Washington Week is upgrading to HD this week, tweaking everything from the set to the graphics. Senior Producer Chris Guarino tells Current the show has been using HD cameras and down-converting; after several months of preparation, “it was finally time to pull the trigger.” Lighting director Charlie Ide (in photo on the set) has been busy installing additional lights. He points out that viewers will see gradations of dark tones in the backdrops instead of just solid black. Two copper-colored columns widen the set to fill the new image format. Guarino also said a revamped website will launch at the end of the month.

After 10 years, PBS talk host Tavis Smiley is ending his State of the Black Union event. He crisscrossed the country for the free gatherings, which served as “as a pulse check on how African Americans were fairing economically, politically and socially,” according to a statement. Tens of thousands attended in person and millions viewed the annual live broadcasts on C-SPAN, the statement said. In a video on his site, Smiley says that during the past 10 years, many venues for those discussions have developed — especially the Internet — which reduced the need for a once-yearly meeting. He also cited his work on a series of primetime specials for PBS that will put more demands on his time.

Remember Antiques Roadshow’s first million-dollar appraisal, filmed last June? You may have seen it in the season premiere last night. Owner Jinx Taylor was stunned when appraiser James Callahan said her Chinese jade collection from the Qianlong era could bring up to $1 million at auction. But Taylor sold the pieces in October and they didn’t bring nearly that much, according to the Maine Antique Digest. Instead, Taylor got $494,615 for the collection. She also consigned to the same sale about 30 other items she had not brought to the Roadshow; seven of those brought in another $350,523.

FCC Chair Julius Genachowski’s Facebook account was briefly taken over late last month by spam-spewing malware, the New York Times tech blog Bits reveals. On Dec. 31, Genachowski appeared to send Facebook friends a message saying, “Adam got me started making money with this.” Attached was a link to a nonexistent website. Facebook suspended the account, as per its policy. No comment from the FCC. Facebook said it takes security “very seriously” and has devoted “significant resources toward helping our users protect their accounts.”

Another nonprofit news site has come online, says the Philebrity blog. Metropolis covers the Philadelphia region. According to the site, it’s “dedicated to the notion that the time has come to stop worrying about the future of local journalism and to start creating it.” It’s a project of Tom Ferrick, a former columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and now an instructor at Bryn Mawr College. No word on funding.

PBS Hawaii will “break national ground” with its new multimedia statewide middle- and high-school student news network, reports the Star Bulletin in Honolulu. The effort is dubbed “Hiki No,” meaning “can do” in Hawaiian. Station President and CEO Leslie Wilcox said in a blog post that the project has been in the planning stages for two years. Students will meet in a virtual newsroom and their reports will be shown on the web and Hawaii PBS, Wilcox said. At the helm is Susan Yim, a 20-year newspaper and nonprofit veteran. CPB contributed $200,000 toward the effort.

The number of K-12 teachers using digital media is up 7 percent from last year, according to a PBS-funded ongoing study by Grunwald Associates. The research and consulting firm has been tracking educators’ media use for PBS since 2002. Other findings: Of those teachers using digital media in the classrom, 80 percent are frequent or regular users. Seventy-two percent say they stream or download content from the Internet, up from 65 percent in 2008. And PBS content and websites are the top choice for pre-K educators.

California Watch, a special project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, launched a new website with more interactive features. Users can dig deeper into databases connected to the project’s reporting, such as this new report examining loopholes in the state’s campaign financing rules; interact with each other and team reporters; and find contact information for public officials. “We’ve created an investigative reporting team for California that will not only expose corruption and wrongdoing, but will spark debate and give people the tools to learn more and identify solutions that will hopefully improve the quality of life in the state,” said Robert Rosenthal, CIR executive director.

NPR hired two key staff members for Project Argo, its $3 million pilot testing new approaches to online local news. PaidContent reports that Joel Sucherman is leaving USA Today to become Argo project director as of Jan. 11; Matt Thompson, a web producer with the Knight Foundation, signs on as editorial product manager on Feb. 1. Two more NPR-based positions are still to be filled, as are blogger/reporter jobs at 12 pilot stations.

Ratings powerhouse Antiques Roadshow has announced its 2010 tour cities and dates. “We’re calling this our Crystal Anniversary Tour,” Roadshow e.p. Marsha Bemko said in a statement. “It’s our way of celebrating Roadshow’s 15-year romance with America’s stories, its objects, and its extraordinary history.” Bemko is also author of the new book, Antiques Roadshow Behind the Scenes. Here’s the schedule: San Diego, June 12; Billings, Mont., June 26; Miami Beach, Fla., July 10; Biloxi, Miss., July 24; Des Moines, Aug. 7; and Washington, D.C., Aug.21.

CPB sources reveal that Matthew White has been hired as the first executive director of American Archive. White’s firm managed the yearlong Smithsonian Networks Archive Project, and is working on the Inter-Organizational Group on Archives at Risk (PDF), “a global effort to identify distressed audio-visual archives in developing countries, and to help build digital infrastructures and the necessary resources to ensure these materials survive the transition from analog to digital formats,” according to his website. White’s experience dates to the 1980s when he and a partner established the stock-footage WPA Film Library. A formal announcement on White’s appointment is expected later today from CPB.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is co-sponsoring a research study on children and Internet keyword searching, reports the New York Times. Eighty-nine children ages 7, 9 and 11 participated. The newspaper says that because more children are using search as a tool for homework or entertainment, search-engine developers are studying youngsters for guidance on how to improve features — which leads to improvements for all users.

Rich Samuels, longtime reporter on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, did not have his contract renewed due to a “seven-figure shortfall” in the station’s budget, according to blogger Robert Feder on Vocalo. The 68-year-old Samuels spent a total of 35 years in Chicago broadcast media, the last 18 at Channel 11. It’s the latest blow for the pubaffairs show; host John Callaway died last June. A station spokeswoman declined to detail any financial troubles at the station in the Chicago Sun-Times. She did confirm that Samuels would not be replaced.

Influential pubcaster David Fanning, Frontline e.p., had harsh words on what he sees as the growing commercialism in pubcasting during his James L. Loper Lecture in Public Service Broadcasting at the Annenberg School for Communication. One evening after he’d spoken at a station fundraiser, he recalled, “I was scrolling through the channels when I came across a shopping channel with a dubious doctor selling nutritional supplements. I was interested in a perversely fascinated way as he promised all sorts of remedies, including — and I’m not exaggerating here — results for cancer sufferers. And then the shot changed to a woman with him who said that if you bought these supplements you’d be making a donation to .