Cindy Browne, founding head of Iowa Public Radio and longtime exec at Twin Cities Public Television (TPT), died Sunday night, Nov. 9, after a long fight against cancer, according to former colleague Todd Mundt. He wrote in his blog: “Cindy was the most courageous person I ever knew; throughout her life, she confronted change, in her career, in her health, some of it unwelcome, and yet she was a fount of optimism, and maintained a laser-like focus on what she needed to do.” A memorial service will be held Friday, 4-8 p.m., at Holcomb Henry Boom Funeral Home in Shoreview, Minn.

Vivian Schiller, senior v.p. of NYTimes.com, has been appointed as NPR’s next president and c.e.o. Schiller, who will be the first woman to helm NPR, previously was a senior executive with the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications, and led CNN Productions, specializing in long-form documentary work. “Her roots in the news business, as well as her inclusive management style and operational expertise, make her an ideal fit for NPR.,” said Howard Stevenson, NPR Chairman in this news release. His memo to NPR staff is posted here. Schiller’s first day on the job is Jan.

To attract younger listeners, public radio needs to “get off the news mountaintop,” former NPR host and correspondent Luke Burbank told station execs at last week’s Western States Public Radio conference. “Don’t talk down–be at eye level,” he said. Burbank, who departed NPR’s Gen X-targeted Bryant Park Project shortly after its launch last year, offered six suggestions for bringing younger adults into the public radio fold, reported by KUOW’s Jeff Hansen on the PRPD blog. From Burbank’s perspective as one of two full-time staff on a daily commercial talk show in Seattle, BPP was “overstaffed, overly-expensive, and over-supervised,” Hansen writes.

Lindsey is embarking on a vast project to collect elders’ knowledge from around the world — their methods of predicting future events, reconciling people in conflict, and understanding causes and effects of climate change.

Nic Harcourt, KCRW’s eclectic music tastemaker for 10 years, will leave the Santa Monica, Calif., station later this month. “It’s not the politician’s thing, like, ‘Oh, I’m spending more time with my kids’,” Harcourt told the Los Angeles Times [scroll down]. “The bottom line is I’ve been in public radio for 10 years, and regardless of how great my job is, I make public radio money, and I have two 5 year-olds. I have to think about their future … I’m going to busy. I’m looking forward to building some equity for myself.” Harcourt looks to “explore new career opportunities and expand upon my other activities in movie, television, voice over work, advertising and the Internet,” he said in a statement.

WHYY in Philadelphia distinguishes itself among public broadcasting outlets for excessive compensation of its chief executive, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday. Citing the latest tax filing for Philly’s major pubcasting outlet, the Inquirer reported that President and CEO William Marrazzo’s total compensation of $740,090 in 2007 included $415,993 in salary, $317,240 in benefits and $6,857 in expenses. “Marrazzo’s total outstripped that of chief executives at WNET and WGBH, with five and six times WHYY’s revenues,” the Inquirer reported. “It also exceeded the compensation of the heads of the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio, networks that serve stations countrywide.” Board Chairman Jerry Sweeney told the Inquirer that Marrazzo’s compensation is tied to performance and necessary to retain him as top executive.

The afternoon team at Chicago’s newest noncommercial radio station is on the air, talking crime and punishment. Most public radio shows would steer a conversation about the city police force along a course charted by producers well in advance and predictably typecast with expert pontificators. Not Vocalo.org. Host-producer Robin Amer shares news of a personnel change in the Chicago police, a nugget fresh from the website of the Chicago Sun-Times. Co-hosts Dan Weissman and Luis Perez grill her for details from the just-published bulletins in front of her. So far, no one here knows many facts to add to the breaking news, but the loose discussion opens a window for soliciting other perspectives on policing.

New Jersey’s state-owned NJN network confirmed yesterday that Elizabeth Christopherson, executive director for 14 years, will leave the job Dec. 1. She told the NJN staff in a memo on Monday. Spokeswoman Ronnie Weyl said the director has a new job, yet to be announced. Christopherson has not won state leaders’ support for NJN’s proposal to become an independent nonprofit. The blog PolitickerNJ.com reported yesterday that the proposal was pronounced “dead.” That assessment came from an official of the state treasurer’s office during yesterday’s state Public Broadcasting Authority meeting, Weyl said.

The University of Michigan’s WFUM-TV in Flint, Mich., is the latest of a growing number of pubTV stations to plan an early turnoff of analog broadcasting. WFUM will turn off both its analog and digital transmitters Nov. 19 for three days while Thomson technicians move the DTV signal generators into its Channel 28 transmitter. The analog will stay off. On Nov. 22, the station will resume DTV broadcasts but on the old channel long used for analog, Director of Engineering Wayne Henderson tells Current. Starting Nov. 19 — 90 days before the nationwide analog turnoff Feb. 17 — the FCC allows analog turnoffs by stations that follow a streamlined notification procedure.

Cincinnati’s and Dayton’s public TV stations announced today that they will merge but keep their local identities and facilities. David Fogarty, head of Dayton’s ThinkTV for 15 years, will serve as president of the merged nonprofit, the Dayton Daily News reported today; Susan Howarth of Cincinnati’s CET, described in the news release as an “enthusiastic proponent” of the merger, will leave. Fogarty was a producer and executive at Twin Cities PTV, a Peace Corps worker in Colombia and an ABC News producer before coming to Dayton.

CPB advertised Monday to hire a person or organization to scope out the proposed American Archive of pubcasting content. Proposals for management of the one-year, $3 million pilot program are due by Nov. 14. The manager, which must have experience in big-project management and digitization, will use an RFP to select a group of pilot radio and TV stations and assist the coding and digitization of their program archives. The project will also create a “substantial” sample online archive and prototype demo by the ides of March 2009; do research on costs, storage and restorage techniques and criteria for selection of materials to be archived; and develop best practices and training materials.

“For abject gloominess, it would be hard to top “The War Briefing,” Frontline‘s deeply reported look at the war in Afghanistan and the insurgency targeting Pakistan,” writes Tony Perry in a Los Angeles Times review. The doc “finds nothing but bad news for the U.S. and NATO effort — not enough Western troops, weak central governments in Kabul and Islamabad, and an enemy funded by heroin profits and increasing in size and lethality. … The major thesis is not new — that the U.S. didn’t follow through after the quick knockdown of the Taliban following the terrorist attacks of Sept.

A survey of 1,400 adults by the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and the United Nations Foundation about religion and America’s role in the world found that “the vast majority of Americans believes the U.S. has a moral obligation to be engaged on the global stage in a variety of ways,” reported Bob Abernethy on the program’s Oct. 24 edition (transcript here). “At the same time, Americans are divided about equally on whether the U.S. has a positive or negative impact on the world.” The survey found that 61 percent of Americans believe that God has “uniquely blessed” the U.S. 

The four-year struggle to establish WRNI in Providence, R.I., as an independent public radio service for the state crossed a long-awaited threshold last month, when its aspiring licensee announced the station’s independence from Boston’s WBUR, the NPR News powerhouse that partnered with local pubradio supporters to establish WRNI a decade ago. Rhode Island Public Radio, the station’s licensee-to-be, began operating WRNI-AM Sept. 1 under a management contract with Boston University’s WBUR Group. The agreement anticipates state approval of the $2 million sale under loan terms covered by WBUR and its university licensee. “We don’t anticipate difficulty in getting a favorable ruling,” said RIPR Chairman Jim Marsh.

NPR’s Andy Carvin offers a video tour of NPR’s election studio.