Tavis Smiley has posted a scathing letter he emailed to Torey Malatia, president of Chicago Public Radio, in response to the station dropping his Smiley & West at the end of September due to sagging audience numbers. (Here’s background on the controversy from Chicago media critic Robert Feder.) In the letter, Smiley notes it is the first time in 20 years he has felt the need to write to the head of a local station. “If Smiley & West has experienced any erosion in listenership, it might have something to do with being heard over WBEZ on Sundays at 12 Noon when most Black Chicagoans are in worship service,” Smiley writes.

William Friday, a past president of University of North Carolina and longtime host of North Carolina People with William Friday on UNC-TV, died Oct. 12 in his Chapel Hill home. He was 92. The program aired for 41 years, with Friday interviewing some 2,000 of the state’s writers, educators, athletes, politicians and other personalities. The first episode of the new season, an interview with retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ran on Aug. 3. “We haven’t made a determination yet about the future of the program,” UNC-TV spokesman Steve Volstad told the local News & Observer.

The popular pubradio quiz show Whad’Ya Know? has selected a successor to longtime announcer Jim Packard, who died in June.  Sara Nics is joining the staff of the Wisconsin Public Radio program that’s distributed by Public Radio International. Previously she worked as producer for WPR’s To The Best of Our Knowledge, and covered Asia for Radio Netherlands. “I’ve been laughing with Whad’Ya Know? for years,” Nics said in the announcement. “It was an enormous compliment to be asked to audition for the gig, and fun to discover that the show’s even funnier from the stage.” “No one can fill Jim Packard’s seat,” she added.

Philadelphia’s WXPN began independent syndication of XPoNential Radio, its 24-hour stream of Triple A music programming,  after NPR discontinued its service providing packaged HD Radio feeds to member stations. XPoNential Radio offers a blend of “blues, rock, world, folk and alternative country,” according to a news release announcing the new syndication offer.  WXPN General Manager Roger LaMay said about 20 stations already subscribed to the stream. “With XPoNential Radio being the most popular of the HD streams NPR offered, we decided to offer it on our own,” LaMay said. “It’s a 24-hour, plug and play stream that can be used on an HD2, HD3 or for streaming on the Internet.”

Mary Pruess, outgoing president and g.m. of WNIT Public Television in South Bend, Ind., told Current she feels “very confident that the station is in a strong position to build on for the coming years.” The local South Bend Tribune reported today that Pruess had resigned. Pruess told Current she resigned on Monday, effective immediately. Steven Funk, station vice president of development and marketing, will serve as interim executive director while the WNIT Board conducts a search for Pruess’s replacement. Pruess is immediate past president of the Affinity Group Coalition’s Small Station Association. When Pruess arrived at WNIT 10 years ago, she said, WNIT was housed in a set of trailers behind a school in Elkhart.

Two pubcasting fans in different cities who separately conceived plans for a “Million Muppet March” (later renamed Million Puppet March) in support of public broadcasting have teamed up to try to organize the event on Nov. 3 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Michael Bellavia, 42, of Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham, 46, of Boise, Idaho, were watching the presidential debate on Oct. 3 when Republican nominee Mitt Romney said that he would end subsidies to PBS if elected. Even before the debate ended, Bellavia had secured the URL millionmuppetmarch.com, and Mecham created the Million Muppet March Facebook page.

Mary Pruess, president and g.m. of WNIT Public Television in South Bend, Ind., has resigned from the station “to pursue other opportunities,” reports the South Bend Tribune. Pruess has served in the post for 10 years, and is active with the Small Station Association of the Affinity Group Coalition of pubcasting stations. Steven Funk, station vice president of development and marketing, will serve as interim executive director while the WNIT board of directors conducts a search for Pruess’s replacement.

PBS documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, whose extensive credits include The Civil War, Baseball and the upcoming The Dust Bowl, authored an editorial in Tuesday’s USA Today in which he said that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney “knows the price of things, but he clearly doesn’t know their value.” Romney has attracted the ire of the pubcasting community for frequently stating throughout his campaign that he would cut funding to CPB, and he reiterated his intent to do so during last week’s presidential debate. Burns recalled filming The Civil War in the late 1980s, during which time he visited then-President Ronald Reagan in the White House.

Veteran public radio broadcaster Madeleine Brand has joined the staff of SoCal Connected, KCET’s award-winning news magazine that is moving from weekly to daily programs for its fifth season on the independent Los Angeles pubTV station. Brand left local KPCC in September after The Madeleine Brand Show was revamped into Brand & Martinez with a new co-host, local sportscaster A Martinez, joined the program. (See Current’s story on those changes.) This is Brand’s first foray into television. Before KPCC, she spent 13 years at NPR, including as host of the national newsmag Day to Day. Bret Marcus, KCET’s chief content officer and SoCal Connected‘s executive producer, called Brand “a terrific broadcaster who has developed a loyal following among both listeners and newsmakers.”

Turn on the black light, cue up a Doors album and sink into your beanbag chair: The American Revolution, a documentary coming to public TV in August 2013, is going to transport you to a time when radio riled America’s youth.

Sesame Workshop has asked the Obama for America campaign to remove an online ad that contains a cameo appearance from its Big Bird character. The 31-second video plays off GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s statement during the recent debates that he would end funding to PBS. The spot says Romney implies that “it’s not Wall Street you have to worry about, it’s Sesame Street,” comparing Big Bird to disgraced financiers including Bernie Madoff. In response, Sesame Workshop, nonprofit home to Sesame Street, posted that it is a “nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns.

The series covered the 30th anniversary of the year the Centers for Disease Control reported that five previously healthy young men in Los Angeles had come down with a rare lung disease, later identified as HIV. For The California Report series, Scott Shafer interviewed medical researchers and activists involved in the early days of the epidemic. Established in 1993 to recognize excellence in journalism about issues related to the LGBT community, the NLGJA’s Excellence in Journalism Awards were presented at the UNITY 2012 Convention and NLGJA Awards Reception Aug. 3 in Las Vegas. The UNITY: Journalists, Inc. coalition consists of the NLGJA, the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association.