PubTV WLIW21 on Long Island has issued an apology to several Polish organizations regarding a an item in its current program guide, reports the Canada Free Press. The station apologized to the Polish American Congress, the Kosciuszko Foundation and the Polish Consulate for describing the Auschwitz concentration camp that Hitler’s SS operated in German-occupied Poland as “Polish” instead of German. The program in question, “Swimming in Auschwitz,” is being broadcast “as part of WLIW21’s special programming in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day throughout April as a way of acknowledging all the victims of Nazi actions,” the statement added.

When NPR’s Tovia Smith reported on March 24 about her network’s record-setting audience growth, the coverage made “a few folks inside NPR” uncomfortable,” reports Ombudsman Alicia Shepard in her latest column. Smith filed stories for NPR newscasts and for All Things Considered about dramatic growth of NPR’s audience last fall, and she included details about NPR’s recent financial troubles. To some NPR insiders it “sounded like an appeal for money,” especially as it aired while some stations were running pledge drives, Shepard wrote. NPR Managing Editor Brian Duffy explained the assignment in an email: “My thinking was that NPR does a very good job of being transparent about the bad news–layoffs, cutting shows,” he wrote.

There ARE other smartphones capable of running apps besides the iPhone. Last week BlackBerry launched BlackBerry App World (you have to use Microsoft’s browser for access), It offers Pandora, Clear Channel and Slacker audio players, AOL and Yahoo instant messengers, a New York Times shortcut, MySpace and Bloomberg apps. (BlackBerry’s maker, RIM, gets a 20 percent cut of every app sale, and cell companies want a cut, too, according to MoCoNews.) Palm is inviting developers to write apps for its new smartphone operating system. The Pocket Tunes online radio player, recommended by satisifed listener Izzy Smith, is now offered for earlier Palm and Windows Mobile smartphones as well as iPhones.

The Pacifica Radio board is moving to “secure our broadcast signals should we need to prevent legal liability,” according to a statement late last week. The precautionary measures will be taken at all Pacifica five stations under advice of counsel. New York’s WBAI owes the Pacifica Foundation at least $800,000. It’s been operating at a deficit of at least $30,000 per month. Fundraising has declined about 12 percent per year since 2003. Unpaid rent for the office and transmitter facility is nearly $198,000. “Pacifica no longer has the reserves to underwrite WBAI’s continuing deficits,” the statement says. Pacifica’s interim CFO, LaVarn Williams, is traveling to WBAI assess the situation.

“Doctors’ Diaries,” the 21-year doc project concluding tomorrow on Nova, draws rave reviews from Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik. He writes: “The editing is superb in its fluidity. In fact, I do not believe I have ever seen a PBS documentary that was more perfectly edited. As a viewer, you feel like you are skating along on a perfect sheet of words and imagery, and then, boom, suddenly [producer-director Michael] Barnes stops you in your tracks to make a major point about the price that must be paid to join the medical priesthood.” The project follows seven Harvard Medical School students, beginning in 1987, through their education, internships, professional careers and personal lives.

WGBH is instituting a one-week staff furlough, cuts in executive salaries and suspension of employee retirement matching funds in an attempt to ease a projected $3 million budget gap for fiscal 2009, according to the Boston Business Journal. CEO Jon Abbott announced the moves in a memo to employees Thursday. He’s also asking members of the unions at the pubTV and radio stations, the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians and the Association of the Employees of Educational Foundation, to agree to a furlough; those savings would exceed $500,000. All all vice presidents are taking a 5 percent pay cut.

Next week PBS stations should begin receiving requests for input for the network’s Dues Review Task Force. John King, the task force chair, reported at this week’s PBS board meeting there will be a new dues model for the 2011 fiscal year. “The principle focus of meetings now is to define the purpose, scope and principles of the review,” he told the board. The group is examining dues models used by other organizations as well as PBS. The next face-to-face meeting will be June 7, probably in Washington. Public comments will be allowed. King realizes the tough job ahead. “Any time you look at dues for PBS it’s always tricky,” he told Current.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, a popular host of PBS’ Nova, says the humans must do something about the approaching asteroid Apophis. “I don’t want to be the laughing stock of the galaxy and go extinct as a species because we didn’t do something about it,” he said at the 25th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs this week. The massive asteroid is predicted to pass between the Earth and communication satellites on April 13, 2029. (That’s a Friday, by the way.) Tyson received the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award at the confab.

PBS newsman Jim Lehrer, out on tour for his latest novel, Oh Johnny, paused for a question and answer session with The Sacramento Bee. How has he found time to write 19 novels, two memoirs, two screenplays and three stage plays? “It goes back to when I had a heart attack 25 years ago. I was recovering and the doctor said, ‘You ought to prioritize the rest of your time.’ So I did. By not doing the things I don’t want to do, I have plenty of time to do the things I do want to do.”

Oprah Winfrey is confirmed as the first guest on the Michael Eric Dyson Show launching April 6 on public radio stations in 18 markets. Dr. Dyson, an author, academic and social commentator who previously hosted a talk show syndicated by Radio One, said his public radio series will deal with “several topics about which I care deeply–politics, religion, economic policy, arts and culture.” The African American Public Radio Consortium, which partnered with NPR to create The Tavis Smiley Show, News and Notes and Tell Me More, teamed up with WEAA in Baltimore to produce the one-hour series, airing weekdays.

PBS ombudsman Michael Getler’s latest column is up. An interview with Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Now on PBS prompted much of the viewer feedback. Arpaio is sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, which borders Mexico. In the show critics accused him of racial profiling.

NPR Labs will do additional research to determine how much broadcasters should increase power to increase the reach of digital HD Radio signals without unduly interfering with analog FM reception. The study, funded by CPB, would be completed in time for the NAB Radio Show in Philadelphia Sept. 23-25. NPR Labs said last fall that boosting HD Radio power tenfold, as proposed by major commercial radio groups, would have significant costs in listening quality in certain geographical areas. The earlier study found that 41 percent of pubradio stations could no longer be heard on one-third or more of the car radios they can now reach.

Bonnie Erbe, host of To the Contrary on PBS, is drawing attention with her U.S. News & World Report blog post titled, “In a Recession, Abortions are Not a Bad Choice.”

John McCoskey, PBS’ chief technology officer, spoke with TV Technology about ongoing financial and DTV challenges, as well as the upcoming PBS Technology Conference. PBS’s continuing goal for stations, McCoskey says, “is to have normal workflows [that] require little human interaction, freeing-up staff to focus on things that need expertise and decision-making.” He cited the NOC staff in Springfield, Va., that is remotely managing station operations for some members, “so they can run unattended for several hours a day to reduce operational costs.”

In a first move toward reforming the Universal Service Fund, leaders of the the House Energy & Commerce Committee are requesting information on the program from FCC Chairman Michael Copps. Telecom firms pay into the fund to support rural communications services. Word on the Hill is there’s support on both sides of the aisle for the committee’s work on the issue. One idea: Extend the fund to cover broadband access.