Sesame Street actors joined members of Congress and activists in a rally on Cap Hill today (March 15) where advocacy groups presented 1.2 million signatures to save public broadcasting funding. Cast members from the iconic children’s show described how the made a personal impact on their lives — and livelihood. “It has changed all of us and has given us as artists a place to work with such pride,” said Roscoe Orman, who has portrayed Gordon Robinson since 1973.

Frontline has hired former Yahoo! News blog editor Andrew Golis as its director of digital media/senior editor. He’ll oversee integration of the Frontline broadcast, Web and new media initiatives. At Yahoo! News, Golis built a network of nonpartisan reporting blogs, including the Upshot, which received 100 million page views after just six months in operation.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) sent a “Dear Colleague” letter today (March 15) alerting members of Congress to press coverage that last week’s undercover video sting of NPR executives was edited in a misleading manner, citing stories from the Associated Press and on conservative TV host Glenn Beck’s website. “Recently, members of the media and Congress have paid great attention to a hidden-camera video taken of National Public Radio (NPR) fundraisers by activists working for James O’Keefe,” the letter reads. “I wanted to bring to your attention analysis conducted by experts in video editing and journalistic ethics, as well as a broad range of conservative media figures..

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) today (March 15) introduced H.R. 1076 (PDF), an updated version of his previous bill to ban federal funds from being used on public radio programming. The latest bill now specifically prohibits “funding of National Public Radio and radio content acquisition,” and also bans using any federal funds to pay NPR dues. The House Rules Committee also just announced an emergency meeting for 3 p.m. Wednesday to consider the bill; that must take place before any floor action on Thursday.

Beth Kirsch is the new vice president and executive producer of digital media content for the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN). She’ll oversee the $30 Million 2010 Ready to Learn Project LAMP (Learning Apps Media Partnership), recently awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to the network and two partners. Kirsch joins HITN from WGBH in Boston, where she’s worked since 1999 on shows including Between the Lions and Martha Speaks. “With more than 20 years of experience in public television, Kirsch brings expertise in educational media, animation, writing, editing, outreach and fundraising,” HITN said in a statement.

“Public Broadcasting’s Cowardly Executives” is the headline Ralph Nader’s column on CounterPunch, a self-described “bi-weekly muckraking newsletter.” “The tumultuous managerial shakeup at National Public Radio headquarters for trivial verbal miscues once again has highlighted the ludicrous corporatist right-wing charge that public radio and public TV are replete with left-leaning or leftist programming,” he writes. He goes on to furnish numbers for conservative vs. liberal guests on Charlie Rose (far more conservatives, by his count), and points out that Nader himself as appeared “not once on the hostile Terri Gross radio show.” “Here is a solution that will avoid any need for Congressional contributions to CPB,” Nader writers.

Since his appearance on On the Media last weekend, This American Life host Ira Glass has received “very thoughtful emails” from conservative listeners about the liberal bias they hear in public radio’s programming, he writes on the TAL blog. Glass invites listeners to join the conversation on TAL‘s Facebook page and on On The Media‘s website.

Is the dialogue among conservatives regarding funding for public broadcasting becoming more nuanced? On the Weekly Standard‘s blog, writer Philip Terzian embraces the conservative viewpoint that federal funding should be killed, but he also notes: “The fact is that the kind of radio and television I like — classic jazz and classical music, arcane documentaries on history, literature, and science — is nearly nonexistent on the air, except on PBS and NPR.” In a response to that commentary in the New American, published by the ultra-right John Birch Society, writer Beverly Eakman, an education policy analyst and former speechwriter for the late Chief Justice Warren E.

Why did Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze publish a critique of the NPR sting video? Politico reports on reactions to the analysis by Scott Baker and Pam Key, the first journalists to compare the 11-minute video that prompted resignations of two top NPR execs to raw videotape that was recorded during James O’Keefe’s undercover sting of NPR. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger for the Washington Post who has criticized Beck, questions “whether (Beck) is trying to do something on the up and up and advance good journalism or whether he is doing it to create a controversy and stick his finger in the eye of the right in some ways in retaliation for all of the negativity that’s been expressed of late.”

The House today (March 15) votes on H.J.Res. 48, a short-term Continuing Resolution that would keep the government running through April 8. It cuts $6 billion in spending from the fiscal 2011 budget by reducing or eliminating 25 government programs and earmarks. If passed, CPB will lose funding for two already completed initiatives: $25 million in station fiscal stabilization grants, and $25 million for the recent radio interconnection infrastructure project. The programs were also cut in the president’s budget, as well as the Senate Democrats’ most recent CR proposal. The measure is expected to pass.

Arthur Hoehn, Minnesota Public Radio’s first professional announcer, died Saturday (March 12) after a battle with lung cancer, MPR reports. He was 72. MPR founder and president Bill Kling recalled that for live concerts, Hoehn was “the entire crew. The truck driver, the equipment schlepper, the producer, the engineer, and the announcer.” Hoehn worked at MPR for 40 years, retiring in 2002. Last year, he was inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He’s perhaps best known for his 12-year run as host of the nationally syndicated overnight classical show Music Through the Night.

The Labor/HHS subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, which oversees CPB’s outlay, has scheduled a hearing on “Alternative Approaches to Funding Public Broadcasting” at 10 a.m. Eastern on April 6 on Capitol Hill.

Minnesota Public Radio President Bill Kling attributes the turbulence at NPR to its old-fashioned governance structure in today’s New York Times. “NPR has been a victim of its own success,” he tells media columnist David Carr. “It never matured in terms of governance as quickly as its news capabilities did. It is controlled by a board from member stations that think of it as primarily a provider of programming for their stations and not the giant media company it has become.”

Rob Bole, CPB’s veep of digital media strategy, says on the Media Future Now website that public broadcasting isn’t yet making sufficient use of digital media. “To be frank, public media is not capitalized nor organized to take full advantage of emerging connective technologies,” he says. “We have a reliable, strong broadcast infrastructure that provides free, universal service to every American. However, we are not funded to the appropriate level to build the same strength in the digital media space.” He did praise last month’s unique coverage of Mideast revolution news by Andy Carvin, NPR’s senior social media strategist, across multiple platforms.

Nell Minow, a corporate governance expert, today (March 14) blogged a chat she had with her father, pubcasting pioneer Newton Minow, about the current federal funding battle. With the budget being cut to control the soaring deficit, how can America justify spending tax dollars on public broadcasting? “All of us should work to reduce federal spending,” Newton Minow replied. “Cuts should be made for all programs, but what is being proposed now are not cuts — the proposals are to eliminate and end public broadcasting completely. Current federal support for public broadcasting is about $1.35 per person per year — or about two cents per person per day.