Garrison Keillor, 67, insists he’s fine, just fine, after a mild stroke earlier this month. He also tells The Associated Press that he has no plans to retire or to postpone the new season of his Prairie Home Companion that begins Sept. 26. “I’m not a collector of things. I don’t have hobbies . . . so work is what I do,” he explained. His staff confirmed to Current that Keillor fully intends to participate in the big meatloaf dinner and street dance that traditionally kicks off each first show. Keillor described his experience in the hospital in an essay on Salon.com

With the change of parties in the White House comes an echo at CPB. Its board unanimously elected a Democrat, Ernest Wilson, as chair today in Washington. Louisiana PTV chief Beth Courtney was named vice chair. Afterward Wilson told Current that the time is right for a reexamination and expansion of pubcasting comparable to the Carnegie Commission’s report more than 40 years ago. The outcome “shouldn’t be determined on 9th Street,” at CPB headquarters, but rather through discussion around the country, he said. The international communications scholar, now dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, was first named to the board nine years ago by President Clinton and reappointed by President Bush.

PRI talk host Tavis Smiley was awarded the 2009 Interdependence Day Prize on Sept. 12 in Istanbul, Turkey, by the CivWorld project of Demos, a nonpartisan public advocacy organization. About 100 delegates from around the world attended the policy forum. CivWorld President Benjamin R. Barber, called Smiley a “fearless television broadcaster, intrepid interviewer and ardent humanitarian, who has become a voice for all humankind by putting honesty before interest, civil discourse before polemics, and integrity before advantage.” Past recipients include actor/activist Harry Belafonte; Lord Bhikhu Parekh, professor of political philosophy at the University of Westminster; and Polish Solidarity founder Adam Michnik.

Maryland Public Television has announced 18 layoffs, or about 10 percent of its staff, effective Oct. 6. There will also be furloughs, according to a station statement. Job cuts come from the technology, content, institutional advancement, communications and administration units. MPT President Robert Shuman said there’ll be no loss of programming.

CPB announced major funding to producers of the Michael Eric Dyson Show, a midday talk show for African-American audiences that launched in April on public radio stations in 18 markets. The $505,000 grant to producing station WEAA in Baltimore covers one year, but CPB anticipates multi-year support, according to a spokeswoman. In a news release, CPB President Pat Harrison described CPB’s commitment to ensuring a “diversity of voices in public radio.” “[T]his grant . . . is an investment in that commitment and an expansion of the relationship between public media and diverse audiences,” she said. “We’re very pleased that CPB is investing in WEAA’s national production capacity,” said LaFontaine Oliver, g.m.,

The CPB Board, meeting at headquarters in Washington, D.C., today pondered an intriguing concept: Using advertising, or even scrolling information at the bottom of commercial TV news broadcasts, to bring more attention to the important work being done by pubcasting. In a conversation sparked by talk of the new CPB-funded fluportal.org, several members commented on the need to get that H1N1 resource directly to the public, not relying entirely on local stations to push it out to local viewers. CPB is “continually frustrated” by the public not knowing how connected it is to communities, said CPB head Pat Harrison. “We need to take a look at what we can and can’t do, and how much money it would require.”

Public Radio Exchange has partnered to create a site for sharing community web and radio reports across borders. Its collaborator, the International Center for Journalists, yesterday announced the two-year project funded by the McCormick Foundation. ICFJ trainers will work on radio and web skills with journalists for participating Spanish-language radio stations in the United States and Latin America. The project kicks off with a panel discussion about broadband access in minority communities at the National Press Club Sept. 17.

Stations uncovered forgotten doc footage on several civil rights movements as they prepared for the preservation phase of the CPB-funded American Archives pilot project. Included were recordings of movement leaders Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall, Gloria Steinem and Harvey Milk as well as the Ku Klux Klan, some on 16mm film unseen for decades. CPB hopes to use the project to raise funds for a wider preservation effort. In the second phase of the project, 22 stations get grants to preserve and digitize historical content. Project manager Oregon Public Broadcasting said it will give CPB-funded grants totaling $2 million. The pilot focuses on the civil rights movement plus more recent recollections of World War II produced to accompany the PBS series The War.

PBS scored six honors at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards Saturday night in Los Angeles, with Masterpiece’s “Little Dorritt” the big winner with four. Taking home statuettes were: Rachel Freck for casting; Barbara Kidd and Marion Weise for costumes; for art direction, James Merrifield, Paul Ghirardani and Deborah Wilson; for photography, Lukas Strebel. Great Performances scored for its title music by John Williams; and American Masters was outstanding nonfiction series, with Susan Lacey, Prudence Glass, Julie Sacks and Judy Kinberg producers. These Emmys recognize technical disciplines and behind-the-scenes production work such as picture editing, sound editing, sound mixing, special visual effects, cinematography, art direction, music, stunts and more.

Too Beautiful to Live with Luke Burbank, a weekly evening talk show on Seattle’s KIRO-FM until its cancellation last week, attracted an audience of “NPR defectors…people who were married to NPR but were stepping out on them,” Burbank, former NPR reporter and co-host of the short-lived Bryant Park Project, tells the Seattle Times. As it turned out, after more than 300 broadcasts this audience was tiny: in July the show drew an average quarter hour rating of 1,400 listeners between the ages of 25 to 54, about 1.4 percent of its target demographic in the Seattle market. “Frankly, if I was managing KIRO, I’d have done the same thing,” Burbank says of the decision to take TBTL off the air.

The regional weekly Crain’s New York has this article on its website: “At Channel 13, the financial signals are red” based on unnamed sources. Current will report on the story this week or in its next issue. Disclosure: Current is an editorially independent news service affiliated with WNET.

Citing a budget deficit, the Palm Beach County (Fla.) School District announced this week that it is dropping plans to buy pubstation WXEL, reports The Palm Beach Post. About half of a $4.5 million reserve account planned for the purchase will now be put toward unexpected salary costs. The Community Broadcast Foundation of Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast, a local group working to take over the stations, recently sent newsletters criticizing the board’s takeover plans to 550 community “heavy weights,” the paper says, including political, community and nonprofit leaders.

Larry Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, told the House communications subcommittee today that the NTIA and Rural Utilities Service, overseeing distribution of $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funds, may only offer only two rounds of applications, according to Broadcasting & Cable. NTIA and RUS had previously anticipated offering several rounds. The NTIA recently stated that the 2,200 requests received during the recent first round total some $28 billion. (See item below for what some pubcasters are requesting.)

PBS is asking for $8.7 million from broadband stimulus funds, according to a new database of first-round applicants. PBS says it will partner with eight stations to “combine national content and existing outreach programs to stimulate demand for educational broadband content” in a project it calls PBS Broadband Communities. Among other pubcasting-related requests: The National Black Programming Consortium, $11.5 million for a 200-person Public Media Corps building on the New Media Institute. The University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development in Ann Arbor, Mich., $2.1 million to connect PBS to more than 62,000 institutions such as schools, libraries and state governments through the “next generation” Internet2.

Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work is the latest study from the Center for Social Media at American University. It’s based on 45 long-form interviews. Overall, the report found, producers and directors face on a daily basis a “lack of clarity and standards in ethical practice.” Furthermore, the conversations demonstrate “a need for a more public and focused conversation about ethics before any standards emerging from shared experience and values can be articulated.”