The Association of Public Television Stations thanked advocates beyond the D.C. Beltway APTS gave its David J. Brugger Grassroots Advocacy Award to Dr. Louis Sullivan, board chair of the Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collaborative Inc. and former U.S. secretary of health and human services. The Brugger Award, named for the former APTS president, recognizes an individual who has shown “exemplary leadership in advocacy on behalf of public television,” APTS said. APTS’ National Advocacy Awards for 2010 saluted individuals or stations that exemplify effective advocacy for pubTV. Recipients were: Malcolm Brett of Wisconsin Public Television, Molly Phillips of Iowa Public Television, and Rob Shuman of Maryland Public Television.

The Secret Life of Scientists, produced by Seftel Productions for WGBH’s Nova unit, won a Streamy The online series on PBS.org was judged the best reality or documentary series in the Streamy Awards announced in May. What’s a Streamy? Streamy awards, which just had their second annual outing, recognize program series streamed on the Internet — a category that Streamy organizers believe is a big enough deal that it warrants this new competition apart from the Webbie awards. The e.p. of The Secret Life of Scientists has had notable successes in an early cable “reality” hit as well as public TV and indie docs.

Zeleznik tapped for Leo C. Lee Award Maryanne Zeleznik, news director of Cincinnati’s WVXU, received the annual Leo C. Lee Award from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. during its annual conference in Louisville last week. PRNDI also bestowed 93 awards for public radio work produced in 2009. Among Division A stations, with five or more full-time news staffers, WAMU received three awards, Chicago’s WBEZ, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Pasadena’s KPCC won two each. In Division B, with three or four full-timers, Nashville Public Radio, Connecticut’s WSHU and Cincinnati’s WVXU took home two apiece. Among smaller stations, KCLU (Thousand Oaks, Cal.)

The Association of Public Television Stations is lobbying against two congressional proposals to eliminate millions in pubcasting funding. Republican Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn this week introduced a bill to eliminate all federal funding to CPB after FY 2012. That now has 12 cosponsors, all Republican. In a Dear Colleague letter Lamborn sent to House members Wednesday (June 16), he said that government funding of public broadcasting is “completely unnecessary in a world of 500-channel cable TV and cell phone Internet access.” He also referred to pubcasting as a “nonessential service.” Also, late last week, Democratic Ohio Rep. Charles Wilson introduced a bill to eliminate PTFP.

In the first of a two-part series today (June 17) on KCTS’s CEO Moss Bresnahan, the Crosscut news website delves into the Seattle station’s improving financial outlook and plans for the future. By year’s end, Bresnahan said, KCTS will focus more efforts on civics and public affairs. It will partner with local NPR affiliate KPLU-FM and Investigate West, a nonprofit journalism group, on several projects. And it’s making the weekly public affairs program KCTS Connects year-round, instead of taking a summer hiatus. Other projects include arts, history and science initiatives. The station is concentrating more on major giving and reducing pledge drives — from 120 last year to just over 100 this year.

Pubcasters have been awarded two of 12 grants from the Knight News Challenge, which funds digital technology for innovative journalism efforts, the Knight Foundation announced today (June 16). This fourth round of winners in the international contest received $2.74 million in grants. John Davidow of WBUR in Boston got $250,000 for his Order in the Court 2.0. Davidow wants to provide the public greater access to the judicial process by establishing best practices for digital courts coverage that can be replicated nationwide. He envisions a courtroom area for live blogging via WiFi, and live streaming of proceedings. He’ll also work with Massachusetts courts to publish a daily docket on the web and build an online glossary of common legal terms.

Good news out of South Carolina. State lawmakers continue to debate their way through overriding Gov. Mark Sanford’s 107 budget amendments, but they’ve decided to spare South Carolina ETV the ax, reports local ABC affiliate News 4 in Charleston. At risk was more than $5 million of its $10 million in state support.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting filmmaker Chip Hitchcock last week returned from Iraq, where he was embedded for nearly three weeks with a National Guard unit from Dunbar, W. Va., the Charleston station reports. “In my opinion, there’s nowhere near enough media coverage of U.S. troops in Iraq anymore,” Dunbar said. The Dunbar unit trains Iraqi police and justice officials, “the most important thing that American troops still have to do,” he said. Hitchcock also has produced a series of four documentaries featuring West Virginians telling their stories after coming home from deployment in Iraq, titled “Bridgeport to Baghdad.”

Public Interactive has chosen Drupal, the open source content management system, for the new web publishing system that is about to launch piloting on six client station websites, including one created through a content partnership between KUT and the Texas Tribune. Doug Gaff, PI’s new director of technology, announced the decision on the Inside NPR blog: “While all of the major CMSes are excellent in their own right, Drupal was an especially good fit for the platform. It’s one of the most extensible and general-purpose CMSes in use today. It has one of the strongest and most active open source communities.

WNET announced yesterday (June 15) that it reached a settlement of a dispute with the federal government over the station’s use and accounting of millions in grants. The station said in a release that it agreed to repay $950,000 to the government and forgo reimbursement of about $1 million in expenses under awarded grants it has not yet received. The federal investigation revealed last year (Current, Sept. 21, 2009) involved $13 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. As part of the settlement, WNET hired compliance officer Evelyn Mendez and “adopted a plan to make sure issues of this nature don’t arise again,” President Neal Shapiro wrote in a memo to the staff.

Julius Knapp, the Federal Communication Commission’s deputy chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, today announced in his blog the release of an FCC paper, “Spectrum Analysis: Options for Broadband Spectrum.” It supports recommendations in the National Broadband Plan that 120 MHz of the broadcast spectrum be turned over for wireless use. “We cannot emphasize strongly enough two critical points that are the cornerstones of the paper,” he stressed: Any contributions of spectrum by TV broadcasters for an auction will be voluntary, and viewers will still be able to watch free over-the-air TV. The paper “offers provocative ideas that deserve to be fully vetted and considered,” Knapp said.

NPR President Vivian Schiller talked about the challenges and rewards of reporting collaborations during last weekend’s Investigative Reporters and Editors conference: “[A partnership] will succeed only if it results in good, serious, enduring work. And not if it’s about next news flavor of the month. And certainly not solely because it’s a cheaper model.” She also spoke at length about the investigative unit that NPR established in January: “The next step in our ambition is to help our member stations do better investigative work at the local level where so much reporting has simply gone away. And we know to do that we must partner.

Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., presented its 17th annual Fred Friendly First Amendment Award to Gwen Ifill of PBS’s Washington Week, during a luncheon today (June 14) at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. The award, named for the former CBS News president, acknowledges those who have shown courage in preserving the Constitutional right. “Gwen is a top writer, great reporter and fine communicator,” said Ruth Friendly, Friendly’s widow, who presented the award. “She is gutsy, determined and dedicated to her craft. . . . I can’t help but to feel the presence of Fred today. He would be nodding hearty approval, too.”

New Jersey Network Interim Director Howard Blumenthal and his leadership of Philadelphia’s indie pubcaster MiND TV (WYBE)  is the focus of a story Sunday (June 13) in the Bergen, N.J., Record. His “bold privatization plan” (PDF) to transfer the TV/radio network to a nonprofit would “unload a taxpayer asset with an estimated value of $200 million,” the paper says. During his time as CEO of MiND TV, it paid a fine for airing commercials; Blumenthal said an oversight by busy staff members led to the fine. Also, net assets for MiND dropped 16 percent. But Douglas Eakeley, chairman of the NJN Foundation, supports Blumenthal and his plan, which has been called a “radical restructuring” by the  Record.

South Carolina Educational TV is the latest in an ever-growing number of stations facing state budget cuts. ETV finds out Tuesday (June 15) if it will see over 50 percent cut, more than $5 million of its $10 million in state support, the South Carolina Radio Network reports. On Friday (June 11) ETV posted an “emergency alert” asking viewers to contact state legislators to protest the cutback, which it says would have a “crippling effect” on services. ETV is statewide network with 11 pubTV stations, eight radio transmitters and a closed circuit educational telecommunications system to schools statewide. The cut may force ETV to discontinue its public safety and local government training, it said.