-chief of LAist/Gothamist, where he oversaw operations (here’s his farewell column) and was the lead writer for LAist.com. Behrens also has served as a communications and marketing consultant to MTV, Nike and the City of Santa Clarita. He begins work on Nov. 10. KCET departs the PBS network of affiliates on Jan.

Nightly Business Report today (Nov. 4) announced a new weekly feature, “Beyond the $coreboard,” that “gives viewers in-depth analysis of the biggest sports stories of the day and what they mean for Wall Street.” NBR is partnering with Rick Horrow, author of “Beyond the Box Score: An Insider’s Guide to the $750 Billion Business of Sports” and is a visiting expert on sports law at Harvard Law School. His Miama-based Horrow Sports Ventures is a facility development advisor to teams, leagues, universities, government agencies, and nonprofits. Horrow has been a contributor to NBR since the 1980s, the announcement said. CLARIFICATION: A spokeswoman for Harvard Law School said Horrow last participated in the Sports Law program at the university in 2006, and is not currently active there.

Just as some election officials continue to count midterm ballots from Tuesday’s (Nov. 2) vote, PBS NewsHour is tallying up web visitors for its ambitious all-evening coverage. Anne Bell, spokesperson for the show, said dozens of sites (that they know of) either embedded or linked to the show’s live stream — everything from the Small Dead Animals blog to the leftie Huffington Post, the conservative Breitbart.tv, the Black Sistas, Latino Perspectives, LA Observed and Eastern Iowa Government. Sixteen pubstations also participated. The site page featured live coverage with anchor Jim Lehrer and correspondents. On the right side of the screen, visitors saw Twitters with the show’s hashtag.

V-me, the 24/7 Spanish network that’s a popular multicast channel on public TV stations, had secured broadcast rights to the World Series of Boxing, (WSB) it said in a statement today (Nov. 3). Coverage begins Nov. 20 and continues through next season. V-me also creating a WSB news and commentary show, Sexto Round, to run Thursday nights. The Hispanic community has a “long tradition” of enthusiasm for the sport, said Guillermo Sierra, V-me’s senior vice president. It’s the first sport that V-me will carry on an ongoing basis. The network was launched by WNET three years ago (Current, Feb.

Jeannie Ericson, executive director of the Integrated Media Association, will be online with iMA board members Tim Olson and Milton Clipper for a webinar Wednesday (Nov. 3) co-sponsored by the National Center for Media Engagement. The center says it’s a chance to interact with a “newly revitalized” iMA, and provide input to shape the future of the organization that works on innovation, efficiencies and effectiveness within public media. Register here for the webinar.

Vegas PBS’s Vegas Virtual online education program is now part of the Nevada state-approved training provider list, the station said today (Nov. 2). The effort was launched in response to unemployment issues in the state. It provides online education programs, from high-school GED’s to specific career training; prices vary by course, with most between $100 and $150. The state list was created as part of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which provides framework for states to improve delivery of employment services to communities.

“We must work differently” in an era of flat membership dues and other funding constraints, said Joyce Herring, PBS’s senior v.p. of station services.

NPR President Vivian Schiller has apologized to public radio for how she and her executives handled last month’s dismissal of news analyst Juan Williams, but the network stands by its decision to let him go.

The National Center for Media Engagement has hired Jennifer MacArthur as its director of television and digital media engagement, the NCME said today (Nov. 1) in a statement. MacAurthur will work with pubTV stations, digital media organizations and content producers as they develop ways to engage communities. MacArthur’s Borderline Media led outreach for the Emmy-nominated POV documentary Traces of the Trade, and has consulted on and directed other national campaigns. She also produced StoryCorps Griot, which collects and distributes oral histories of African Americans, and has worked at Link TV, Village Voice Media and Scholastic Entertainment.