The CPB Board adopted new governance policies and approved changes to others earlier this week as part of its ongoing effort to reform operations within the funding agency in the wake of last year’s controversy. The Board approved changes to its Code of Ethics for Directors and Conflicts of Interest policy; outlined new procedures for ensuring that the corporation follows all open meetings requirements and does not include “political tests” in hiring decisions; more explicitly spelled out the responsibilities of board members, the board chair and president; and created a new “whistleblower policy” to protect CPB staff from retaliation for reporting suspicions of waste, fraud or other violations of the law or CPB policy (see also Broadcasting & Cable, subscription req.).

Independent public radio producer Sandy Tolan’s new book, The Lemon Tree, has been published by Bloomsbury USA. The book explores the relationship between an Arab family and a Jewish family in the Middle East.

Fellowships galore for public radio reporters: a Knight Fellowship from Stanford University for Andrea Bernstein at WNYC in New York; a Knight-Wallace Fellowship from the University of Michigan for NPR’s Anthony Brooks; and a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Clark Boyd of The World.

Todd Mundt assesses this week’s New Realities forum for public radio halfway through and finds enough “mediocrity buttressed by self-satisfaction . . . to last me a lifetime.” Consultant Rob Paterson, who helped organize the conference, responds that he saw “evidence of a shift in culture to a more self-sufficient, confident and adult way of being” at the end of the event. More observations from Paterson on his blog and on a New Realities blog of opinions, photos and reports. One new blog to come out of the event: HD Public Radio.

Laura Cantrell, a musician and a DJ on WFMU-FM in Jersey City, N.J., contemplates the art of conjuring a distinct atmopshere on radio, whether the host is live or recorded. Along the way she makes examples of public radio’s Garrison Keillor, Eddie Stubbs and Vin Scelsa.

Louis Rukeyser, 73, died Tuesday after a long struggle with a rare bone marrow cancer. The son of one of the first financial columnists in U.S. newspapers, he became the first financial reporting star in TV. “He was the franchise — proof that the star system worked even for PBS,” said media professor Douglas Gomery in the Baltimore Sun. Rukeyser outlived the new version of Wall Street Week devised by Maryland Public Television to replace his original WSW, which he hosted for 32 years. Rukeyser refused to take a reduced role in the new program planned by MPT.

The contextual ads that pbs.org began introducing in January will begin expanding onto more of its websites, Cindy Johanson tells paidcontent.org. “Once we have more inventory in place, we see sponsored links as one of several strategies to help generate revenue,” Johanson writes in an e-mail Q&A.

Two of the San Francisco Bay Area’s five public TV stations — San Francisco’s KQED-TV/FM and KTEH– announced they are merging into a new nonprofit, Northern California Public Broadcasting. KQED’s Jeff Clarke will be president. Both stations are in good financial shape, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The combo also includes TV station KCAH in Monterey and KQEI-FM in Sacramento. Mergers in public TV have been rare. Two recent ones involved New York’s WNET, which combined with neighbor WLIW in 2001 and acquired control of WXEL in Palm Beach, Fla., this year. In 1994, Seattle’s KCTS took responsibility for a KYVE in Yakima, Wash.

Edtech expert Andy Carvin hosts PBS’s new blog for K-12 educators, learning.now. Carvin’s first column, posted today, challenges school districts to develop more reasonable approaches to filtering Internet content.

The Berkman Center and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society have published an online legal guide to podcasting. Writes Lawrence Lessig in the foreword: “Something fantastic has changed: technology now invites the widest range of citizens to become speakers and creators. It is time that the law remove the unnecessary burdens that it imposes on this creativity.”

Kilgore College in Texas decided to sell its public radio station to a religious broadcaster in part because its audience growth had stagnated and few of its members lived near the college. “What obligation does the board have to expend college funds to bring a service well beyond its service area or tax district?” asks Kilgore College President Bill Holda in the Longview News-Journal.

The Washington Post‘s Rob Pegoraro reviews HD Radio: “Seeing this technology inch its way into the market is getting to be as frustrating as trying to find some originality on your FM dial.” Mark Ramsey links to Pegoraro’s article and comments: “For the life of me, I don’t understand why we’re planting receivers with print guys.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports on the return of public radio’s American Routes to a damaged city and a new home there. “The question we’re all facing with the culture so disrupted is how we’ll make a living — not just financially, but how will we live here and feel whole?” says host Nick Spitzer.

“This thing called public radio is a club, and they’re not trying to let everybody in,” says Tavis Smiley in a Washington Post profile that touches on his disagreements with NPR and with WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., which airs his show at 2 a.m. (Related coverage in Current from 2003.)

Consultant Robert Paterson shares some thoughts about public radio’s New Realities forum, which takes place Monday and Tuesday in Washington, D.C. “For many who will attend, the issue is much more than the survival and health of public radio but the survival of the last large media space in America that can be trusted,” he writes.