After interviewing Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott in August about the company’s new environmental initiative, PBS’s Charlie Rose will co-host a private dinner tonight honoring Scott for his environmental work. Is there something wrong with this? PBS doesn’t think so, but PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler does.

The Pacifica Foundation and Free Speech Radio News have agreed to work toward integrating FSRN into the radio network, Pacifica announced last week. The progressive newscast airs on more than 90 stations.

Vermont Public Radio barred a third-party candidate for the U.S. Senate from an upcoming forum because of fears that he might use profanity on the air, reports the Associated Press. Peter Diamondstone, a Liberty Union party candidate, was expelled from a debate last week and handcuffed after using profanity and exceeding time limits.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press profiles Katherine Lanpher, the former host of a talk show on Minnesota Public Radio who left for New York to join Air America. “There were nights in those first months when I wondered if I’d wrecked the rest of my life,” she says. “That is what’s so great about the book. I wrote my own rescue.”

Yet more skepticism about HD Radio — this from John Proffitt of KAKM-TV/KSKA-FM in Anchorage, Alaska. “I’m just deeply concerned that the ‘neat’ stuff HD Radio ‘could’ do is oversold and cannot possibly deliver — not technologically, but in terms of market acceptance.”

The show from NPR and WNYC explores big ideas in science in an accessible, even addictive style.

The Los Angeles Times asks: just how far will PBS go to please a corporate sponsor?

NPR is ending its “Mixed Signals” blog but expects to create some new ones. “The scattershot nature of Mixed Signals didn’t really work,” writes JJ Sutherland, who asks the blog’s readers to share their ideas for NPR’s future blogs and online interactions with listeners.

Consultant John Sutton looks at how different methods of calculating cume audience for public radio produce varying results. “There is strong evidence that the National Public Radio network Cume is overstated by as much as 15 percent,” he says.

Slate reports on a Cornell University study that found a statistically significant link between autism rates and television viewing by children under the age of three.

Commenters on WFMU’s blog share stories about working in college radio.

Discovery has boosted its ratings by returning to its educational roots, says Advertising Age (via SmartBrief, from the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing).

Ball State University’s Center for Media Design will conduct a pilot study “examining how individuals consume traditional and emerging video platforms inside and outside the home,” reports Adweek. The study, commissioned by the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence, is part of the ratings giant’s efforts to get a better handle on measuring emerging platforms such as video-on-demand and broadband video.

The University of Massachusetts-Lowell will end support for public radio’s Open Source as of December, reports the Lowell Sun. “It’s basically an expensive program that, given our financial situation, doesn’t make sense for the university,” said David MacKenzie, the university’s interim chancellor. “I just felt we had other things that were higher on the priority list.” The show’s producers “haven’t the least hesitation” in promising to keep it going, writes host and co-creator Christopher Lydon on Open Source‘s blog. “We need your help and encouragement as we have from the start, or maybe just a little more so,” he tells listeners.

In the kid’s media biz, “the buzz today is around Disney,” according to the New York Times.