Joseph Tovares, producer of the Feb. 2 American Experience doc about the Alamo, focused on Texas pioneer Jose Antonio Navarro, though he struggled with Navarro’s early involvement with slavery, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Backed by a $200,000 Knight Foundation grant, PBS will develop a proposal for a public affairs channel — working title, Public Square — that public TV stations could air on DTV multicast channels, the network announced Jan. 8 [2004]. The channel would offer “sustained electronic journalism” that contrasts with other networks where “sleaze repeatedly trumps substance,” said Hodding Carter, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in a news release. “You might say what CNN’s potential seemed to be at the height of its potential is where we’re going,” Carter told Current. Repeats of PBS public affairs shows on the new channel could bulk up the programs’ audiences, cable-style, but Public Square would also need exclusive programming, said PBS co-chief program executive Coby Atlas.

Elizabeth Campbell, founder of WETA in Washington, D.C., and a pioneer of educational television in the U.S., died Jan. 9 [2004] in Arlington, Va., after suffering from respiratory problems.

A revised ethics guide for public radio asks journalists to "remain reportorial" instead of spouting opinions when they're off the air, and it urges that they apply the same standards to call-in shows and websites as they do to newscasts.

Quick — what’s your reaction when someone asks to see your station’s public file? A smile or a wince? And why does it matter? Read on.In November the New York Times published a series on nonprofit accountability, once again parading before the public the missteps of the American Red Cross post-9/11 and the malfeasance of various United Way agency executives. You could imagine nonprofit leaders across the country in a collective cringe. They know that the misdeeds of a few hurt everyone. Paul Light of the Brookings Institution reports that the public’s trust in nonprofits fell after 9/11 and hasn’t recovered.

A revised ethics guide for public radio asks journalists to “remain reportorial” instead of spouting opinions when they’re off the air, and it urges that they apply the same standards to call-in shows and websites as they do to newscasts. CPB, which underwrote the project, will release the concise guide, Independence and Integrity II, on its website this week [PDF]. The authors are Alan G. Stavitsky, associate dean of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, who wrote the original pubradio ethics guide in 1995, and NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin. Though the pair consulted widely — discussing issues with pubradio and other journalists at the Poynter Institute last spring and then in workshops at three stations — Dvorkin says they didn’t end up with ambivalence about what they wrote.

Bill Siemering has created Developing Radio Partners, a nonprofit supporting independent local radio stations in burgeoning democracies. Board members include Jay Allison, Julia Barton and Corey Flintoff.

An FCC official says that a completed agency report headed for Congress includes recommendations on whether LPFMs could be sited closer to full-power stations, reports Radio and Records. [Earlier coverage in Current.]

A Seattle Weekly article about suicide revisits the death of Cynthia Doyon, a KUOW-FM host who killed herself last year. (Via Romenesko.)

If a lefty talk radio network succeeds, “maybe we could finally get Congress to stop using taxpayer dollars to subsidize NPR,” says the Wall Street Journal. (Via Romenesko.)

Ira Glass makes Newcity Chicago‘s list of “10 Chicagoans We Love to Hate,” with the author railing against “that nasally, whiney, apathetic drone affected by legions of Ira Glass wannabes clearing their throat, adjusting their horn-rims, with their microphone in the other hand.” (Via Romenesko.)

Bill Davis of KPCC in Los Angeles says an inaccurate article about Joan Kroc’s NPR gift hurt his station’s recent pledge drive returns, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Minnesota Public Radio host Katherine Lanpher is being discussed as a “probable” co-host for comic Al Franken on a new liberal talk radio network, reports the Star Tribune. [Home page for Lanpher’s MPR show.]

A long Los Angeles Times profile of Frank Deford accuses the high-profile sportswriter and NPR commentator of broad hyperbole and a loose grasp of some facts. Many Romenesko readers, meanwhile, back up Deford.

The president of Joy Public Broadcasting opposed selling his station in Frederick, Md., to Baltimore pubcaster WYPR, reports the Baltimore Sun. “I don’t like NPR,” Lowell Bush said. “I don’t like the homosexual content.” His board outvoted him, however.