Two pubradio broadcasters are among this year’s recipients of the Studs Terkel Community Media Awards, reports Robert Feder, media writer for Time Out Chicago. Honored at March 14 ceremonies in Chicago will be Maria Hinojosa, host of  NPR’s Latino USA, and Chip Mitchell, a reporter for WBEZ-FM. The third recipient is Mick Dumke, political reporter for the Chicago Reader. The annual honors are presented by the nonprofit Community Media Workshop, a resource and advocate for grassroots local journalism that Terkel helped found in 1989. This year the awards commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Terkel, a writer famed for his oral histories of working-class Americans and a broadcaster known for his Studs Terkel Program, which aired on pubradio WFMT in Chicago from 1952 to 1997; Best of Studs Terkel still airs on the station.

David Piccerelli, president of Rhode Island PBS, said he was shocked to learn of Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s proposal to eliminate state funding for Channel 36, which provides about a third of its $3 million budget. “If this is a policy plan that the governor wants to put forth,” Piccerelli told local CBS affiliate WPRI, “then I think we should probably put together a policy plan rather than just cutting us off at the knees and telling us to go do it.” Chafee’s proposed budget cuts RI PBS’s current state support from $932,562 to $425,286 next fiscal year, and ends it altogether in 2014.

“This is NPR,” a new Facebook page, provides a peek behind the scenes at its people, headquarters and stations nationwide. There are links to events, job opportunities, photos of folks who stop in for studio interviews, pictures by NPR White House Correspondent Ari Shapiro on the campaign trail.

Pubradio WTMD at Towson University in Maryland has a unique new ad campaign that came into being after “a crazy night of flashing lights and creativity,” and probably will make you giggle. Or blush. Or both. A local photographer and ad agency both donated their services for the work, which shows what happens to ears that become aroused by all that great music on WTMD.

WCNY-TV in Syracuse today (Feb. 1) announced two new hosts for its longest-running local show, Financial Fitness, while the local Post-Standard is reporting that host J. Daniel Pluff, who started the program in 1992, has left following an ongoing disagreement. Pluff said the station wouldn’t let him decide on guest hosts for the investment advice show, which he produced on a volunteer basis. WCNY President Robert Daino told the newspaper that the station has to maintain editorial control over the program, which regularly scores better ratings than national PBS offerings. New hosts are Jim Burns, a columnist for the Post-Standard and president of J.W.

LeVar Burton, former longtime host of pubTV’s popular Reading Rainbow, has claimed @readingrainbow, reports Huffington Post, with a little help from fellow Tweeters. On Tuesday (Jan. 31), Burton had contacted the account holder directly, who hadn’t used @readingrainbow in three years. When that didn’t work, Burton Tweeted far and wide, asking the Twittersphere for help, and sites like Gizmodo got involved. “Less than two nostalgia-filled hours and hundreds of retweets later,” HuffPost says, the Twitter account was turned over to Burton.  Despite the show’s demise more than two years ago (Current, Aug. 6, 2009), Burton remains its steadfast champion, last year even raising $3 million for his RRKidz reading app in partnership with WNED in Buffalo, Reading Rainbow’s presenting station.

Just in case you missed it, here is a photo of Lego versions of Carl Kasell and Peter Sagal of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Creator Dave Kaleta appeared on the WBEZ/NPR show’s Listener Limerick Challenge in September 2011. UPDATE: And leave it to intrepid media reporter Jim Romenesko to get the story behind all this.

Two public media projects are among six finalists for the prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, presented annually by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. NPR’s Elizabeth Shogren, Howard Berkes, Sandra Bartlett and Susanne Reber, along with Jim Morris, Ronnie Greene, Chris Hamby and Keith Epstein of the Center for Public Integrity, were nominated for “Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities,” which for the first time publicly revealed the EPA’s internal “watch list” of the nation’s most troublesome air polluters. “This report triggered immediate enforcement action in two states, a push for openness by the EPA and an avalanche of coverage across the U.S.,”

Eben Peck, on the staff of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the past seven years, most recently as senior director of government affairs, is the new vice president of government affairs for ASTA, the American Society of Travel Agents. At CPB, Peck was the organization’s primary liaison with the federal government. In his new position, he will be responsible for all of ASTA’s state and federal and state lobbying, as well as its political action committee, ASTAPAC.

Egad! The two-hour final episode of Season 2 of the Masterpiece megahit Downton Abbey looms, on Feb. 19. No more Crawley family and staff intrigue — well, at least until Season 3, which also brings a new and famous face to the cast, Shirley MacLaine. But there’s no doubt that fans will be feeling a tad sad after the season finale. In Philadelphia, they’re gathering to share their angst at a viewing party sponsored by WHYY. Also that day, the station is running a Downton Abbey marathon, all 10 hours of Season 2, beginning at 1 p.m. Is your station doing anything special for the finale?

A signal expansion in the lower Hudson Valley three years ago depleted WDFH-FM’s cash reserves and now the Ossining, N.Y., community radio station “finds itself in financial straits,” according to The Daily Dobbs Ferry. Executive Director Marc Sophos, who helped found the station 39 years ago as a high-school freshman, said the station faces doing dark. “There’s a short-term financial emergency right now,” he said. “It’s urgent. We do need to find this money or else the station will go under. Donations are far less than the operating expenses. We need to be raising $10,000 a month.” “Money is time and time is running out,” Sophos said.

WCVE, Central Virginia’s Community Idea Stations, is planning a unique fundraiser for this spring: A “puzzle-solving event” designed by Ravenchase Adventures in Richmond, Va. The Big Idea Challenge runs April 29 through June 2 and the station hopes to raise $250,000 to supplement its on-air pledge dollars. “With the uncertain status of government funding, we have been looking for lots of different ways to reach out beyond our traditional audiences and involve folks who peripherally know about us but may not be as close,” Lisa Tait, vice president for development at WCVE, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We wanted something different to tie in with our mission and with the people who like public broadcasting, who are intellectually curious.”

Three national pubcasting organizations are encouraging the FCC to exempt pubTV licensees from any new public interest reporting requirements, in a Jan. 27 filing with the commission. The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) prepared the filing in response to the FCC’s notice of inquiry in November 2011 soliciting input on a proposal “to replace the issues/programs list that television stations have been required to place in their public files for decades with a streamlined, standardized disclosure form that will be available to the public online.” “We support the commission’s effort to standardize information about their public interest programming and activities,” said Lonna Thompson, APTS c.o.o.,

The stations are here so they can understand and illuminate a community’s aspirations and concerns, engage people in the life of their community, and help people reengage and reconnect with one another. — Richard C. Harwood and Aaron B. Leavy1 The remark above reflects a way of thinking strategically about the institution of public broadcasting at this point in our history. Today, public media boards and executives face such strategic questions as: What can we do to be a more significant and engaged institution in our community? What should be our focus, and what does that mean for redeploying resources from current activities?

Nothing comes easily to public radio, not even a good idea. About 30 years ago, Wisconsin Public Radio veteran Jack Mitchell came up with the concept of banding together small stations throughout Wisconsin into a centralized system, within which a mothership would handle overhead and distribution, thus freeing up resources for stronger local content. Today, Wisconsin Public Radio operates 33 stations that benefit from strength in numbers – some of which might not exist today were it not for a centralized system. Each station is tied to one of two statewide networks, one featuring the NPR newsmagazines and classical music and the other mostly state-oriented talk programming.