Thomas Carroll, president of Lakeshore Public Television in Merrillville, Ind., since 2002, resigned on Wednesday, according to The Times in Muncie, Ind. Board Chair Bonita Neff said the resignation came at the request of the board. The Chicagoland Radio and Media news site said Carroll had spent nearly two decades WPBS in Watertown, N.Y., as a news anchor and public affairs producer, production manager and director of sales and production. Carroll is also treasurer of the Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations association. Neff and board member Cal Bellamy will oversee the station until a search for Carroll’s successor is complete.

Wick Rowland, president of Colorado Public Television for more than a decade, announced today that he will retire at the end of March 2013. He’ll continue as president and c.e.o. emeritus through September, during the leadership transition. “I have deep passion for public media,” he said in a statement, “and it’s been a pleasure to be able to work with this talented staff and dedicated board to foster and build the special CPT12 brand of independent public service television.” Rowland has been president and c.e.o. of KBDI since 1999. He previously served on the KBDI Board of Directors and was its chair from 1992-98.

A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor mentioned the “R” word — retirement — this week on Charlie Rose. “I think retirement is a beautiful thing and I think about it a lot,” Keillor said. “But then I think how lucky I am to have this show and it’s two hours every Saturday. Nobody tells me what I have to do and I work with these wonderful people. and I have all of these listeners and when I walk down the street and people recognize me, they smile, and that’s really all you need in a world.” It’s a topic Keillor has discussed in the past.

KQED in San Francisco has received $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a two-year collaborative national multimedia science reporting initiative, Quest Beyond Local, with five public broadcasting partners, building on the popularity of Quest, its Emmy award-winning science and environment series that grew into science-reporting hub for several stations last year. Quest Beyond Local partners will create content on the theme of “Science of Sustainability” on television, radio and online, with educational assets and community outreach. Work will commence in January, with new content ready for broadcast in fall 2013. Participating are NET, Lincoln, Neb.;

NPR has added two journalists to its six-person race, ethnicity and culture unit backed by CPB and preparing for launch in the spring. The network hired Gene Demby, a Huffington Post editor and founder of the blog PostBourgie, as blogger and correspondent; and Shereen Marisol Meraji, a Marketplace reporter and former NPR producer, as a reporter. Demby started PostBourgie in 2007 and continues to contribute to the group blog, which covers race, class, gender, politics and other subjects. In 2009 the blog won a Black Weblog Award for best news/politics website. Demby also worked for the New York Times for six years as a writer and news assistant.

The Lens, a Murrow Award-winning nonprofit news organization in New Orleans, has finally received its 501(c)3 designation from the Internal Revenue Service. Its official nonprofit status now opens more funding opportunities and streamlines individual donations, it said in an announcement. As many as a dozen journalism startups, most of them run largely by volunteers and accepting no advertising, have had their requests to be recognized as tax-exempt organizations delayed for many months and, in some cases, years (Current, May 14).

In a new video, hosts at New York’s WNYC and others bring to life “Saint Dude.” The song is one of the compositions from Song Reader, a new collection of sheet music released by the musician Beck. Rather than release his own recording of the tunes, Beck suggests that you play the songs on your own. WNYC’s band includes On the Media host Brooke Gladstone on vocals, Soundcheck host John Schaefer on guitar, and Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen playing a glockenspiel with a Sharpie.

Frontline, the PBS investigative news program, and ESPN’s Outside the Lines today launched the Concussion Watch website, a public database of the confirmed head injuries reported by the NFL this season. Through the site, users may track the injuries by week, team, opponent and position. Football fans may report hits they feel could cause concussions on an online tip form, or submit via Twitter using the hashtag #ConcussionWatch. The site was originally developed as a database tool for the yearlong reporting project by the joint Frontline and ESPN news team. “We realized there was a lack of information publicly available about player head injuries in the NFL,” said Frontline producer Tom Jennings in the announcement.

Basic memberships offered during pledge drives and in direct-mail appeals are a time-tested enticement for converting pubcasting viewers and listeners into contributors, but station-based development staff are perplexed about how to set the rate for this donation level. Some pubcasters are weighing whether to stop offering basic memberships altogether. A survey conducted this fall by Plymouth, Mass.–based direct-marketing consultant DMW Direct found that most stations charge below $50 for a basic membership, and few have adjusted the rate within the last five years. The basic median rate among the 41 public TV and radio stations that participated in the survey is $40, but 16 stations reported to DMW that they charge less.

Nightly Business Report has laid off at least seven staffers and closed its Chicago bureau, Chicago media critic Robert Feder is reporting. “These are all broadcast professionals,” Tom Hudson, the show’s managing editor and co-anchor, told Feder. “They possess the unique ability to cut through economic jargon and dense statistics to uncover stories with meaning and impact. I consider it an honor to call them colleagues.” The past several years have been tumultuous for NBR. Longtime owner WBPT-TV in Miami sold the program to a controversial educational video salesman, Mykalai Kontilai, in 2010. His firm, NBR Worldwide, cut eight positions, including two top newsroom managers.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Independent Public Media this week unveiled a new program to provide bridge funding to financially troubled pubTV stations. The loans will help them stay on-the-air through the FCC’s incentive spectrum auction, and require a pay out from auction proceeds. IPM designed the loan program to assist noncommercial broadcasters until they can sell off some, but not all, of their spectrum bandwidth through the FCC auction, and assumed that stations will gain a big pay-off by participating. Once auction proceeds begin rolling in, IPM will recover the costs of auction expenses and then principal and interest on its loan.

What do the holidays sound like in Austin, Texas? Austin’s KUT-FM is answering that question with an “Austin-centric” stream of holiday music, now airing on its new station, KUTX 98.9 FM, and on its website at kut.org. The holiday tunes are airing while KUT prepares the launch of its new all-music format on KUTX Jan. 2, when it will also move KUT to an all-news format. Music shows now on KUT will migrate to the station, which will pick up some additional music programs and air performances from a new studio at KUT as well. This post has been updated and reposted with additional information.

The Latino Public Radio Consortium and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters are joining the Austin, Texas-based Artists for Media Diversity (A4MD) to premiere a virtual online album, “Artists for Vieques.” The fundraiser will support construction of WVQR-FM, which will be the only public radio station on the small Puerto Rican island. The U.S. Navy used Vieques as a bombing range and testing ground until protests forced it from the island in 2003. Artists including the popular Puerto Rican band Calle 13, Willie Nelson and  Los Lonely Boys donated songs for exclusive use. Funds generated by sales will go toward building and launching Radio Vieques before its June 30, 2013, FCC deadline.