CPB Chief Operating Officer Vinnie Curren joined BBC Trust Chairman Michael Lyons, European Broadcasting Union Director General Ingrid Deltenre and NHK Japan Vice President Yoshinori Imai for a keynote session Wednesday (Sept. 8) to open the huge annual IBC media confab in Amsterdam. Indian Television reports that Curren spoke on the importance of localism to public service broadcasters, and cited Wisconsin Public Television’s LZ Lambeau (Current, June 7, 2010) as one good example. The IBC calls itself “the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment and news content worldwide.” More than 45,000 participants from 140 countries attended last year’s meeting.

Judith Lewis has resigned as executive director of the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, nine weeks after Mississippi Public Broadcasting abruptly dropped Fresh Air from its radio schedule July 8, citing “recurring inappropriate content” in the show. In the announcement of her departure, the Authority Board of Directors said it is in the process of filling the position. “Business as usual continues at MPB,” it added. The July 8 move was the the second time in nine months that MPB had yanked Gross’s cultural talk show from the air (Current, July 26, 2010). Also, an MPB reporter’s leak to a local alternative paper of the internal memo discussing the Fresh Air situation cost him his job.

In a statement issued yesterday, WAMU General Manager Caryn Mathes responded to the perceived conflicts of interested cited as examples of questionable journalistic ethics in Tuesday’s Washington Post. The Post pointed to personal and business relationships of Program Director Mark McDonald, who is married to Melinda Wittstock of Capitol News Connection, a D.C.-based news bureau that produces news segments airing on WAMU. He also operates Pundit Media Consulting, a media training service. McDonald disclosed the conflicts of interest in accordance with WAMU policy and is recused from all editorial and business decisions regarding Capitol News Connection, and his consulting practice is separate business from Pundit Productions, the parent company of CNC that Wittstock owns, Mathes said in the statement.

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner, American Public Media and New York Public Radio are joining to present “Freakonomics Radio” this fall, according to a press release from American Public Media Group posted on the Romenesko journalism website. The statement said the show will include “radio, podcast, web and live event programming imbued with the best-selling book’s iconoclastic approach to everyday economics – an approach that has found new ways to catch terrorists (hint: they don’t buy life insurance), and found the answers to questions such as, ‘Which is more dangerous: A gun or a swimming pool?'” It will initially be offered biweekly, then weekly in early 2011.

Chicago Newsroom, a new weekly roundtable featuring a panel of local journalists and newsmakers, premieres Thursday (Sept. 9) on Chicago Access Network Television — in the wake of longtime Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s Tuesday (Sept. 7) announcement that he will not seek reelection. Heading up the new show is Ken Davis, former talk show host and program director of Chicago Public Media WBEZ-FM (91.5), who also spent seven years as director of the city’s Municipal Television system. Chicago Newsroom will also stream live here.

In his career in the media niche of instructional television, Mykalai Kontilai worked with several respected names in public broadcasting as well as parts of Scholastic Inc., one of the world’s largest producers of educational materials for children and classrooms. Two of these key relationships for Kontilai or Teacher’s Choice, the ITV sales company where he was a major marketing presence, fell apart abruptly and after a matter of months — those with a past education chief of NETA and a former CPB finance exec. Kontilai finally left the ITV field after Scholastic ended its business relationship in 2006 because, a spokesperson told Current, the company was “dissatisfied with Mr.

KABF, the Arkansas community radio station audited by CPB’s Office of the Inspector General last year after a whistleblower complaint, may be subject to financial penalties of nearly $53,000 for mishandling CPB grant monies and over-reporting underwriting income in fiscal 2007. KABF didn’t comply with requirements for open meetings and open financial records, for example, nor did it maintain an active community advisory board, according to the IG. It also failed to provide public information required by the Communications Act, such as Equal Employment Opportunity disclosures and donor lists. The Little Rock station, long controlled by the left-leaning, grassroots organizing group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), lacked internal controls to verify the accuracy of its financial records and track how CPB aid was spent during the fiscal year examined by auditors, according to an IG report that described KABF as “materially noncompliant” with CPB requirements.

“In the usual custom,” writes the international Follow the Media blog, “the autumn schedule for French public television is announced in a gala Paris press conference hosted by the president of France Télévisions.” This is the season everything changes there. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had made reorganization of pubTV there a priority after his 2007 election. At that time Sarkozy described his vision for French public broadcasting as creating a “national champion” in the model of the UK’s BBC, the blog says. Critics, including former French pubTV President de Carlois, railed against what they saw as government interference with the public airwaves.

Independent Lens has announced that actress America Ferrera — aka “Ugly Betty” — is this season’s host for the popular documentary series. Her portrayal of Betty Suarez on the ABC comedy has earned her an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as ALMA and Imagen Awards. The new season begins Oct. 19.

Columnist Bob Davis of the Anniston (Ala.) Star misses Bill Moyers on PBS. In his Sunday (Sept. 5) column, Davis recalls a long-ago trip to Marshall, Texas, to see the city’s holiday decorations. Lights, lights everywhere. “Then came the capper, the ultimate, at least for a news junkie like me,” Davis writes. “It was a string of lights in the shape of one of Marshall’s most famous sons, Bill Moyers, the journalist and former Johnson administration spokesman. The figure even had small circles of Christmas lights in the shape of Moyer’s eyeglasses.” No photo, so you’ll just have to enjoy that mental image of yours.

A new 13-week series of forums on ethics on an international scale begins this month on MHz Worldview, the channel announced Friday (Sept. 3). Global Ethics Forum is a weekly show produced by the Carnegie Ethics Studio, a division of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Experts will “navigate the murky moral landscapes presented by global politics, development, and international business,” the announcement said.

More than 6,000 children so far have turned out for the “Reach for the Sky” project during the month of Ramadan in Abu Dhabi, co-sponsored by Sesame Street, the Emirates News Agency said this week (Sept. 2). The public TV characters interacted with the kids for the science-based outreach. “We noticed the children’s enthusiasm to learn more about outer space while watching them working hard on making their own rockets and assembling and operating robots,” said Dr. Abdullah Ismail Abdullah, Senior Advisor to the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy science, technology and environment program, which runs nightly at the Marina Mall Abu Dhabi throughout the Islamic holy month.

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, with its partners Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and the University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism school, has distributed more than 20 major reports to news outlets serving more than 2 million residents in the state and surrounding areas in just over one year, reports American Journalism Review. One big collaborative project in February examined the underreporting of sexual assaults on college campuses. That was a joint project among the Investigative News Network, the Center for Public Integrity, National Public Radio and five nonprofit investigative centers around the country. “It’s been an amazing first year full of more challenges and more successes than I could have imagined,” said Andy Hall, center director.