In the past three years, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has invested more than $90 million in federal funds on new journalism initiatives, points out the Associated Press. In one of CPB’s local news initiatives, stations in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico have hired nine reporters for its Fronteras: The Changing America Desk bureau. “I think we have a place at the table,” and more respect, said Natalie Walsh, senior news producer, “now that we have the boots on the ground to back it up.”

Tampa-based WUSF bought WSMR for $1.2 million last year to shift its classical music to the Sarasota station and offer daytime NPR programming (Current, Aug. 9, 2010). But technical delays and interference issues delayed the station’s full-power debut from Sept. 15 to Feb. 22 — and even now, signal woes continue, reports the St. Petersburg Times. Some listeners to the south still can’t receive the signal through the static. Nancy Preis, board member of the Florida Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Opera, still can’t receive the programming. “I consider this to be a major screwup,” she said. 

The World TV channel, launched in 2007, re-imagined over the past couple years (Current, Sept. 8, 2009) and relaunched last year (Current, June 7, 2010), continues to evolve in its quest to lure younger viewers to its PBS documentary programming and website, reports the MediaShift blog. “Currently, a majority of our viewers are your usual PBS demo of 50- to 60-year-olds,” said Matey Odonkor, WorldCompass.org’s manager of online communications. “Not that this is a bad thing.” However, “we want to offer age-relevant programming to young adults who grew up watching PBS programs with their parents but stopped watching.”

Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced a bill Friday that would end federal funding for public broadcasting, reports the National Journal. “Americans struggling to make ends meet shouldn’t be forced to fund public broadcasting when there are already thousands of choices for educational and entertainment programming on the television, radio and web,” DeMint said.

Here’s a look at WNET/Thirteen’s upcoming 2011 Celebration of Teaching & Learning from the Brooklyn Eagle. More than 10,000 educators from all 50 states are expected at the sixth annual event March 18 and 19 at the Hilton New York in Manhattan. Speakers include NBC News anchor Brian Williams, author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, and ABC News co-anchor Cynthia McFadden. Participants have access to six plenary sessions, some 40 featured speakers, more than 100 hands-on “In the Classroom” workshops, and two exhibitor halls.

You may know Judith LeRoy as co-founder (with husband David) of TRAC Media, the audience analysis service for public broadcasters. But you may not know that when she’s not crunching numbers she’s painting sports scenes. She’s presented several exhibitions of her work, including in January at the Art Garage in Green Bay, Wisc. Here’s a video of how that show came together, with LeRoy discussing details of her work — such as her careful depictions of different types of football cleats.

The PBS NewsHour and KPBS-TV in San Diego won 2011 Walter Cronkite Awards for Television Political Journalism from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications. The NewsHour was honored among national network programs for its “thorough and balanced” coverage of key races in Nevada, Wisconsin and Florida. Judges praised correspondents Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff for “focusing on the issues, talking with real voters and letting the candidates explain themselves.”KPBS topped the category for public stations with its profile of the County Board of Supervisors, lauded by judges as “an excellent explanation of how government works and doesn’t work.”

“The best way to stop the ‘partisan meddling’ in public broadcasting that MoveOn.org complains about is by ending the taxpayers’ obligation to pay for it,” writes Republican Sen. Jim DeMint in a March 4 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. “The politics will be out of public broadcasting as soon as the government gets out of the business of paying for it.” The South Carolina lawmaker points to the 170 Million Americans campaign to defend public broadcasting’s federal funding and the “massive salaries” of executives at PBS, CPB, NPR and Sesame Workshop to make the case that the field is well-financed enough to survive with out taxpayer subsidies.

Information Stories is a website that asks and answers the questions: What’s at stake when local news and information flow doesn’t serve all members of a community equally well? And how can people respond? The series of short digital narratives was conceived by Ohio State University law professor Peter M. Shane and filmmaker Liv Gjestvang. The two recruited storytellers from around the United States, who shared their personal experiences in a July 2010 Digital Storytelling Workshop. Information Stories “reveals the loss when local information flows leave stories uncovered, concerns unaddressed, or voices left out — and the gain when these exclusions don’t happen,” according to a release on the project by the Knight Foundation.

The Federal Communications Commission is meeting with several Tribal leaders today (March 3) as it prepares to take steps to boost communications on Tribal lands, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The FCC hopes to improve radio service, deploy more broadband, and improve public safety communications and services. Geoffrey Blackwell, chief of the federal office of Native American Affairs and Policy, said there was an “alarming lack of service in Indian country.” The meeting comes in the wake of Native Public Media’s announcement that it is leaving the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (Current, Feb. 22, 2011) to realign itself with the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.,

After nearly four years of “trying to make user-generated content a viable concept” on Vocalo.org’s FM radio station website (Current, Jan. 11, 2010), it is adopting a more traditional radio programming approach for young listeners, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Vocalo.org managing director Silvia Rivera told the paper her staff spent a lot of time trying to turn user contributions into broadcast-worthy content. The music emphasis will include jazz, funk, soul, reggae and hip-hop. Jesse De La Pena is the new music curator, with roots in break-dancing and graffiti movements on the city’s southwest side in the mid-1980s.

Letters time on NPR is not one of the high points of Farad Manjoo’s week. “Oh, I hate them, hate them, hate them,” the Slate writer says in a column today (March 2). “Every time one of their narrow-minded, classist letters makes it on the air, I contemplate burning my tote bag in protest. The problem, for me, isn’t just that some people don’t like some things NPR covers. It’s that these reflexively snobby pseudo-intellectuals see NPR as their own — a refuge from the mad world outside, a ‘safe,’ high-minded palace that should never be sullied by anything more outré than James Taylor (whom, of course, they love).

KNPB in northern Nevada has restored all its signals after a weekend fire damaged a transmitter filter system, the station said today (March 2). With the assistance of the filter manufacturer, KNPB engineers were able to rebuild the system. KNPB Vice President of Technology Fred Ihlow said the process was “sort of like open heart surgery with very large wrenches.” A dangerous mixture of snow and ice storms contributed to the cause of an equipment fire that ruined the filter on the transmitter on Red Peak. On Sunday (Feb. 27) around 9 p.m., viewers had lost KNPB 5.1 HD, the standard digital channel, KNPB Create on 5.2, and KNPB V-me on 5.3.

Fresh Air pubradio host Terry Gross has a cameo in “The Beaver,” a film opening in May directed by Jodie Foster and co-starring Foster and Mel Gibson, reports Dave Davies, senior reporter at WHYY. Gross told Davies that she took the role as a learning experience. “I thought, I’ve talked to so many actors and directors, it would be so interesting not only to observe, but to be part of the process,” she said. Gross had no lines to memorize, but improvised her dialogue in a scene in which Gibson’s character appears on Fresh Air.

As of today (March 2) the Senate and House have each approved a measure to keep the government open through March 18. Still ahead: The continuing battle over the Continuing Resolution, with CPB funding at stake.