The Technology for Engagement Initiative is the latest pubmedia project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight foundation, with $2.23 million. It was announced Tuesday (Aug. 24). “Through Tweets, status updates and videos, so many people invest time and energy in making statements online about the issues that matter most to them,” said Paula Ellis, Knight Foundation’s vice president for strategic initiatives. “These projects aim to harness that energy and turn it into on-the-ground action for bettering communities.” According to the announcement, the first projects are: – Craigslist Foundation ($750,000): to make it easy to find field-tested ways to build community, by creating an idea-sharing website.

The National Center for Media Engagement hosts a webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern Thursday (Aug. 26) on outreach opportunities for “God in America,” the six-hour American Experience/Frontline series on PBS in October. Now available to participants is an hourlong segment of the series on the NCME website. Participants include series producer Marilyn Mellowes; Bobbie Fisher, communications director of WHRO in Norfolk, Va., which already has launched engagement activities; Deborah Turner, executive director of DEI’s Leadership for Philanthropy Initiative; and series outreach director Erin Martin Kane. They’ll be discussing partnerships with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, the Fetzer Institute, Sacred Space International, and other groups.

Pubcaster Tavis Smiley will be hosting Farm Aid’s 25th anniversary concert, “Farm Aid 25: Growing Hope for America.” Singer John Mellencamp, a co-founder and board member of Farm Aid, met Smiley at Indiana University and the two have stayed in touch since, according to a press release on Smiley’s website. The all-day benefit concert takes place Oct. 2 at Miller Park in Milwaukee and includes performances by Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, Kenny Chesney, Norah Jones, Jason Mraz, Jeff Tweedy, Band of Horses, the BoDeans, Amos Lee, Robert Francis, and more artists to be announced.

The long-awaited PBS Arts website is now online. Its aim, its says, is “to spark a resurgence of the arts in the United States.” Sections include dance, theater, visual art, film and music. There’s also a link to a flickr stream for artists to contribute. Funding for the site comes from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Anne Ray Charitable Trust, named for “Silent Philanthropist” Margaret Cargill’s mother (Current, April 5, 2010).

For our RSS readers, don’t miss this Current exclusive: “WPBT sells Nightly Business Report to entrepreneur with history of legal disputes.”

“Most public television stations will merge or go broke in the next five years … and PBS in its current configuration can’t be far behind,” predicts Jack Shakely, president emeritus of the California Community Foundation, in the Aug. 22 Los Angeles Times. And why is pubTV “awash in red ink” while networks including the History Channel, A&E, National Geographic and Animal Planet make money? “PBS should market itself as a network to cable and satellite providers rather than having each individual affiliated station across the country offer itself for free,” Shakely says.

Masterpiece’s “Cranford” and Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary won two Emmys each at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards over the weekend (Aug. 21). PBS took seven statuettes in all. “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” won for nonfiction series and writing for nonfiction programming. Exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking went to “Nerakhoon (The Betrayal),” on P.O.V., about the members of a Laotian family forced to leave their homeland due to the secret war waged there by America. Directing for nonfiction programming went to Barak Goodman for “My Lai” on American Experience. The majority of the 70-category Creative Arts Emmy Awards, are dedicated to technical disciplines and direction, cinematography, hairstyling, makeup, music, picture editing, sound editing and mixing, special visual effects, stunts and more.

Now here (boing) is a great way (boing) to start off your week (boing). Check out KUER’s (boing) coverage of Pogopalooza 7 (boing) last weekend in Salt (boing) Lake City. “Extreme pogosticking” — who knew?

KBBG, the largest African-American owned and operated noncom radio station in Iowa, has set a goal of $200,000 to establish an endowment, reports the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. The station hopes to reach that figure within three years. “Given what we’re facing– whether it’s the economic turndown, or even closer to home with the surge in crime and incidents and invasions — the station is probably more important to the community it serves at this point in history than perhaps at any other time,” said KBBG President Louise Porter. “And the best way to secure the future of the radio station is to establish an endowment fund.”

WPBT sells to entrepreneur with history of legal disputes: Mykalai Kontilai, whose NBR Worldwide this month purchased Nightly Business Report, a staple of public TV carried five nights a week on 250 stations, talks about how his years as an instructional television distributor gave him a strong sense of public broadcasting values. ¶ He talks about how he’ll use that background to develop an educational outreach using the show to teach real-world financial responsibility. He talks of his plans to bring NBR to international audiences. ¶ What he doesn’t want to discuss are more than 20 lawsuits from 1999 through 2010 filed in San Diego County Superior Court against him or his companies — including five alleging breach of contract.

KCPT in Kansas City, Mo., has launched a monthly pubaffairs show in the midst of struggling with funding and staff cutbacks, reports Kansas City Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart. The Local Show will spotlight local nonprofits, and then those groups may use the segments as promotional material. The “Difference Makers” features are underwritten by Hallmark’s corporate foundation. Local Show Producer Nick Haines said the greeting-card company “was interested in funding nonprofits to tell their story.” Inspiration for the show was the Minnesota Channel, a 24-hour station created by Twin Cities Public Television, which airs programming that the station creates through a partnership among TPT and nonprofits.

KIXE in Redding, Calif., is “angering progressives” by dropping Democracy Now!, says the local Record Searchlight newspaper. General Manager Philip Smith arrived in July from KLRU in Austin, Texas, where he was oversaw engineering and programming. Smith told the paper he hadn’t seen the show, which airs on more than 850 pubtv and pubradio stations, until he got to the station. “If it were properly couched as a progressive informational or opinion show … that would be OK,” Smith said. “Then I’d probably line it up with something with an opposing viewpoint. … (But) they present it as newscast.

A company headed by “a former manager of mixed martial artists” has purchased Nightly Business Report, according to the New York Times. Mykalai Kontilai told the paper that the deal was completed Aug. 13 and the staff was informed today (Aug. 18). Kontilai’s partner in the venture is Gary Ferrell, a former president and chief executive of North Texas Public Broadcasting, parent company of KERA in Dallas. The two also own Public Media, identified on its website as a “design, advertising and production” company. Rick Schneider, president of NBR‘s producing station WPBT in Miami, told the New York Times that NBR wasn’t in play when Kontilai approached him in February, but the sale “made sense,” adding, “it is at a point where they as a company can do more things with it than we as a station could.”

A former videotape librarian for pubstation WTTW in Chicago was the jury foreman in the high-profile corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. James Matsumoto, 66, told the local NBC affiliate that deliberations were “frustrating” and “exhausting,” and that he knew from early on that the jury would have trouble reaching a unanimous verdict. On Tuesday (Aug. 17) that verdict came down: Guilty on one count of lying to the FBI, hung jury on 23 other counts. Matsumoto worked at WTTW from December 1978 to October 2006, according to the station.

The city council of Green Bay, Wisc., voted 10-2 on Tuesday (Aug. 17) to waive $10,000 of its $48,000 bill for law enforcement for Wisconsin Public TV’s LZ Lambeau event in May, according to local ABC affiliate WBAY. The outreach event, a belated “welcome home” to Vietnam veterans, drew some 70,000 vets and supporters to Lambeau Field (Current, June 7, 2010). The Packers NFL team, the Chamber of Commerce and Brown County also have pledged contributions to assist the station, which ran $350,000 over budget for the $1 million event.