The Detroit Free Press reports that Michael Coleman, g.m. of WDET-FM in Detroit, was sentenced to two years’ probation June 22 for embezzling from Michigan Radio, his former employer.

Dennis Haarsager uses Alexa to compare web traffic for NPR.org and PBS.org and finds them pretty close. But the website of New York’s WNYC-AM/FM draws more traffic than that of WNET-TV.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is sponsoring an amendment to a telecommunications bill (PDF) that would ease protections for full-power FM stations from possible interference from low-power FMs, according to the Prometheus Radio Project. The low-power advocates are trying to drum up support for the amendment as debate on the bill opens this week.

“I meet someone, and, after they figure out what I do, they tell me how much NPR means to them,” says All Things Considered host Michele Norris in an interview with Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch. “I never heard that with ABC. I never heard ABC talked about by viewers in such reverential terms. I think, if we went off the air tomorrow, people would march in the streets.”

Slate‘s Sam Anderson analyzes at length the resolutely unstylish style of Garrison Keillor and dubs him “the shock jock of wholesomeness.”

Closing pubradio station KTPB will “devalue Kilgore College as an institution of higher learning,” pianist Van Cliburn wrote to the college trustees, according to the Longview (Texas) News-Journal. The trustees decided in April to sell the East Texas classical music station to Christian pop purveyor EMF Broadcasting, which has 180 frequencies across the country. Cliburn went to high school in Kilgore.

The Boston Globe reports on new PBS guidelines requiring producers to completely bleep compound swear words (such as “mother f*****!”) and visually blur the mouths of people who swear on camera.

Jeffrey Dvorkin is leaving his post as NPR’s ombudsman to serve as executive director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and the Goldenson Chair of Community Broadcasting at the Missouri School of Journalism. Dvorkin was NPR’s first ombud and held the job for six years after serving as its v.p. of news. In his farewell column, he offers advice to his successor: “Know that public radio listeners are overwhelmingly smart, passionate and insistent. You will find that it is important to take their comments seriously, but never personally. You’ll live longer if you do.” (He also reveals that several colleagues refuse to speak to him due to past criticism of their work.)

The Washington Post reports that a three-year-old Minnesotan boy recently enjoyed a very special birthday party with, of all things, a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer theme. Henry Schally is a major fan of the show and knows its personalities by name. “When correspondent Kwame Holman started delivering his report, Henry yelled out ‘Kwame Holman!’,” according to WCCO-TV in Minneapolis.

For the professional media, Public Insight Journalism is the way it can remain relevant [RealPlayer audio file], says Michael Skoler of Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media in an interview with Bob Garfield of On the Media. MPR is sharing the online/database system for expanding journalists’ sources with several other pubradio stations. In Current, Skoler describes five ways PIJ helps reporters do their job better.

A Los Angeles Times writer examines the conservative’s distaste for A Prairie Home Companion. “With the arrival of Robert Altman’s new film ‘A Prairie Home Companion,’ Keillor and ‘APHC’ have the opportunity to be hated by a much wider audience,” he writes.

Hear what happens when an NPR producer processes the network’s programming through a Dada filter.

Here’s another chance for public broadcasters to demonstrate their trustworthiness … or not. Even Advertising Age says: “Something’s rotten with the state of media.” In a survey of 266 senior marketing execs cited by the magazine, almost half said they’ve paid for product placement in glossy periodicals, TV or other media. Ad Age has reported that auto marketers are pushing hard for paid placements.

The House Appropriations committee restored $20 million to CPB’s 2007 funding, but didn’t alter its proposals to eliminate $104.5 million in federal aid for digital conversion and edtech programs, report the Los Angeles Times and Broadcasting & Cable. The committee also declined to provide a 2009 advance appropriation for CPB.

Another change to the PBS executive ranks: Los Angeles-based Co-Chief Programmer Jacoba Atlas will leave her job at the end of the month, reports the New York Times. John Wilson, programming co-chief working at PBS headquarters, keeps his job and will report to Boland. Wilson’s claim to fame, according to the Washington Post‘s Lisa de Moraes, is being “the guy who moved Masterpiece Theatre from Sunday.”