A Central Michigan University Public Broadcasting truck was vandalized between 5 p.m. Tuesday (May 25) and 8 a.m. Wednesday. The driver and passenger side windows were shattered, reports Central Michigan Live. CMU Police Officer Bill Martinez said landscaping stones around the PBS affiliate building in Mount Pleasant, Mich., are somtimes used for similar vandalism. As the news website notes, Martinez mentioned the building’s proximity to local bars as a “contributing factor.” Damage is estimated at $400.

New York Times senior business correspondent Micheline Maynard will oversee the Upper Midwest Local Journalism Center, one of seven around the country funded by CPB (Current, April 5, 2010). Michigan Radio, WBEZ FM-Chicago and Cleveland’s ideastream (90.3 WCPN and WVIZ/PBS) are collaborating on the coverage theme of “Changing Gears: Remaking the Manufacturing Belt,” which traces the transformation of the region’s industrial-based economy to one with a post-manufacturing focus. In addition to her newspaper work, she teaches college and has written four books, including 2009’s The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream (Random House).

Public radio news veteran Michael Skoler will join Public Radio International as v.p. of interactive media on June 1. Skoler, founding director of American Public Media’s Center for Innovation in Journalism, established the Public Insight Journalism model for tapping listeners’ expertise in news reporting. His earlier reporting career included stints at NPR as African bureau chief, science correspondent and science editor/producer. At PRI Skoler will develop interactive strategies for PRI programs and spearhead new digital content initiatives. “I’ve learned that culture is even more important than strategy for success in today’s networked media world,” Skolar said in a statement. “PRI has both — a creative, risk-taking culture and clear-eyed strategy for creating value.”

Click here for Current’s slideshow of LZ Lambeau photographs, shot by Senior Editor Dru Sefton. More coverage of the Wisconsin Public Television outreach in the next issue of Current, June 7.

The Bay Citizen, the online news start-up in which KQED was to have been a founding partner, launches today with a top story on how San Francisco’s wealthiest homeowners benefit from a property tax loophole written into California’s Proposition 13. The public media group, formerly known as the Bay Area News Project, has recruited a team of 13 editor/writers and two interns; among them is Queena Kim, a Makers Quest 2.0 grant recipient and producer/reporter who left Pasadena’s KPCC to join the launch team as community editor. Editor-in-chief Jon Weber plans to partner, not compete, with local bloggers and nontraditional news outlets, reports the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Event organizers have announced the final count of visitors to LZ Lambeau, Wisconsin Public TV’s massive “welcome home” for Vietnam vets last weekend. More than 70,000 people attended over the three days, and some 26,000 were present for the Saturday evening tribute event (above, Current image). Despite rain on Friday, 1,244 motorcycles completed the LZL Honor Ride from LaCrosse, Wisc., to Lambeau Field. A TV crew from PBS affiliate WGVU in Grand Rapids, Mich., was there capturing the happenings and getting tips for its LZ Michigan in July. “It’s moving, and it impacts more than just, ‘Here’s a documentary,’ or, ‘Here’s an event,'” Timothy Eernisse, development and marketing manager for WGVU, told the Green Bay ABC affiliate.

Curious about Tweeting and the Monday Public Media Chats? Get up to speed Wednesday (May 26) at a Peer Webinar sponsored by the National Center for Media Engagement and American Public Media. Learn how to Tweet and Twitter and engage in all those other birdlike social media techniques from Rob Bole, CPB’s veep of digital media strategy; Katie Kemple, PR and social media consultant; Julia Schrenkler, interactive producer, digital media, Minnesota Public Radio; Jonathan Coffman, PBS product manager, social media; Adam Schweigert, director of new media at WFIU/WTIU in Bloomington, Ind.; and pubmedia consultant and prolific blogger John Proffitt. The one-hour webinar kicks off at 2 p.m.

American Public Television’s new contracts manager is entertainment attorney John Taxiarchis, said APT President Cynthia Fenneman in a statement today (May 25). Taxiarchis’ experience also includes intellectual property and new media, “both also important to APT,” Fenneman said. Taxiarchis will report to David Fournier, APT finance and administration veep.

Gravity Medium blogger John Proffitt weighs in on the bridge-burning farewell letter from former WLIW/WNET producer Sam Toperoff, which is quite the buzz throughout the system.

Ever read Mr. Ed’s obituary? How about the Flying Nun’s? Barry Nelson, WGBH’s director of on-air fundraising, has a new book out with those and more, co-authored with Tom Schecker. Mr. Ed: Dead! provides obits for everyone from Betty Crocker to Holden Caulfield. Why? They each had a fictional life and deserve “an equally creative death,” as the book’s website says. “We think it’s the perfect book for the public radio generation(s),” Nelson told Current, “filled with popular culture references and the kind of satirical humor they’ve been enjoying for years, such as The Onion and National Lampoon.” Nelson said the book will be available as a thank-you gift for pledge campaigns.

Millions of dollars in pubcasting funding through the Commerce Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture was cited Monday (May 24) as an instance of “programs that are heavily earmarked or not merit-based as well as those that are plainly wasteful and duplicative” by the Office of Management and Budget. Director Peter Orszog said in an OMB blog posting that President Barack Obama has sent to Capitol Hill the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010, which Politico describes as “a line-item veto with a twist: The president would have a limited time after a bill is passed to submit a package of rescissions that must be considered by Congress in straight up or down votes.”

Jim Kutzner, PBS chief engineer, is chairing the next-generation broadcast TV team of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, Television Broadcast reports. It’s one of three working teams, the other two probing the feasibility and market requirements for 3DTV, and broadcast Internet TV. Kutzner’s group will look at tech that might be used to “define a future terrestrial broadcast digital television standard,” according to the ATSC. The organization sets the tech standards for American broadcast television. It held its annual meeting last week in Pentagon City, Va., where the latest initiatives were announced.

The third Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will go to Sir Paul McCartney at a special concert in the East Room of the White House on June 2, the Librarian of Congress James Billington announced May 24. The show will recorded by WETA as one of the “In Performance at the White House” series, to air on PBS July 28 (check local listings). The concert will feature tributes to McCartney by stars including Stevie Wonder, Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Dave Grohl, Jack White, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Herbie Hancock and Corinne Bailey, as well as remarks by Jerry Seinfeld.

To meet its CPB grant requirements, KEDM in Monroe, La., has scheduled an emergency fundraising drive for June 2 -4. CPB Community Service Grant criteria calls for the university-owned station to raise 48 cents for every potential listener in its service area, or $152,000 annually, G.M. Joel Willer tells the local News Star. “We have been really falling short for some time and it’s finally catching up to us.” The station needs to raise $45,000 if it is to meet CPB’s standard. KEDU licensee, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, has stipulated that programs will be cut if the station doesn’t raise at least $30,000.

Pubcasting blogger John Proffitt today tackles “Closed vs. Open: Why Public Media Struggles With New Media.” The two types “are philosophically different, possibly opposed. One embraces community, drawing in participation and ‘hosting’ conversation and engagement. The other treats the public as a media receiver. Sure, there are some middle grounds here, but this is a big difference that has powered, silently, a lot of conversations in which I’ve participated, without realizing it. No wonder we struggle with this. No wonder there’s both dismissal of the new as irrelevant to the mission and nevertheless pitched battles over who will control the social network engagements, who gets or shares in the online revenue, and how and when content will or won’t appear online.