Here’s a quirky and hilarious pledge idea. By now you may be among the millions of fans of Lolcats, the silly “kittehs” captured in photographs, craving “cheezburgers” and speaking their own abbreviated language. You see this coming, right? Lolcats + pledge = Pledgecats. WYPR in Baltimore and Cheezburger Network have come up with kittehs asking for member support. As in, “You hasn’t pledged? Srsly?”

The November issue of Extra! from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Media) takes on public broadcasting. There are stories on how the system “is stacked against fulfilling PBS’s mandate,” and “Charlie Rose’s Elite-Meet-and-Greet.” Also, it’s the third time since 1995 it’s looked at sources on NewHour by gender, nationality, ethnicity, occupation and partisan affiliation; it also examined story choice. This time there’s also a look at the new Need to Know  from the program’s debut on May 7 through July 30. In general, FAIR cites a lack of diversity in both shows. Here are FAIR’s NewsHour findings from 2006.

Two high-profile public media analysts are enthusiastically in KCET’s corner after its decision to depart PBS membership. “KCET now has the chance to redefine what it means to be a local broadcast station in a digitally networked world,” they write in the Los Angeles Daily News today (Oct. 19). They continue: “The old hub-and-spoke, national-to-local distribution model is outdated. Digital networks create new possibilities for production and content sharing from local-to-national and even local-to-local. Wildly diverse communities also create new needs that a national program service can’t hope to meet, especially in markets like L.A.’s, which trends more multiethnic and younger.” 

There’s been no shortage of news coverage of KCET splitting from PBS as of Jan. 1. And now, a cartoon from L.A. Observed.

The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs is joining the Forum Network, a PBS and NPR free video lecture service. The Council’s page will include offerings such as scholar Michael Mandelbaum on his book, The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era; a panel discussion, “U.S. Military: Leading by Example,” in which reps from the Navy, Marines, and Army Corps of Engineers illustrate how the U.S. military is developing renewable energy sources; and journalist Eliza Griswold talking about her book, The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam.

What public broadcasting can do to plan for its own future and for federal policies that serve the public interest In the first part of this commentary in Current Oct. 4 [2010], Wick Rowland, an early PBS planner and now a station leader in Colorado, said that public broadcasting’s failure to put time and money into formal research and planning has left it “adrift, mute and helpless” on the periphery of federal policymaking about media and spectrum. Pubcasting was slow to respond to the journalism crisis, aloof from the Obama administration’s big commitment to give the public universal access to broadband Internet service.In

It’s official: KCET, one of the biggest siblings in the PBS family, is leaving home for good. Although station President Al Jerome has complained for years about high network dues and the contentious overlap situation with KCET’s three PBS brethren in the Los Angeles area, few in the system thought he would actually sever the station’s 40-year link to PBS. Mel Rogers, president of the region’s new primary PBS station, KOCE in nearby Huntington Beach, summed up the reaction of many pubcasters: “Up to the last minute, I did not think Al would go nuclear,” Rogers told Current. The first major-market affiliate to announce its defection came after months of difficult negotiations that had the feel of a high-stakes game of chicken (timeline).

The Philanthropy 400, an annual donation overview of the 400 largest nonprofits, is out today (Oct. 18) from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. In general, bad news. Fiscal 2009 donations to those organizations dropped 11 percent from FY08. The 400 raised $68.6 billion in 2009; that drop was almost four times the 2.8 percent decrease in 2001, “when charities also struggled to raise money from recession-battered donors,” the report says. The rankings are listed by amount of private support. No. 1 is United Way Worldwide, with $3.8 billion; No. 400 is Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, Okla., with $41.3 million.

WGBH, one of the first pubcasting stations in the country to offer mobile DTV service to viewers (Current, Feb. 2, 2009) is now one of around 100 providers, reports the Boston Globe today (Oct. 18). But it’s still a gamble: Just this month, Flo TV from Qualcomm ended sales of its devices, for which users paid $250, plus $15 monthly for service. Adding the capability to stations costs around $150,000 for equipment. Now that there’s a technical standard, more providers are building out their systems, said Anne Schelle, executive director of the Open Mobile Video Coalition, a broadcasting industry trade group that counts CPB and PBS as members.

Dr. Charlotte Frances Cole is the new senior v.p., global education, for Sesame Workshop, it announced today (Oct. 18). Cole will oversee international strategies and lead development for all curriculum and research around the Workshop’s international projects. Cole has been working with educators and production teams throughout the world for the Workshop since 1994, in Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Mexico, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and West Bank/Gaza. She is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Children and Media, and served as the publication’s founding Review and Commentary Editor.

June 2007: In a presentation to the PBS Board’s Station Services Committee, KCET protests that its dues assessments are disproportionately high and the other PBS stations in the Los Angeles market are overstepping their rights as part-time PBS members (PDP). Also June 2007: A PBS Board task force flies to Los Angeles to meet with the four PBS affiliates: The L.A. Unified School District’s KLCS, KOCE in Orange County, KVCR in San Bernardino and KCET. January 2008: Partly in response to KCET’s complaints, the PBS Board establishes a Membership Policies Review Committee to more closely examine PDP issues. March 31, 2009: The PBS Board approves the review panel’s final recommendations.

NPR will develop a statehouse enterprise reporting project with a $1.8 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, the New York Times reported on Oct. 17. The initative, called Impact of Government, aims to add at least 100 journalists at NPR member stations in every state over the next three years beginning with an eight-state pilot in March 2011. NPR and the stations hope to raise about $17 million to expand the program, and between $18 million and $19 million annually to sustain it.

“I just watched a Sesame Street video that left me in tears. Tears of joy, that is,” writes Huffington Post blogger Michele Langevine Leiby. What thrilled her so is an adorable little musical number featuring a African American girl singing, “I love my hair, I really love my hair!” “How many adult African American women will shed a tear of joy, as I did,” Leiby says, “remembering a very different world where Saturday mornings were spent fidgeting on a kitchen chair in mortal dread of the pressing comb and black hair, rather than a crowning glory, was a burden to be fried, dyed and laid to the side post-haste.

The Public Television Major Market Group honored Bill Kobin, outgoing MMG president, Wednesday at its meeting in Denver, just in time for Kobin’s second attempt to retire. Kobin originally retired in 1996 after a long and influential career in pubcasting, including positions at National Educational Television (forerunner of PBS), the Children’s Television Workshop, and as CEO of KTCA in Minneapolis and KCET in Los Angeles. In 1996, Kobin decided to work for MMG “for awhile,” incoming President Lloyd Wright of WFYI in Indianapolis told Current. “And 14 years later, he has announced his second retirement.” At the meeting the group also announced its new William Kobin Public Television Leadership Award.

In a 20-page report released today (Oct. 15), a 10-member bipartisan New Jersey Legislature committee called for “a dramatic reconfiguration” of New Jersey Network, reports the Star-Ledger in Newark. Gov. Chris Christie (R) earlier this year had recommended ending state funding (Current, July 6, 2010). The report also rejected Christie’s deadline of Jan. 1, 2011, for a transfer of the state-supported pubcasting network to an independent entity. Also, the paper is reporting that there’s plenty of activity behind the scenes. One possibility is a partnership between New Jersey broadcasters and WNET/Thirteen in New York City. Or Montclair State University could take a key role in production of NJN content.