Nice Above Fold - Page 1007

  • The FCC will hold two open meetings June 27 to hear public comment about WFUV-FM‘s plans to shorten its broadcasting tower to keep it near the New York Botanical Garden. ‘FUV and the Garden have been fighting over the tower’s location for six years, according to ‘FUV’s website. Here’s the FCC’s announcement in PDF, text and Word formats.
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    June 10, 2002

  • The Yiddish Radio Project has started a “Gems from the Yiddish Radio Archive” feature on its website, a 26-week series of classic archived broadcasts. (Current‘s write-up of the Project, 2/11/02.)
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    June 10, 2002

  • Chicago’s WTTW-TV laid off fifteen employees last week, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report. The station faces a $3.4 million shortfall in next year’s budget, the story says.
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    June 10, 2002

  • Michigan Radio and Flint’s WFUM-TV have merged to become Michigan Public Media. Donovan Reynolds, former Michigan Radio g.m., will lead the operation. Five staffers (four in radio, one in TV) have lost their jobs.
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    June 10, 2002

  • The L. A. Times profiles Eva Georgia, new g.m. of L. A. Pacifica station KPFK.
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    June 10, 2002

  • Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act, 2002

    On June 10, 2002, Sens. Christopher Dodd and James Jeffords introduced a bill (S. 2603) to authorize the investment of spectrum auction proceeds in public-service content for digital media, apparently inspired in part by the Digital Promise Project of 1991. Rep. Edward Markey earlier introduced a similar bill in the House. The Senate bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. A BILLTo establish the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the `Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act’.
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    June 10, 2002

  • There’s new stuff up at WYMS.org, which, oddly enough, is registered to Milwaukee Public Schools.
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    June 6, 2002

  • An Oregonian report says Oregon Public Broadcasting cut about 24 jobs—15 percent of its staff—yesterday, in response to the weak economy. Several higher-ups were included. (More coverage in the Portland Tribune.)
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    June 6, 2002

  • White House spokesman Ari Fleischer couldn’t keep his NPR sweatshirt (and why was the network giving him one, anyway?). So who has it now? (Second item.)
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    June 6, 2002

  • CPB was a lead funder of the report on schools and the Internet, “Are We There Yet?,” released yesterday by the National School Boards Foundation. Primo soundbite on NPR jibed the schools for depending heavily on kids for computer setup and troubleshooting. Schools use the Web mostly for teachers’ research and lesson planning, very little for students’ work, report says.
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    June 6, 2002

  • Maryland PTV hires “media crisis manager,” who formerly repped for Linda Tripp. Baltimore Sun stopped taking his pitches after he passed the paper bad information in fall 2000.
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    June 5, 2002

  • “Could it be that [Bill] O’Reilly is living up to the old reporter’s saw of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story?” So asks NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin in his latest “Media Matters” column, which addresses the perennial complaint that NPR is too left-wing. (O’Reilly in Current, 3/25/02.)
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    June 4, 2002
  • People
    Stanford Calderwood

    Series founder Stanford Calderwood dies

    Stanford Calderwood, who served only a few months as president of WGBH, Boston, but initiated one of its most enduring franchises, Masterpiece Theatre, died May 9 [2002]. He was 81. Calderwood brought together costume dramas from British TV producers with a long-term underwriter, Mobil Corp.—a formula that defines the series today, more than three decades after it went on the air in January 1971. He served in World War II before entering journalism and becoming a marketing exec for Polaroid Corp., based in Cambridge, Mass. After putting Polaroid money behind Julia Child and other WGBH projects, he succeeded Hartford Gunn as president of the station.
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    June 3, 2002

  • WBUR in Boston is only one of a number of news outlets targeted for boycott by pro-Israel press critics, as reported in “Current” June 3. Brooke Gladstone of “On the Media” talked with a critic of newspaper coverage — and with a Jewish journalist uneasy with the idea of boycotts.
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    June 3, 2002

  • St. Petersburg Times pictures new Tampa station chief Richard Lobo as a turnaround expert at a station that needs a turnaround. The paper reported that WEDU No. 2 exec Elsie Garner is leaving as Lobo arrives.
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    June 3, 2002