A week of rallies, petitions, public service announcements and entreaties to Congress persuaded the House of Representatives to restore the $400 million appropriation for next year that Congress advance-funded two years ago.

Public TV has to move on two fronts to protect Ready to Learn, the Department of Education grant program that supports several PBS Kids series.

“Then on Thursday a Rove dream came true: Patricia Harrison … ascended to the CPB presidency,” writes Frank Rich in a New York Times op-ed today. The right doesn’t want to kill off public broadcasting, Rich says, but “annex it to the larger state propaganda machine….”

Dora the Explorer runs circles around Barney & Friends, according to this Slate analysis of kidvid marketing strategies.

Public radio commentator Gabriel Wisdom was kicked off San Diego’s KPBS-FM and booted from Marketplace after one of his commentaries for the business show sounded remarkably like a column in Slate.

People for the American Way called it a “landslide.” Urged on by pubcasting backers around the country, the House voted 284-140 to restore $100 million cut from CPB’s budget in a subcommittee, AP reported. However, the House did not undo the $23 million deletion of the Ready to Learn program for children’s TV or $89 million in requested aid for digital transition and pubTV’s satellite system overhaul. More than 80 Republicans joined Democrats in supporting an amendment by Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Jim Leach (R-Iowa), said Free Press, one of several groups that helped pubcasters publicize the issue.

Patricia Harrison, the controversial candidate for the CPB presidency favored by Board Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, has been named President and CEO, AP reports. CPB announced the appointment in a news release as the House debated funding for public broadcasting.

Who supports public broadcasting? In the heat of battle over federal funding to the field, “Democrats in Congress and liberal organizations have emerged as public broadcasting’s most visible and vocal supporters, while Republicans and conservatives have stayed mostly silent,” reports the Washington Post.

“The White House is always looking for liberal bias in the news media, and I can help them find it,” writes John Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I can monitor my own column, and write detailed reports about the bias therein.” (Via Romenesko.)

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Bill Moyers on the right wing’s agenda for public broadcasting.

“Mr. Tomlinson has not politicized PBS. Bill Moyers politicized PBS.” So said George Neumayr, executive editor of American Spectator magazine, who appeared on last night’s NewsHour with Kansas City PTV President Bill Reed. “Oh, Bill Moyers — you know, Bill Moyers retired. He keeps bringing up Bill Moyers,” Reed said. “And I hope Bill Moyers comes back. I’d love to have him back on our air.”

“The appointment of the CPB ombudsmen has, indeed, accomplished something: It has sown doubts (or reinforced existing ones) among many listeners (and viewers) that there is something fundamentally wrong at NPR and PBS,” writes NPR ombud Jeffrey Dvorkin in his latest column. (Via Romenesko.)

Slate reviews MSNBC’s new talk show, The Situation with Tucker Carlson, finding it “shallow, but far from unwatchable; it zips along at a healthy clip, getting in a few good digs along the way, and next thing you know it’s over, and you’re no worse off than you were before.”

The researcher who evaluated the political content of Now with Bill Moyers worked for 20 years at a journalism center aligned with the conservative movement, reports the New York Times.