A volunteer DJ has been charged with stealing donors’ credit card information from a Houston radio station and using it to make personal purchases. Michael Whitfield was arrested in December after police found him in possession of credit card information taken from more than 300 donors to KTSU, a jazz station licensed to Texas Southern University in Houston. He is being held on $200,000 bond. Police began their investigation in July 2012 after a KTSU donor reported unauthorized charges on their credit card, and they traced them to an IP address to Whitfield’s apartment. Investigators have confirmed 25 cases of theft so far, according to Donna Logan, an assistant district attorney for Harris County, Texas.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter is recommending that Idaho Public Television receive $1.6 million in the coming fiscal year’s budget, about a 2.6 percent bump from the current year’s funding. In 2010, Otter had considered zeroing out funding to IPTV, and last year, the state network faced loss of service due to cuts. IPTV President Peter Morrill told IdahoReporter.com this week that the agency was asking for $2.8 million to fund capital equipment requests as part of a total budget of $7.7 million. “It is effectively a flat budget recommendation,” Morrill said.

Veteran pubcaster Peter Dominowski, a founder of the Public Radio Program Directors Association, is the new president and general manager of Northeast Indiana Public Radio in Fort Wayne, the station announced today. Dominowski has worked as a researcher, facilitator and consultant with more than 100 pubradio stations, as well as the major national networks and professional organizations. Before forming his consulting company, Market Trends Research, he was a program director at WFMT, a commercial classical station in Chicago, and WMFE, a pubradio station in Orlando, Fla. He succeeds Will Murphy, who now leads WFIU, the Indiana University Public Radio station in Bloomington.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), a progressive press watchdog group, is criticizing Nova over sponsorship issues surrounding its recent report, “Rise of the Drones.” The report was underwritten by Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the unmanned aircraft. FAIR says that is a “clear violation of PBS’s underwriting guidelines.” The program included comments from Abe Karem, known as “the father of the Predator” drone. His company has a business relationship with Lockheed Martin, FAIR said, citing reporting from a blog on FireDogLake, a collaborative progressive news site. “The program’s sponsorship tie to the drone industry were never mentioned — though there were opportunities to disclose that relationship,” according to FAIR.

WMVY radio on Martha’s Vineyard has successfully raised $600,000 to continue programming on the web for another year, reports The Martha’s Vineyard Times. After nearly 30 years, the station lost its 92.7 FM spot on the dial when Boston’s WBUR acquired its signal late last year.

Dan Schiedel, the new executive director of the Oklahoma pubcasting network, on Monday asked the state legislature for a 50 percent increase in state funding for the upcoming fiscal year — despite some lawmakers still calling for the entire elimination of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, reports The Associated Press. OETA, which got some $3.8 million in state funding during the last two fiscal years, wants a $2 million hike for items including statewide satellite distribution, expanded state legislative coverage and increased employee benefits. State support covers about 36 percent of OETA’s budget. The chairman of the Senate budget committee that oversees the funding said he wants to give the agency time to develop other sources of income before cutting its budget.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Felipe “Phil” Estrada Olvera Jr., a former interim vice president of engineering at Oregon Public Broadcasting, died Jan. 19 of complications from cancer. He celebrated his 55th birthday just six days earlier. Olvera began his career at ABC station KVEW-TV in Kennewick, Wash., working his way to assistant chief engineer. In 1992, he moved on to what was then Eastern Oregon State College in La Grande, Ore., to take over as an ED-NET teleproductions engineer. He arrived at  Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland in 1995, starting out as a maintenance engineer and progressing to interim v.p.

This article has been updated and reposted with additional information. Stanley Karnow, whose book Vietnam: A History became the basis of the critically acclaimed 13-hour PBS documentary, Vietnam: A Television History, died Jan. 27 at his home in Potomac, Md., reports the New York Times. He was 87. “Unlike many books and films on Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s and the nightly newscasts that focused primarily on America’s role and its consequences at home and abroad,” the Times noted, “Mr. Karnow addressed all sides of the conflict and traced Vietnam’s culture and history.” The WGBH series premiered on PBS in 1983, and was re-edited to 11 hours for rebroadcast on American Experience in 1997.

The National Endowment for the Arts will be holding a webinar Jan. 29, 1-2 p.m. EST, to provide guidance for applying to their Media Arts grant opportunities. Applicants have a shot at earning up to $100,000 in individual grants. The webinar registration link can be found on the NEA’s website.

Dear Readers, I wanted to take a moment to remind you about Current’s Reader Survey. Not that long ago, Current Newspaper and Current.org became a part of our family as a new center at the American University School of Communication. We take our role in managing Current very seriously, and look to you to help shape the future direction of this important industry resource. For over thirty years, Current has been the independent news and information source for public media professionals. We intend to build upon its strong foundation by adding additional editorial bandwidth and online resources to further serve you.

The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, a group of 39 broadcasters willing to sell spectrum rights, filed comments with the FCC on Thursday. Among its recommendations, reports Broadcasting & Cable, is that the FCC make the upcoming spectrum auctions more attractive to stations by not limiting wireless bidders, or restricting which stations may share spectrum after the auctions are complete. “We told the FCC that when they think about what they’re going to pay these willing stations, they should think about the value of the spectrum for the wireless, not the broadcasting business,” coalition Executive Director Preston Padden told Ad Week.

The Association of Independents in Radio is joining forces with Independent Television Service for the next round of funding for Localore, the $2 million innovation initiative that pairs independent producers with public stations. Boston-based AIR spearheaded the first year of  Localore with funding from CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts and two foundations. Localore projects include a multimedia look at the impact of the oil boom in North Dakota and an alternate-reality game challenging students to stay in school, Ed Zed Omega. On Wednesday, AIR and San Francisco-based ITVS said they would partner to support a second phase of development for selected Localore projects.

Colorado Public Radio is adding an arts news bureau and online arts hub, using a $900,000 grant from Denver’s Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. Max Wycisk, station president, said the grant will “transform the organization” by providing its first full news bureau and expanding music coverage. The grant will fund three full-time staffers for three years: An arts editor and two full-time reporters, one specializing in broadcast reports and the other in digital content. Coverage will include previews and stories about cultural organizations, funding and sustainability of the arts, and arts in education, as well as reviews, interviews, audio and video performances and events calendars.