The Boston Globe profiles Gather.com, the blogging and social-networking website backed by the parent company of Minnesota Public Radio. “We think of Gather as doing for user-driven content what eBay did for user-driven retail,” says Gather founder Tom Gerace. “Today, the problem in the blogosphere is finding what you want.” The startup announced last week that it received another $6 million in equity financing, some from Southern California Public Radio, a sibling to MPR.

Nearly all Poynter Institute staffers surveyed say they listen to NPR as part of their daily news diet.

“In the radio business, if someone’s not criticizing you for something, you’re probably not doing your job,” says Gerry Weston, who has stepped down as president of the Public Radio Partnership in Louisville, Ky. A Louisville Courier-Journal article presents a host of speculations about why Weston has resigned, reportedly under pressure from his board of directors. “It’s a complex situation,” says a former employee.

“[NPR’s leaders] still believe it is the responsibility of the journalist to focus the attention of the listener on issues that are important,” says Ted Koppel in a Wall Street Journal article about network TV reporters recently hired at NPR. NOTE: New host Michel Martin will have to adjust to a lower salary. “I’m going to save a lot of money on haircuts,” she says.

Does “a maze of twisty little roads, all alike” ring a bell? To some alert geeks, it did, and NPR science reporter David Kestenbaum has ‘fessed up to slipping that reference to an early text-adventure computer game into a recent story on Morning Edition.

The Radio Research Consortium has commissioned Audience 2010, a study led by researchers George Bailey and David Giovannoni that seeks to understand public radio’s recent decline in audience and to recommend tactics for reversing it.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting Executive Director Beth Courtney and her husband paid a $10,000 fine after the state ethics board determined that TV production subcontracts involving Bob Courtney’s company violated conflict of interest laws, reports the Baton Rouge Advocate. (The ethics opinion is posted here.) Accuracy in Media, a right-wing media watchdog group that endorsed Kenneth Tomlinson’s campaign to balance public broadcasting, issued a news release calling for a federal investigation into whether Beth Courtney, a CPB Board member who opposed Tomlinson, violated CPB’s ethics code.

Greg Guma, co-founder of the Vermont Guardian, will become executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, left-of-center operator of five pubradio stations [Pacifica website], the Guardian reported today. Predecessor Dan Coughlin held the position three years before resigning in June 2005. Guma has edited two other progressive publications, owned bookstores, coordinated the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington and headed a legal services group for immigrants in New Mexico. Meanwhile, the board of Pacifica’s KPFA-FM in Berkeley has reportedly recommended firing the station manager there, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

A co-host of War News Radio on Swarthmore College’s public radio station discussed the show on public radio’s The World last week. (Link launches Windows Media Player file.)

Chris Douridas, a host on KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, was arrested last week on suspicion of drugging and trying to kidnap a teenaged girl, reports the Los Angeles Times. “We believe in Chris as a person, and we think he has strong character,” said a KCRW exec. (Press release from the Santa Monica Police Department.)

Will Oprah come to Masterpiece Theatre‘s rescue? A Reuters story suggests that PBS will ask Harpo, Oprah Winfrey’s production company, to sponsor MT miniseries, quoting outgoing PBS President Pat Mitchell. “Oprah is incredibly philanthropic with her money and supports so many good causes,” Mitchell told reporters at last weekend’s Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena. “This would be one.” WGBH sources aren’t aware of any plans to approach Winfrey with sponsorship proposals, however. MT has been looking for a major sponsor since ExxonMobil turned off the cash pumps after the 2004 season. More from the press tour: PBS needs more money.

A former freelancer for NPR has filed a lawsuit against the Museum of Modern Art alleging that the museum got him fired from his reporting job. David D’Arcy claims that MoMA officials lied to his editors at NPR and demanded a false correction. An NPR spokeswoman denied the charges in the suit, according to a UPI clip. NPR reporter sues MoMA over firing

Gerry Weston is stepping down as president of the Public Radio Partnership in Louisville under pressure from the nonprofit’s board, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal.

NPR has named Ted Koppel a senior news analyst and hired ABC’s Michel Martin (bio) to host a daily two-hour public affairs show aimed at African-American listeners. Koppel will provide analysis on newsmags and other shows about 50 times a year and be on hand for breaking news and special events coverage. Martin will contribute to programs and serve as a substitute host until her own show debuts later this year.

Peruse WFMU’s extensive collection of velvet paintings (featuring the likenesses of Zell Miller, Osama Bin Laden and JonBenet Ramsey, among others) in all their splendor. (Oh, and news to us: WFMU has a home on Flickr.)