The fourth in a series of Public Media Futures forums exploring the next steps for public broadcasting will be streamed live from San Francisco from 8 a.m. to noon Pacific Time Thursday (Sept. 20). This meeting will focus on new research on the future of news, information and public-service media online and on mobile devices, with special attention to the technological requirements for pubcasters’ objectives over the next five years. The more than 30 participants include Kinsey Wilson, chief content officer, NPR; Carol Varney, managing director, Bay Area Video Coalition; Olivia Ma, news and politics manager, YouTube; Chris Satullo, news director, WHYY; Brant Houston, chair, Investigative News Network; Linda Fantin, director of network journalism, American Public Media; and Stephen Engleberg, managing editor, ProPublica.

The Hawaii Independent began as a small for-profit corporation five years ago. But earlier this year the news venture morphed into a co-op, offering both subscriptions and ownership benefits. “In the past two years,” Publisher Ikaika Hussey tells MediaShift, “one of our newspapers bought the other one and then it was bought by a Canadian company. So there was the feeling of a loss of a local institution. We need an institution that’s going to be here for the long haul. And I think the only way to do that is still the community-owned, truly community-owned institution — not just one that’s owned by a person of large wealth.

Todd Mundt, editorial director of NPR’s Digital Services, is concerned for the future of public radio. “I think there’s great opportunity,” he tells Nieman Journalism Lab’s Andrew Phelps, “but what I’m afraid of is that many stations won’t embrace the opportunity and they will have the emperor-has-no-clothes moment. They will be revealed as rather pedestrian repeaters of national content.”

Audio from last week’s Public Radio Program Directors conference in Las Vegas is now available on PRPD’s website, including the keynote address by June Cohen, executive producer for TED Media; a Q&A with content chiefs Kinsey Wilson of NPR and David Kansas of American Public Media; and the closing address by NPR “founding mother” Linda Wertheimer. Not all of the recordings are freely available, however — only PRPD members can access recordings of the conference’s breakout sessions. PRPD’s David Hollis has also posted photos from PRPD on Flickr. I’m sifting through my notes from the conference and will have a wrap-up coming your way soon, plus additional coverage inspired by conference conversations in weeks to come.

Independent Lens just announced that actor Stanley Tucci will be this season’s host. This year, the 11th season of the documentary showcase, now on Monday nights, also will join 62 broadcasters in 180 countries to present “Why Poverty,” a series focusing on the global problem.

Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Kogan will serve as interim host for WBEZ’s The Afternoon Shift, in the wake of Steve Edwards’ announcement he’s leaving the station, reports Time Out Chicago media writer Robert Feder. Edwards departs Friday (Sept. 21) for the Institute of Politics at University of Chicago. Kogan starts Sept. 24 and will fill in “for a month or two,” Feder says, as the pubradio station conducts a nationwide search for Edwards’ permanent replacement.

WNET has renewed its national weekly newmag, Need to Know, through June 2013. Marc Rosenwasser, series executive producer, said in a statement that he thinks the formerly hourlong program “has really hit its stride,” adding that its current single-story, 30-minute format “gives us an opportunity to go very deeply into important topics that don’t get as much time as they deserve on many commercial news magazines.” Original Need to Know reporting includes stories on Christian persecution in Iraq, the aftermath of the revolution in Egypt, renewable energy in Germany and war crime tribunals in Cambodia. Partnering with the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, the program produced two half hours documenting widespread abuses in the Border Patrol, leading to Congressional calls for action and a federal grand jury investigation.

Dennis Adkins, the executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, will retire Dec. 21, according to the Charleston Gazette. The announcement came after an hourlong executive session of the Educational Broadcasting Authority on Thursday (Sept. 13), and after “months of Adkins being at odds with authority members over finances and the future of public broadcasting in the state,” the newspaper said. West Virginia Public Broadcasting faces a 7.5 percent state funding for 2013-14, amounting to a $420,000 reduction. In August, Adkins had proposed some $200,000 in cuts that included dropping APTS membership. He’s been at the station since 2007. Board members also directed the chair to begin a search for Adkins’ replacement, and  appoint a task force to study the future of public broadcasting.

Detroit’s WDET admitted in an August letter to donors that it used suspect advertising tactics in on-air fundraising spots promoting an ambitious music-restoration campaign.

Six new professional directors have been elected to the PBS Board in nationwide member-station voting that concluded at the end of August. New members are Tom Karlo, g.m., KPBS in San Diego; Linda O’Bryon, president, South Carolina Public Television; and Brian Sickora, president, WSKG, Binghamton, N.Y. Members returning for a second term are Jon Abbott, president, WGBH, Boston; Jack Galmiche, president, Nine Network of Public Media, St. Louis; and Lloyd Wright, president, WFYI, Indianapolis, Ind. Each will serve a three-year term, beginning Oct. 26 at the fall board meeting.

NPR White House Correspondent Ari Shapiro sparked an interesting journalistic debate Tuesday (Sept. 11) with two of his tweets from a campaign event for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney: “As a reporter I’m torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I’m a rally observer, not a participant.” Then: “Yet most reporters around me stand for the anthem & pledge. I’m one of the few that doesn’t. Setting myself up for accusations I guess.” “I expected a flood of vitriol,” Shapiro writes on NPR.org. “Instead, a thoughtful Twitter dialogue unfolded about what it means to be a journalist, what it means to be American, and what role the Pledge of Allegiance plays in our society.”

Bill Siemering, an early organizer of National Public Radio and its first program director, looks back on his career in an email interview with University of Chicago Professor David Galenson on Huffington Post. Siemering recalls his earliest memories of radio: “In the two-room country school outside of Madison, Wis., twice a day the teacher turned on WHA, the ‘oldest station in the nation’ at the University of Wisconsin and we’d listen to programs from the Wisconsin School of the Air. Prepared with an instructor’s manual, our teacher guided us through science, nature, social studies, music and art all by radio. From first grade on, I regarded radio as a source of information and imagination.”

House Republican Don Young, the 39-year veteran representative from Alaska’s at-large district and a longtime backer of public broadcasting, told the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors Tuesday that the field would be more likely to find support in Congress if it presented itself in a more effective manner to its Hill critics. To strengthen public broadcasting’s case, Young stressed the importance of communicating directly with elected officials rather than staff members, and recommended emphasizing the extent to which public broadcasting relies on private funds and donations. “Can we help you? Yes. But you’re going to have to have a better selling program on the Hill,” Young said on the second day of the CPB board meeting, after declaring, “I am a Republican and I support public broadcasting.”

Patricia Cahill is the new chair of the CPB Board, with Elizabeth Sembler as vice chair. The two were elected to the one-year terms by the board at its meeting today (Sept. 11) in Washington, D.C. Cahill, who lives in Kansas City, Mo., was appointed to the board by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in August 2009. She previously served as vice chair. She has worked in pubradio for more than 40 years, retiring earlier this year as g.m. of KCUR-FM in Kansas City. Cahill also was a member of the board of directors for NPR, and is a past-president of Public Radio in Mid America.

Kentucky Educational Television is partnering with Eastern Kentucky University as it offers students a chance to speak with astronauts aboard the International Space Station early next yer. NASA selected the university as one of only six downlink sites for the Jan. 11, 2013, event, which will take place at the school’s STEM-H (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health) Institute. KET will make the session available through its online resources for teachers and students, and will produce related digital learning resources. “KET’s participation in the downlink and surrounding activities will strengthen existing partnerships and open up new possibilities,” said Jaleh Rezaie, the STEM-H Institute’s interim executive director.