SPONSORED

query

The U.S. public wants more news coverage of climate change, surveys find

As hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and heat waves have intensified over the past decade, public concern about climate change has grown dramatically. Today, 65% of the U.S. public is worried about the issue, up from 52% a decade ago, according to nationally representative surveys conducted by scientists at Yale University and George Mason University.

System/Policy

Judge in Pacifica suit affirms earlier decision against former executive director

By |

An Alameda County, Calif., judge has upheld her previous ruling that the Pacifica Foundation’s board of directors acted within its bounds when it fired Executive Director Summer Reese earlier this year. Judge Ioana Petrou made the ruling Monday, a day before both Reese and the board were to appear in court to argue the matter. In her opinion, Petrou wrote that based on her earlier ruling, the board would likely prevail and that reversing the decision would cause “great harm.” Petrou gave Reese and her legal team until 5 p.m. Pacific time Monday to contest the ruling. A permanent injunction went into effect when the order was not challenged.

Programs/Content

Radio Diaries turns to Kickstarter to boost podcast, productions

By |

The production company Radio Diaries, whose stories often appear on This American Life and NPR’s newsmagazines, is aiming to raise $40,000 in a Kickstarter campaign to fund new pieces and an expansion of its podcast. The campaign began May 28 and runs until June 27. As of noon June 3, the campaign has raised $19,280. Radio Diaries has turned to Kickstarter to diversify its fundraising methods, said Executive Producer Joe Richman. “We, like a lot of other small independent production companies are scrappy, and we’ve made it work with whatever money comes through the door and always will,” he said.

People

Samuel Chamberlin Newbury, ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ producer, dies at 69

By |

Samuel Chamberlin Newbury, who served as director of productions for Fred Rogers Co. for nearly three decades, died May 22 at his home in Pittsburgh of cancer. He was 69. Newbury is best remembered as the producer of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and as right-hand man of the show’s creator and namesake, Fred Rogers. He worked for Rogers’ production company Family Communications, Inc. (now known as Fred Rogers Co.) for 28 years from 1986 until his retirement in 2012.

Programs/Content

Analysis finds flat core audience for public radio’s web streams

By |

A recent analysis of web metrics for NPR member stations’ websites showed continued growth in visits from mobile users along with declines in cumulative audiences and the amount of time web users spent with content. Though web metrics for public radio stations have grown dramatically since 2012, analytics from this spring were especially volatile, said Steve Mulder, director of user experience and analytics at NPR Digital Services, during a May 29 public radio metrics webinar with station representatives. Mulder drew analytics data from 204 stations that operate 415 web streams; together, their online platforms drew 14 million unique visitors and a cumulative audience of 3.3 million listeners from April 2013-14. In a comparison of the year-to-year data, the cumulative audience for pubradio streams dropped 9 percent, Mulder said. And while visitors were listening to a wider variety of content, the total amount of listening time per streaming session remained flat, at about an hour.

Programs/Content

Pubcasting programs spark anthology of ‘Poetic Responses’

By |

While public broadcasting covers poets and their work, a new anthology may be the first book of poems inspired by public media stories. Poet Robbi Nester of Lake Forest, Calif., edited The Liberal Media Made Me Do It: Poetic Responses to NPR & PBS Stories (Lummox Press), featuring works of 56 poets reacting to segments and programs aired by public stations. Nester answered a few questions by email. This exchange has been edited. Where did the idea for this book come from?

Programs/Content

Downton Abbey creator calls PBS delay in season scheduling ‘madness’

By |

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has weighed in on PBS’s decision to delay airing the Masterpiece megahit for months after each season premieres in Britain. And as his countryfolk might say, he is cheesed off. “I want to have simultaneous transmission in America and Britain,” he tells the Telegraph of London. “The difficulty that we have is that people are discussing the series as it happens online before America’s seen it and on the internet we’re all in the same company. It’s madness.”

Then he adds: “It’s what I’d like, but who cares what I think?”

Scheduling Downton is a tricky subject for PBS. The blockbuster costume drama has always premiered in January on PBS, two months after the British airing.