The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today (Sept. 13) announced $3.14 million in matching grants for 19 more community-based projects as part of its five-year Knight Community Information Challenge. More than 75 other initiatives have been funded so far. Several public broadcasters are recipients or partners in this third round of funding, including: — Hiki No, PBS Hawaii, $240,500: To create a statewide student news network linking middle and high schools across the islands. Called Hiki No, Hawaiian for “can do,” the journalism network, in partnership with the PBS affiliate, will produce newscasts on air and online.

Instead of replacing their traditional news outlets, Americans are actually integrating new technologies into their media habits, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. More than 36 percent of Americans got news from both digital and traditional sources the day before they were surveyed, which is just under the number who relied solely on traditional sources, 39 percent. And news audiences are drawn to different sources for different reasons, the survey points out: Headlines, entertainment, in-depth reporting, views and opinions, or a combination. For regular NPR listeners, for instance, “no single reason stands out as to why people watch, read or listen,” the survey says.

The Seattle based ivi today (Sept. 13) launched an app that it claims will provide subscribers live access to more than 20 channels including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, the CW and PBS for $4.99 a month. One catch: Networks that are “involved” with this that were contacted by the Wrap entertainment and media news website knew nothing of their inclusion, much less had even heard of ivi. “Clearly, ivi is operating in a legal gray area,” the Wrap said. “It argues that its status as a cable company allows it to have servers set up in several markets — initially New York and Seattle — that receive transmissions of television signals that originated with other servers and then retransmit them through their app.

Supporters of the San Diego State University licensee will gather for a private gala Tuesday night (Sept. 14) to celebrate the Golden Anniversary, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff will speak, and the station will announce its KPBS Hall of Fame’s first 13 inductees, honoring station pioneers and key donors. And the paper reports that a $3.2 million renovation of the newsroom begins soon. (All that news generated several online comments, including one that said in part: “KPBS is a fistula of lies from the white upper middle class coupled with the moronic linkage to a failing community college that pretends to be a university.”

Frontline‘s authoritative baritone, that uber-narrator Will Lyman, is one of Rolling Stone magazine’s “Best Characters and Most Memorable Scene-Stealers” for the fall TV season. Rolling Stone dubbed him “The Voice.” As Frontline Executive Producer David Fanning told the mag, “Will Lyman could read the phone book and make it feel like it’s important to the country.” Other honorees include Leopold “Butters” Scotch from South Park and the awkward teenage vampire Jessica on True Blood.

Kentucky Educational Television last week (Sept. 9) laid off 13 employees, the Lexington Herald-Leader is reporting. Network spokesperson Tim Bischoff declined to identify the employees. The paper said KET’s full-time staff is now 152, down from 223 during fiscal 2008. “That’s clearly left some voids in very critical positions,” he said. Bischoff noted that KET operating revenue has declined from from $27.8 million in fiscal 2008 to a projected $23 million for fiscal 2011. In that same time, state general funds to KET have fallen from $15 million to $12 million.

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert returns to Chicago’s WTTW, original home of the pubcasting fave At the Movies, in January 2011 with Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. This time around, Ebert is producing. Co-hosting will be Christy Lemire, film critic of The Associated Press, and Elvis Mitchell of KCRW’s The Treatment. In addition to reviewing new releases, the two will comment on new media, classics, on-demand viewing and genres, and there’ll be more on the show’s website. The program will use the famous (and copyrighted) “Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down” format invented by Ebert and his longtime collaborator, Gene Siskel, who died in 1999.

Bill Kling will retire from Minnesota Public Radio and the American Public Media Group, the public radio network and national production company that he founded, built and ran for more than 40 years, APM announced today. Kling, whose commitment to improving public radio service for listeners extended beyond Minnesota and encompassed both news and music formats, plans to leave APM in June 2011 to develop a new initiative aimed at building public media’s regional news services. “Most c.e.o.s count their years in office on the fingers of one hand,” said Randall Hogan, MPR and APM board chair and c.e.o. of Minnesota-based Pentair, Inc.

Take a gander at a few of the best web sites in pubTV, as per pubmedia blogger Chris Beer, who’s also a developer with WGBH Interactive. Sites Beer liked the most had “a mix of good design aesthetic, highlighted local content, and some element of current-ness.”

Made-for-Internet programming is covered for the first time under a new collective bargaining agreement unanimously approved by the Writers Guild of America for public TV writers. A guild statement Wednesday (Sept. 8) also said the contract preserves payments for digital reuse. WGA employees working at WGBH, WNET and KCET will receive rate increases of 2 percent in the second year and 2.75 percent in the third and fourth years of the four-year agreement. Writers at “numerous other, smaller production companies that produce content for PBS” are also covered, according to the statement.

PBS NewsHour has posted a new web page, PBS NewsHour Politics, with stories, video and analysis on daily political developments. There’s a morning blog, top 25 political Twitter feeds and interactive calendar of political events. The program’s David Chalian, Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff will also be there in a web-only Monday daybook previewing news of the week.

CPB Chief Operating Officer Vinnie Curren joined BBC Trust Chairman Michael Lyons, European Broadcasting Union Director General Ingrid Deltenre and NHK Japan Vice President Yoshinori Imai for a keynote session Wednesday (Sept. 8) to open the huge annual IBC media confab in Amsterdam. Indian Television reports that Curren spoke on the importance of localism to public service broadcasters, and cited Wisconsin Public Television’s LZ Lambeau (Current, June 7, 2010) as one good example. The IBC calls itself “the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment and news content worldwide.” More than 45,000 participants from 140 countries attended last year’s meeting.

Judith Lewis has resigned as executive director of the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, nine weeks after Mississippi Public Broadcasting abruptly dropped Fresh Air from its radio schedule July 8, citing “recurring inappropriate content” in the show. In the announcement of her departure, the Authority Board of Directors said it is in the process of filling the position. “Business as usual continues at MPB,” it added. The July 8 move was the the second time in nine months that MPB had yanked Gross’s cultural talk show from the air (Current, July 26, 2010). Also, an MPB reporter’s leak to a local alternative paper of the internal memo discussing the Fresh Air situation cost him his job.

In a statement issued yesterday, WAMU General Manager Caryn Mathes responded to the perceived conflicts of interested cited as examples of questionable journalistic ethics in Tuesday’s Washington Post. The Post pointed to personal and business relationships of Program Director Mark McDonald, who is married to Melinda Wittstock of Capitol News Connection, a D.C.-based news bureau that produces news segments airing on WAMU. He also operates Pundit Media Consulting, a media training service. McDonald disclosed the conflicts of interest in accordance with WAMU policy and is recused from all editorial and business decisions regarding Capitol News Connection, and his consulting practice is separate business from Pundit Productions, the parent company of CNC that Wittstock owns, Mathes said in the statement.

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner, American Public Media and New York Public Radio are joining to present “Freakonomics Radio” this fall, according to a press release from American Public Media Group posted on the Romenesko journalism website. The statement said the show will include “radio, podcast, web and live event programming imbued with the best-selling book’s iconoclastic approach to everyday economics – an approach that has found new ways to catch terrorists (hint: they don’t buy life insurance), and found the answers to questions such as, ‘Which is more dangerous: A gun or a swimming pool?'” It will initially be offered biweekly, then weekly in early 2011.