Former WTTW producer Pat Barey is co-author of a book coming out in August about a little-known aspect of Julia Child’s life: Her love of cats. Julia’s Cats: Julia Child’s Life in the Company of Cats draws on letters and original interviews to reveal the famous pubcasting chef’s love of felines, from the very first, Minette, that arrived at the Childs’ doorstep soon after she and her husband Paul arrived in Paris. Co-author is Therese Burson, Barey’s partner in the film production company Tellens.

Jonathan Ahl, news director of Iowa Public Radio, left his job Thursday (May 31), according to The Gazette in Cedar Rapids. Mary Grace Herrington, c.e.o., declined to say “what led to his departure or whether he was terminated,” the newspaper said. Ahl had joined the station in July 2008. Ahl also submitted his resignation to PRNDI Board president, effective immediately. He was in his second term in the office. George Bodarky, news and public affairs director at WFUV-FM in New York, will serve as PRNDI acting president until the board election June 30. “PRNDI would like to thank Jonathan Ahl, affectionately known as ‘the chief,’ for his strong commitment to the organization over the years,” the organization said on its website.

Paul Bartishevich, head of Finger Lakes Productions International, died June 1 [2012] at his home in Trumansburg, N.Y., of an apparent heart attack. He was 53. FLPI, founded in 1987, produced and distributed daily radio programming to NPR affiliates nationwide as well as more than 120 countries and territories via the Voice of America and American Forces Radio. Popular titles, which reflected Bartishevich’s interest in science, nature and technology, included Bird Watch, Nature Watch, Animal Instincts, Ocean Report, Our Ocean World, EnvironMinute and Microbeworld. In 1998, FLPI launched the Radio Voyager Network (RVN), which became the first English-language commercial radio network to broadcast throughout Europe.

NPR has hired Leila Fadel from the Washington Post as a foreign correspondent based in Cairo. At the Post, Fadel served as bureau chief in Iraq and Egypt, covering the Iraq War and the Arab Spring. She will start at NPR in July; the Post is now looking for her successor, according to a memo on Romenesko. NPR also hired Gregory Warner, a correspondent for American Public Media’s Marketplace, as East Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi, Kenya. And it appointed Corey Flintoff, a former newscaster and a correspondent for NPR’s digital news division, as its Moscow correspondent.

The host of the pubTV show Saddle Up with Dennis Brouse on Thursday (May 31) was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a District Court judge in Iowa in connection with a state filmmaking tax-incentive program scandal that was uncovered in 2009, reports the Des Moines Register. Brouse had been convicted of fraudulent practices in March. The horse trainer “told a state investigator he had never declared bankruptcy, never gambled nor had his wages garnished — all deceptions that backfired at his sentencing for fraud,” the newspaper noted. Brouse’s Changing Horses Productions had been awarded $9.27 million in tax credits for five projects, but a state audit last year reportedly found discrepancies including $2.18 million in expenditures claimed by Changing Horses paid to companies outside Iowa, which wasn’t allowed, and $1 million in expenses not supported by documentation.

Lee Ferraro, g.m. of WYEP-FM in Pittsburgh for 16 years, has announced that he will leave the station after helping its board find a successor. Ferraro told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the decision was his own and “a difficult one.” Last year Ferraro worked with WYEP’s board and funders to purchase WDUQ-FM from Duquesne University. The station is now Essential Public Radio 90.5 FM. Ferraro said in a press release that he plans to take some time off after leaving WYEP but that he hopes to stay involved with public radio.

The FCC is sponsoring a workshop on June 25 on its plans to reimburse broadcasters for channel reassignment costs following the upcoming spectrum auctions. The 2012 Spectrum Act established a $1.75 billion TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund for those costs. Panelists will discuss issues they feel the FCC should consider when designing the payback, as well as possible models and lessons learned from similar previous programs. Appearing will be Jay Adrick, v.p., broadcast technology, Harris Corp.; Brett Haan, principal, Deloitte Consulting; Jane Mago, e.v.p. and general counsel, National Association of Broadcasters; and Patricia Tikkala, v.p., spectrum, Sprint Nextel Corp. The workshop will run from 2 until 3:30 p.m.

WITF in Harrisburg, Pa., is likely to go to an all-news format on weekdays, dumping the classical music that it now airs during middays, according to Pennlive.com. “We believe there is a need that WITF and NPR’s quality news can help to fill,” said Kathleen Pavelko, WITF’s president. “We also believe that this decision reflects what our listeners want.” WITF’s news programming is twice as popular as its classical music, and a listener survey found a larger appetite for more news programming as well. The station will still air local classical performances on weekend evenings and is launching an all-classical web stream.

Sesame Workshop’s 10th annual benefit gala this week raised more than $2 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. Honoree at the Wednesday (May 30) event at the opulent Cipriani 42nd Street was former President Bill Clinton. “When Elmo started on Sesame Street in 1984 he was 3½ years old and so was Chelsea,” Clinton said, referring to his daughter. “We never missed an episode. Now Chelsea’s 32, and Elmo’s still 3½. Savor it.” Emcee was The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart, who urged the crowd: “Take out a second mortgage! Do whatever you can.”

The National Film Society, the quirky duo that hosted PBS’s first Online Film Festival, now will have their own video creations featured on the PBS Digital Studios YouTube channel. Don’t miss their video announcement, during which they get a crash course in becoming pubcasters — complete with learning the lingo (“Check your local listings”) and drills to memorize station call letters (hey, nice shoutout to KUFM-TV in Missoula!).

Curious about WETA UK, the new all-Brit, all-the-time channel? Then check out its section on the station’s new blog, Programmer’s Choice. Entries are aimed at viewers (as well as pubcasters) wondering how and why the Arlington, Va., station decided to drop its WETA How-To (Create) to launch the nation’s only British multicast channel. Kevin Harris, station manager, explains in one post that while writing a white paper on the future of WETA’s multicast offerings, he and programmer Bryant Wilson discovered not only that those channels are popular within the Washington, D.C., market, but also that that the cable network BBC America was underserving the local audience.

WGBH has reached an agreement with its largest union, the Boston Globe is reporting. The contract terms are the same as March 2011, which the union had initially rejected. The agreement allows the pubcaster to assign individual employees to work across multiple platforms and to outsource work. “We have so many producers in house, but there are times when working with an outside producer makes sense, maybe for a particular project, or in terms of cost efficiencies,” said Jeanne Hopkins, WGBH spokesperson. The Association of Employees of the Educational Foundation, Communications Workers of America, Local 1300, represents 250 production workers, editors, producers, writers, and marketing staffers.

American Public Media’s Marketplace announced today that it is raising its pay rates for freelancers and other outside contributors by 8 percent to 20 percent. The programs, which include Marketplace, Marketplace Morning Report, Marketplace Tech Report and Marketplace Money, will also adopt the tiered freelance payment structure devised by the Association of Independents in Radio, which takes into account the journalist’s experience and the level of effort a piece requires. Contributors will negotiate these factors with the show when accepting assignments. Earlier this year, NPR also adopted the tiered payment structure and raised its pay rates as well.

LinkAsia, a weekly digital/broadcast hybrid news show from nonprofit Link TV, curates stories from citizen journalists as well as packages of official news from commercial and state-run networks including CCTV in China, NHK in Japan, MBC in Korea, NDTV in India and VTV4 in Vietnam. Overseeing the year-old program is George Lewinski, former senior editor at PRI’s The World and foreign editor at NPR’s Marketplace. “A show that started out as a weekly chronicle of politics and business in Asia, created for a U.S. audience — fed from syndicated news packages from Asian nations — is a full, nuanced ongoing examination of life as it is experienced by people who live there, juxtaposed with the ‘official portrait’ of that life by the region’s official media organizations,” writes Caty Borum Chattoo, a LinkAsia studio producer, on MediaShift.

Four foundations are giving PBS NewsHour a total of $3.55 million for on-air and online coverage of the 2012 presidential election, the economy, international developments, and health, science, education and arts news. Participants in the multi-foundation initiative announced today (May 30) are Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. “It’s especially encouraging to have this special general support from some of the nation’s leading foundations,” said Bo Jones, president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. “It is key to supporting the program’s infrastructure and ability to grow.” The funds will enable NewsHour reporters to report from the field on issues critical in the election, such as jobs, the economy, immigration, education, the environment, and foreign policy, as well as file reports examining the changing nature of the American electorate.