More than 40 stories of black families recorded by the ongoing CPB-funded StoryCorps Griot Project are on the website of the Smithsonian’s newest museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum, expected to be built on the Mall by 2015, aims to raise half of its expected $500 million cost and went online early to show donors that it’s already at work, the Associated Press reported. The Griot Project mobile recording booth has already swung through Atlanta, Newark, Detroit, Chicago and Oakland and will be in Holly Springs, Miss., tomorrow through Oct. 6, and moves on to Clarksdale, Oct.

PBS received nine Emmys last night in the 2007 News and Doc ceremony in New York last night; CBS came in second among the networks with five. Both Frontline and P.O.V. drew special awards for excellence from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Of the nine Emmys, six went to WGBH, including two to American Experience, two to Frontline and one each to Frontline World and one to Nova. Three went to WNET, including two to Nature and one to America’s Investigative Reports. Here’s the complete list.

Jesse Thorn (“America’s Radio Sweetheart”) doesn’t mind that Esquire has listed his high-energy show, The Sound of Young America, in The Esquire 100. Esquire endorses it as “a public radio show that’s specifically designed not for the kind of people who carry around canvas NPR tote bags.” You want to check it out because: Listening to the show “won’t feel like a civic duty.” (Thorn himself compares the show to Fresh Air, “but more fun.”) Thorn and friends started the show in 2000 at the college station at UC Santa Cruz. Salon.com called his show “the greatest radio show you’ve never heard.”

The online build-your-own Democratic presidential debate–hosted by PBS’s Charlie Rose–has attracted more than 1 million users since it premiered on Sept. 13, reports the Los Angeles Times. The site, created by Yahoo!, Slate.com and The Huffington Post, allows users to compare video of each candidate answering Rose’s inquiries about the Iraq War, health care and education. However, users seem more interested in another feature–the “wild card” questions posed by Bill Maher.

"Let’s face it," writes a prominent pubradio station news director, "despite 40 years of evolution, we have produced a lot of journalism, but we still lack full commitment. Especially local news commitment."

The Commerce Department’s Public Telecommunications Facilities Program announced its annual grants, grouped by state, this year totalling $22.4 million, two-thirds for DTV conversion. Twenty-four stations got aid to buy emergency generators. Some of the radio grants help launch the first pubradio signals for five localities.

NPR announced today that Alicia C. Shepard has been named the new NPR Ombudsman. In a memo sent to Jim Romenesko, NPR President Kevin Close said, “Lisa brings a strong portfolio in analyzing and explaining journalism and media policy. She is currently teaching a graduate-level course in Media Ethics at Georgetown University and writing a chapter on the media for the Center for Public Integrity’s forthcoming book, The Buying of the President. She has also served as a journalism instructor at American University and the University of Texas.” Shepard recently published the book Woodward & Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate and is co-author of Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11.

The trustees of a small Seventh-Day Adventist college just outside Washington, D.C., took its noncommercial FM station off the market yesterday, giving up, at least for now, expanding its thin endowment by some $20 million that American Public Media offered for WGTS. “The Lord performed a miracle today and we give him all the praise and thanks for what happened,” says John Konrad, g.m., in announcements on the station and its website. The college didn’t explain the board’s decision or say whether the decision was final. Konrad said the sale was off “for now.” If APM bought 91.9, its format was expected to leap from “family-friendly” Christian rock music to secular news/talk.

In today’s PBS ombudsman’s column, Michael Getler posts letters from viewers who are angry about Iowa Public Television and AARP’s exclusion of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel from tonight’s debate.

Dennis Kucinich chastized AARP and Iowa Public Television in a recent release for excluding him from tonight’s Democratic Presidential Forum, which will focus on health care and financial security. The Iowa Democratic Party has said Kucinich does not have an “active organization” in the state. Kucinich said: “How can AARP and Iowa Public Television claim they are committed to education and informing the voters of Iowa on the number one domestic issue in this campaign when they deny a voice to the only candidate who is leading the effort to bring real reform to the health care system by ending the control of for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies?”

The companion book to Ken Burns’ The War, co-authored with Geoffrey C. Ward, “was released last week and makes its debut today at No. 34 on USA TODAY‘s Best-Selling Books list,” reports the paper. The $50 book follows successful print renditions of The Civil War and Baseball.

“The leading contenders for the Republican nomination have indicated they will not attend the All American Presidential Forum organized by black talk show host Tavis Smiley, scheduled for Sept. 27 at Morgan State University in Baltimore and airing on PBS,” reports the Washington Post. Party leaders are concerned this decision may further alienate black and Latino voters–earlier this month, top GOP candidates (except McCain) declined an invition to debate on Univision.

“Four protests of [Ken] Burns’ documentary at local PBS stations are planned Sunday in California; a Capitol rally is to be held in Austin, Texas; others will hold exhibits, commemoration days and panel discussions in their cities,” reports the AP on Latino groups’ continuing opposition to Burns’ 15-hour PBS series The War, which premieres Sunday evening.

San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre, who requested public records from KPBS after it cancelled the public affairs show Full Focus, explained his actions in a recent press release: “Since the public records request was made public by KPBS, I’ve received more citizen concerns questioning whether KPBS is fulfilling its responsiblity as a public broadcasting station for the people. In addition, the Editors Rondtable‘s [a KPBS weekly radio program] regular opinon-maker is the Union-Tribune‘s Editorial Director, and people have expressed concern that the newspaper already enjoys a virtual monopoly on editorial content disseminated to the citizens of San Diego.”

Online voting is underway on five-minute demos created by the five remaining contestants in the Public Radio Talent Quest.