In February 1983, Phoenix’s PBS station KAET aired the world’s first live telecast of open-heart surgery. The station marks that upcoming 30th anniversary with a pilot for its new occasional medical series, The Latest Procedure, featuring an anterior total hip replacement. For the hourlong surgery, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Ted Firestone of Scottsdale recorded the entire operation through a minicam strapped to his head. Viewers are with him as he meets with the patient, scrubs in, explains surgical tools and provides a personal tour of the operating room before surgery begins. They also observe what Firestone sees as he operates. During the show, host Jim Cissell interviews Firestone at the station’s studios at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

KEET in Eureka, Calif. — one of the smallest TV stations in the pubcasting system — has produced a unique documentary featuring woodcut animation: Searchlight Serenade: Big Bands in the Japanese American Incarceration Camps. The 58-minute film provides first-person accounts of nine detainees who played trumpet and saxophone and sang for their fellow prisoners. Their stories are animated with traditional Japanese woodcuts and drawings by local artist Amy Uyeki, whose parents had lived in the camps. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, in 1941, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into the holding areas during World War II. Musical performances in the camps by 20 big bands provided an important diversion.

Producer Barrett Golding said had been thinking about ending the public radio show when he learned that NPR was considering dropping its contract to distribute it. “That gave me the reason to stop producing,” Golding wrote in an email. Golding was “kinda sick of the mostly volunteer work,” he said. The weekly hourlong program compiled audio pieces from archives, independent and documentary producers, and elsewhere in public radio, usually around themes. It aired on about 100 stations.

The Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN), based in Conway, won three Emmys for “Clean Lines, Open Spaces: A View of Mid-Century Modern Architecture,” a doc that explored mid-century modern architecture through a regional lens of the American South. The program was named best cultural documentary, and Mark Wilcken received individual awards for writing and editing. “I love these old mid-century modern buildings, and I’m glad I had a chance to explain what they are, where they came from and why they are important,” said Wilcken. Two of three Emmys won by KOMU in Columbia, Mo., went to Sarah Hill and Scott Schaefer for news stories in the historical/cultural (“Concentration Camp Wedding Dress”) and human interest (“Baby Chloe’s Diamond in the Sky”) categories.

A reporter for the NPR station based in Greeley, Colo., Hood earned the award for Investigating Colorado’s Online K–12 Schools, a three-part report about for-profit education. The report found that the state’s largest full-time online school was operating under questionable state oversight and delivering poor academic results. It aired in fall 2011. “Her reports demonstrated the likely abuse of millions of dollars in public funds for an online education that was producing decidedly inferior results while at the same time enriching the for-profit management company,” said Schorr Prize judge Philip Balboni, c.e.o. of Global Post. Hood has also contributed to NPR’s Morning Edition, the National Radio Project’s Making Contact and Voice of America.

Can’t attend today’s Million Puppet March? No worries, the Washington, D.C., event is being streamed online. There’s also a “global tweet” at 2 p.m. Eastern, “I  support continued funding of public broadcasting #pubmedia #MPM2012.” The event, which kicks off at 10 a.m., is in response to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s repeated promises to defund the system if he is elected. Speakers at the rally include Craig Aaron, president of media reform group Free Press.

Maryland Public Television is getting a new tenant on its broadcast tower: Verizon. That makes four clients leasing space on MPT’s 480-foot tower, reports The Daily Times in Salisbury, Md. Others are the American Red Cross, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Salisbury Police Department. “The wireless industry is expanding and people want this activity,” George Beneman, technology v.p. at MPT, told the newspaper. “You need to have the capacity to handle all those calls. Getting towers built in most areas of the United States is very difficult because most folks don’t want a tower in their neighborhood.”

StoryCorps’ Historias project will house its archives of more than 2,000 audio recordings within the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at University of Texas at Austin. The collection will be the only complete archive of Historias interviews apart from the comprehensive set at the Library of Congress, the university said in the Nov. 1 announcement. The decision to provide the collection to the university grew out of an early partnership between Historias developers and Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, associate professor in the school of journalism, who oversees the Voces oral-history project on Latino contributions to World War II, which is part of the library’s website.

The Nine Network of Public Media in St. Louis kicked off a yearlong construction project on Tuesday to build the Public Media Commons, an interactive “urban space” in the city’s midtown district. Designed to be a “powerful expression” of the future of public media, the Public Media Commons is a pedestrian-friendly and interactive space that will give visitors the opportunity to view content on wall-size screens as well as curating content via interactive and touch displays. The community space will also have concert space and public art including a digital “tree.” The Nine Network’s partners include the University of Missouri-St. Louis and St.

NPR continues reorganization of its executive ranks with two senior hires announced today by President Gary Knell. Emma Carrasco takes over Dec. 3 as NPR’s chief marketing officer Dec. 3, a new position. Carrasco has 30 years of experience in advertising, branding, digital, promotions, communications and media. She is currently executive vice president of Republica, a Miami creative agency specializing in multiplatform marketing, and has held positions at Fleishman-Hillard, Univision, McDonald’s and Nortel Networks. She serves on the board of directors of WPBT, the PBS member station in Miami. Carrasco will report directly to Knell, developing and leading implementation of a marketing strategy to expand the visibility of NPR and public radio.

In a further sign of public media’s embrace of the digital front, on Oct. 30 both NPR and Southern California Public Radio in Los Angeles won multiple EPPY Awards for their websites.

The Smiley & West show is being picked up by two Chicago radio outlets, after WBEZ dropped the program due to sagging audience numbers. Tavis Smiley and his co-host, author and activist Cornel West, will be heard on Newsweb Radio progressive talk WCPT-AM and Midway Broadcasting urban news/talk WVON-AM, reports Chicago media critic Bob Feder. Thirteen stations have dropped the show since June 2011, with several taking issue with the co-hosts’ political opinionating or citing complaints from listeners. WBEZ’s cancellation and related comments from Torey Malatia, station president, triggered an angry letter from Smiley that sparked a widely reported controversy in Chicago.