Michael Lazar, president of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, tells the Sacramento Bee that new competitor KQED is “not going to be offering the listeners a true alternative.” (More coverage in the Sacramento Business Journal.)

San Francisco’s KQED will move into Sacramento next year with its $3 million purchase of a religious FM station.

Another ethics watchdog takes issue with NPR’s Cokie Roberts serving on a presidential panel. “Few news organizations would allow their journalists to become involved in an activity comparable to the one Cokie Roberts has chosen and ABC News has approved,” writes Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute.

A NOVA producer and a Lockheed Martin engineer will discuss the “Battle of the X-Planes” documentary today at the Washington Post‘s website.

The New York Times profiles peace activist Leslie Cagan, who (as the article fails to mention) is also chair of the interim board of public radio’s Pacifica Foundation.

The only camera crew at a recent New York hearing on media ownership was from PBS’s NOW with Bill Moyers, notes the L.A. Times‘s Brian Lowry.

The latest Eastern Public Radio newsletter includes updates on digital radio, station hires and more.

WUSF in Tampa let go of eight employees in a reorganization.

Technical problems have knocked WCVW-TV in Richmond, Va., off the air.

“We’ve ridden the tiger before,” says PBS’s Wayne Godwin of the tough market for PBS underwriting sales. The Los Angeles Times reports on why companies are less inclined these days to sponsor PBS programs (Reg. required).

The Washington Post takes note of the federal budget’s possible blow to pubcasting.

With its proposed fiscal year 2004 budget the Bush administration not only rejects pleas for DTV transition funding for public TV, but recommends suspending the Commerce Department’s ongoing Public Telecommunications Facilities Program. APTS, PBS, CPB and NPR issued a joint statement saying the cutbacks would “deeply” threaten public service. [Link to administration’s proposed budget on OMB website.]

Residents of Olsburg, Kan., are surprised to have their own public radio station, though their rural town is already “pretty famous” for its Swedish supper the first weekend in December.

Maryland’s Gazette explores the political leanings of Marc Steiner, talk show host and executive v.p. of programming at WYPR-FM in Baltimore. Steiner led a group last year that bought WYPR from its former owner, Johns Hopkins University.

NPR commentator Cokie Roberts will sit on President Bush’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. A rep for ABC News, Roberts’ employer, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer the appointment raises no conflict of interest. But Jeffrey Dvorkin, NPR’s ombudsman, told Current, “I’m not sure that it’s a good idea at this time.”