One witness the congressmen didn’t lecture about donor-list improprieties at a House telecom subcommittee hearing July 20 [1999], was documentarian Ken Burns, who carried the historical weight of Sullivan Ballou, Thomas Jefferson and Satchel Paige with him. His remarks for the rapidly organized hearing echoed parts of his keynote at the PBS Annual Meeting in June 1999. Let me say from the outset — as a father of two daughters and a film producer, increasingly concerned about violence on television — that I am a passionate lifelong supporter of public television and its unique role in helping to stitch our exquisite, diverse and often fragile culture together.

Suddenly, pubcasting is in for a severe talking-to, if not a whupping. The House subcommittee that held such a congenial hearing on CPB’s long-overdue reauthorization a fortnight earlier is now preparing a second hearing July 20 to take pubcasters to task for swapping donor mailing lists with the Democratic Party. House Republicans were angry last week when they learned that Boston’s WGBH did it this spring, and angrier when they heard there were other times. And tempers will rise as similar reports come in from other stations. WNET in New York and WETA in Washington told reporters late last week that they’ve traded lists with both Democratic and Republican groups.

LOS ANGELES — The 63-month-old legal fight between public TV and the former distributor of PBS Home Video, Michael Nesmith, was “resolved amicably,” both sides told the U.S. District Court here July 7. PBS–appealing damages of $47 million levied by a federal jury in February–agreed not to reveal what it will end up paying, said spokesman Tom Epstein, but he noted that all settlements are compromises. “A happy finish for everyone,” said PBS’s lead attorney Jonathan D. Schiller, as he left the courtroom. A grinning Nesmith sought out Schiller, his opponent, and gave him an apparently gracious “thank you.” PBS President Ervin Duggan later wrote in a memo to his staff that the network will pay the settlement out of proceeds from its self-supporting, revenue-generating businesses, and services to stations will be “unhindered,” according to Epstein.

Chief Operating Officer Bob Ottenhoff is leaving the No. 2 position at PBS after eight years working for Ervin Duggan and the previous president, Bruce Christensen. News of the change, already circulating in heavy rotation at the PBS Annual Meeting when Duggan announced it during the June 6 opening session, mystified station executives and even some PBS Board members. It added a new story element to what one former board member called “a range of colossally uninformed mispeculation” that Duggan was either (a) confidently moving ahead, (b) soon to lose his own job, or (c) both. High-ranking board members said nothing.

This code was published in June 1999 by the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) and the Producers’ Advocacy Group (PAG) to guide negotiations between freelance producers and buyers of radio production, such as NPR. Reproduced with permission of AIR. INTRODUCTION The Association of Independents in Radio* (AIR) and the Producers Advocacy Group** (PAG) present the following code in an effort to clarify and standardize rates and practices for working with freelancers in the public radio industry. In recognition of the central role freelancers and independent radio producers play in enriching the content of almost all the important programs on public radio, AIR and PAG recommend the following guidelines when public radio networks, stations or shows use the work of freelance radio producers: LIVING WAGE Freelance producers should be paid at a rate which allows a decent living.

The bitter conflict that led to the departure of the top two executives at Wichita, Kan., public TV station KPTS in 1996 has not yet been put to rest.  A leader of the staff rebellion, Candyce P. (Candy) Hoop, and her onetime assistant, Som P. Chanthabouly, filed suits in federal court May 7, [1999], charging that the station fired them in retribution for expressing workplace grievances three years ago. Though Kansas law allows plaintiffs to specify only damages “in excess of $75,000” in such lawsuits, the two former KPTS staffers are actually going for more than $1 million apiece, said one of their attorneys, Frank Kamas.

When the NPR-distributed program Piano Jazz had its 20th anniversary in 1999, Current Contributing Editor David Stewart wrote this profile of the program and its host. Marian McPartland is the host of the longest-running jazz program in the history of network radio. Her Piano Jazz has also enjoyed the longest run of any entertainment series on NPR. In March 1998, she celebrated her 80th birthday on stage at New York’s Town Hall. Billy Taylor, himself the host of an NPR jazz series, Billy Taylor’s Jazz from the Kennedy Center, kept up the musical action as a parade of Marian’s friends came to perform and wish her well: pianists Tommy Flanagan, Jacky Terrasson and Ray Bryant, bassists Christian McBride and Bill Crow, drummers Joe Morello, Grady Tate and Lewis Nash, and trumpeter Harry (“Sweets”) Edison, among others.

These are the bylaws of the governing body of Pacifica Radio, originally adopted Sept. 30, 1961, with revisions through Feb. 28, 1999. See also Pacifica’s bylaws in 1955, early in the nonprofit’s history. ARTICLE ONE IDENTITY NAME: The name of this corporation shall be PACIFICA FOUNDATION, and it shall be referred to in these by-laws as “The Foundation”. (9/31/61) ARTICLE TWO OFFICES OF THE FOUNDATION SECTION 1 PRINCIPAL OFFICE: The principal office and place of business of the Foundation shall be located in the County of Los Angeles, State of California, or at such other place as the Board of Directors may designate.

No, I’m not going to preach that public TV should stop using premiums to attract and upgrade members. Premiums are too effective to give up on them. But if we misuse them, they are also quite effective at undercutting the long-term relationships we want and need with viewers and members. As a fundraiser who has worked at stations as well as at PBS, I’m concerned that the way many stations now use premiums during on-air drives will make it increasingly difficult for them to secure renewals, annual upgrades, and additional gifts from members acquired using premiums. And I’m even more concerned about what premium-driven pledging means to our existing base of the most loyal donors.

International stardom has not been easy for Tinky Winky, the Teletubby recently “outed” by the Rev. Jerry Falwell as a gay role-model for children. First there was a big flap in England, shortly after the show’s 1997 debut, over the dismissal of the actor playing Tinky Winky. Producers said he had been too rambunctious on the set. But the actor apparently endeared himself to viewers by flamboyantly waving the now-notorious red handbag, and did not go quietly. The Sun, Britain’s largest tabloid, launched a campaign to reinstate the actor, but to no avail. Now, like other big children’s TV stars before him — Barney, Bert and Ernie and Mister Rogers — Tinky Winky this month became an irresistible target for jokes by writers, comedians and talk-show hosts.

Almost five years after PBS sued its former home-video distributor, the legal action boomeranged last week, hitting the network with a $46.8 million judgment. PBS said it was shocked by the outcome. “We’re going to take aggressive steps to appeal this,” said Bob Ottenhoff, PBS chief operating officer. “I think the jury didn’t understand the steps PBS had been taking all along to make this a satisfactory venture.” But after PBS had lost hope, the court found, the behavior of its executives crossed a line. “The PBS people were just too blind to see that they had stepped into the dark side,” said Nesmith’s attorney, Henry Gradstein.

Translators — the lonely relay-runners of broadcasting — are a rural institution under siege. While pubcasters use hundreds of them to reach remote pockets of their audience, they are being bumped off, one by one, by competitors for the frequencies that they use. In both radio and TV — particularly radio — they’re sitting ducks, vulnerable to being shoved aside by any applicants for full-service stations on the same frequencies. And religious broadcasters are filing apps by the hundreds. In TV, many translators will soon be knocked off the air as sheriffs, fire companies and DTV stations start using the UHF channels the FCC has given to them.

 These bylaws include all amendments through Jan. 20, 1999. See also original NPR bylaws from 1970. ARTICLE I – OFFICES 1.1 Principal Office. The Corporation shall maintain its principal office in the City of Washington, District of Columbia. 1.2 Other Offices. The Corporation may also have offices at such other places, either within or without the District of Columbia, as the activities of the Corporation may require. ARTICLE II – MEMBERS 2.1 Members. Each Member of the Corporation shall be a licensee which operates at least one radio station meeting the qualifications set forth below in subsections (a) through (f).

An extra digital TV channel should be reserved in every community for noncommercial educational purposes, the Gore Commission recommended last week in its report to the White House. These channels, the usual 6 MHz wide, would be granted more than seven years from now, or whenever broadcasters turn back their old analog channels to the FCC. The expected recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters was one of the most concrete in a report constructed of compromises between seven commercial broadcasters and 13 other members of the committee. Co-chairmen Norman Ornstein and Les Moonves “were trying very hard to get a consensus, which is a good goal, but I think the splits were simply too wide,” said Newton Minow, a committee member, last week.

It was public TV's first unqualified national success, a smash hit. Before Masterpiece Theatre, American Playhouse or Hollywood Television Theatre, there was An Age of Kings, Shakespeare's history plays in 15 parts, a chronicle of Britain's monarchs from Richard II (1399) to Richard III (1484).