Presented by NPR’s Scott Simon in Cleveland June 22, Public Radio News Directors Inc. honored the best local public radio news in 16 categories based on the size of stations’ newsroom staff. In addition, PRNDI recognized stations for standout news reporting edited by a national producer; these awards were presented in several categories without consideration of newsroom size. Top winners among this year’s contenders were Colorado Public Radio, Chicago’s WBEZ, WUOT of Knoxville, Tenn., and WBGO in Newark, N.J., which each received four first-place awards in their divisions. Miami’s WLRN and WBFO in Buffalo, N.Y., both topped three categories.

What?! No Doc Martin?!

In addition to launching a weekend edition of the PBS NewsHour, New York’s WNET has secured a contract to create an integrated website for the flagship series and its new sibling. The WNET Interactive Engagement Group (IEG), a subsidiary that specializes in developing customized WordPress platforms, will complete the web development project by December, but aims to make some enhancements before the Sept. 7 launch of PBS NewsHour Weekend. That new Saturday and Sunday evening news show will originate from the New York City pubcaster, while the weekday NewsHour maintains its longtime home at WETA in Arlington, Va. The redesign will be the first major back-end overhaul in 10 years for the NewsHour’s website, which is built on a homegrown content management system (CMS), according to Vanessa Dennis, online art director.

"There are no plans for Carmen Sandiego to return to PBS’s schedule," the network told Current, after teasing fans with a Tumblr post.

Herbert Allison, Jr., a financial executive who served on the Board of Directors of nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica, died July 14 at his home in Westport, Conn. He was 69. Family members said he died of a possible heart attack.

Lary Lewman, an actor and longtime narrator for Maryland Public Television, died July 11 in his Clarksville, Md., home from complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 76.

Youth Radio, the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit that trains young people in media production, sustained shattered windows during local unrest on Monday following the George Zimmerman not-guilty verdict on July 13, it reported in a blog post. At least six people were arrested during protests in Oakland, the Los Angeles Times reported. “Youth Radio has a 20-year history of carving out a safe space — and a creative outlet — for young people like Trayvon” Martin, the teenager that Zimmerman was charged with shooting, the post noted. The organization also created a video that captured frightening footage of the sidewalk-to-ceiling windows being smashed, and shows youngsters involved with the media project reflecting on the incident.

Audiences for news and talk stations delivered more than half of public radio’s listening in 2012, according to Arbitron’s annual study on public radio audience trends. The average quarter-hour (AQH) share, an Arbitron term describing the percentage of public radio listeners who tune to a specific format, hit 51.7 percent for pubradio news and talk stations last year, an 2.7 percent increase from 2011 and a precedent for the growth of public radio’s most powerful format, according to Arbitron’s “Public Radio Today 2013.” The study, which looked at audience trends across all stations and formats in 2012, found that public radio’s total audience remained at 32 million, or 12 percent, of all radio listeners.

PBS is planning a weeklong commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The special lineup of shows planned for broadcast in late August includes a new documentary, The March, co-executive produced by Robert Redford. It debuts Aug. 27, the eve of the anniversary. The next day, the PBS Black Culture Connection website will host an online screening of the documentary and interactive chats with participants of the historic event. The site also will premiere The March @50, an online series to run over the following five weeks, exploring how far America has come in delivering on the original demands of the activists.

Aereo, the startup service that allows subscribers to view and record television broadcast programs via the Internet, won another legal victory on Tuesday from a federal appellate court. In a 10-2 decision, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from a consortium of broadcasters to revisit its earlier decision not to impose an injunction on Aereo. In April the 2nd Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision to allow Aereo to continue operating despite the pending litigation. PBS and WNET are among the TV broadcasters that have filed lawsuits in New York federal courts attempting to block Aereo’s expansion, with little effect.

CPB plans to fund two additional Local Journalism Centers, according to a Nieman Lab article reviewing lessons that journalists have learned from running the centers. The funder initially put up $8.1 million in 2010 and 2011 to start seven LJCs around the country. Some have fared well, while others have struggled with a lack of additional funding and difficulties in working out collaborative relationships among station partners. CPB expects to phase out funding for the existing LJCs even as it backs new ones. Most participants don’t know whether they will be able to sustain the partnerships after CPB funding dries up, according to Nieman.