Plus: PBS virtually recreates D-Day, and the latest on the fight over podcasting patents.

The two nonprofit newsrooms will split a $1.2 million grant from the foundation over two years.

How We Got to Now, a fall PBS series charting the history of innovation, will accompany a stand-alone news and commentary website funded by the Knight Foundation.

With contract negotiations looming this fall, leaders at NPR member stations are getting increasingly vocal about what they see as shortcomings of the products offered by NPR Digital Services. In 2011, NPR leaders convinced the majority of stations large and small to sign a three-year agreement for the newly formed unit to provide a fixed slate of tools and services for online streaming, website design and donation management. With the contract term ending Sept. 30, station leaders are raising questions and concerns about the offerings and whether to renew the contract as-is. A recent informal survey of heads of 30 stations gathered mixed reviews of the package of technology tools and services designed to help stations distribute and publish news reports and other online content.

Plus: Iowa Public Radio needs more funding, and regional Murrow Award winners are announced.

PBS stations need to share more information among themselves as they work to increase their community impact, PBS’s new senior v.p. of station services Juan Sepulveda said at the two-day “Understanding Impact” symposium, convened by the Public Media Futures Forum and the Center for Investigative Reporting April 17 and 18. The forum, which took place at American University, explored how public media organizations can measure and analyze the impact of their work. Sepulveda, who started at PBS in January, said he was still trying to get a sense of how actively stations are working on issues of impact and how much information they’re sharing.

Plus: Tribeca panels become a WNYC offering.

Knight was a Polk Award-winning investigative reporter for New York's Pacifica affiliate.

• Cynthia Lopez, who has helped shape POV for the past 14 years as its executive vice president and co-executive producer, is the new commissioner of the New York City Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting. The agency markets the city as a prime location for production and assists production companies throughout the five boroughs. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the appointment at a Friday afternoon press conference, calling Lopez “a remarkable media professional.” He noted that this is the first time the office will be led by a person of color and that Lopez has long been “a force for greater inclusion in this industry.”

Websites affiliated with PBS and NPR have been nominated for Webby Awards in more than 20 categories. PBS Video and NPR’s Responsive Design Project are contenders for top recognition for best practices on the Web, one of the most high-profile awards to be presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences later this spring. PBS led public media organizations in garnering the most nominations. PBS Video received a nomination in the general website media streaming category, and The PBS Idea Channel is vying for two Webbys in categories for first-person online film and video and best web personality/host.

The new Green Line of the Minneapolis-St. Paul light-rail line is beginning to wreak havoc on the studios of American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio, according to an April 18 Minneapolis Star Tribune report. The new line, which passes in front of APM’s headquarters, starts operating June 16. Metro Transit has begun test runs on the line, and APM claims the shaking and vibrations are interfering with work at its offices. “The floor is vibrating, the ceiling is shaking, the structure is making noise, and that affects the recordings,” Nick Kereakos, chief technology officer and operations vice president for MPR and APM, told the Star Tribune.

Plus: Pubmedia's Society of Professional Journalists award winners.