Speaking at Columbia j-school’s commencement yesterday, Fresh Air host Terry Gross tells why she gets better answers in interviews if (a) she urges subjects to draw the line when questions get too personal, (b) she lets them start over with their answers, and (c) she listens to what they say, even the boring parts. (Exception: People in politics aren’t eligible for the leeway of “a” and “b.”) Gross received the school’s highest honor, the Columbia Journalism Award.

The Washington Post approvingly surveys NPR’s earthquake coverage from China, which it describes as “a kind of throwback to an era when radio carried the first audio accounts of major events, before television crews could move bulky equipment to the scene.” All Things Considered hosts Melissa Block and Robert Siegel and seven staffers were stationed 50 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter in the Sichuan province when it happened. “Oddly, without anticipating a crisis, [the disaster] did what we were trying to do here — to put a human face on another place and its issues,” Siegel said.

The licensee of WXEL-FM/TV in Palm Beach, Fla., and New York’s WNET have dropped their 2005 agreement for WNET’s purchase of the Florida station, the Palm Beach Post reported today. Richard Zaretsky, head of a local nonprofit that was to be a part of the purchase, said the group has been raising money and can make the deal on its own. Former suitor Miami’s WPBT said it’s still interested in some arrangement with WXEL. The licensee, Barry University, put the station in play in 2004 and later agreed to sell it to WNET, but the FCC held up the license transfer.

Citing concerns about identity theft, Wisconsin Public Radio has traded in its pledge drive volunteers for a hired call center, reports the Wisconsin State Journal. The station doesn’t want to be responsible for someone stealing info from donors, says Jennifer Dargan, manager of on-air fundraising and volunteers, though WPR isn’t aware that any donor info has been compromised in the past. The station cannot afford the insurance that would protect it if it were sued, while the call center is covered up to $100,000 per incident. Minnesota Public Radio and WNYC in New York are also outsourcing calls.

In a lecture at Northwestern University about covering the war in Iraq, NPR correspondent Anne Garrels described an “unlikely partnership” in Baghdad: Fox News offered to share generator power with NPR, which was only getting two hours of electricity a day. NPR rejected the offer at first, then relented. Garrels also described her wartime experiences, including watching people get killed. She admitted, “The reaction comes later–suddenly you don’t handle things the same way… In my case, I started drinking too much. I came home, and I couldn’t deal with it.”

NPR defense reporter Guy Raz was chosen to join Harvard University as a 2008-09 Nieman Fellow. Raz will use his fellowship to study “the collapse of ancient and modern empires and the effect of such collapses on global order,” according to a press release. (Via Romenesko.)

Oregon Public Broadcasting is alerting viewers of the state’s 400 rural translator stations that they should make sure the DTV converter boxes that they buy have the “analog pass-through” feature that feeds both analog NTSC and digital ATSC signals to their TV sets. That’s because the FCC is allowing translators to continue analog broadcasting after DTV Day next Feb. 17, and some broadcasters are likely to switch at different times, requiring receivers to be … open-minded. More on OPB’s rural DTV page. The bad news: Boxes with analog pass-through “are not yet widely available in stores” and many salespeople won’t know about this feature.

PBS Showcase attendees got a preview this week of Sid the Science Kid, the new series from the Jim Henson Co. Sid combines several production techniques “to create lifelike animated characters that are more ‘everyday’ than ever before,” reported the (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun. “It’s not escapist entertainment,” said Lisa Henson, co-c.e.o. of the Henson Co. “This is a more authentic representation of what happens in a child’s life. We wanted to expand those experiences and to model positive situations for them to learn from.”

“In my 20 years in the business, I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” says a Pennsylvania pubTV leader of Philadelphia’s WYBE, which has reinvented itself to air short videos made by community members. An Associated Press article describes the channel’s offerings as “a grab-bag of museum-exhibit tours and Christian rappers, tattooed performance artists and a green-building primer by local corporate landlord Liberty Property Trust.”

Production has begun on a revival of The Electric Company, the classic kidvid show from the ’70s. Media Life reports that the new Company will air on PBS Kids starting in January, with a writing team that includes veterans of Law & Order and the Will Ferrell film Blades of Glory. “The biggest advantage for ‘TEC,’ which enters a much more sophisticated kids’ TV environment than when it debuted 37 years ago, may be its devoted following among nostalgic adults, who will ensure that their children watch the show,” says the magazine. A New York Times article calls the new version “a weekly, more danceable version of its former daily self.”

V-me, the Spanish-language multicast channel, is set to introduce an original show aimed at preschoolers and, for adults, a reality series about new parents, reports MediaDailyNews. Two additional reality series are also in the works.

WNET has promoted David Horn from series producer to e.p. of Great Performances, the station announced today as the PBS Showcase Conference wrapped up in California. Horn has led four Primetime Emmy-winning productions and won two ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for music programming. He came to Thirteen as a production assistant in 1979 and later created In the Spotlight and was e.p. of Sessions at West 54th, both pop music series.

CPB gave this year’s Ralph Lowell Award to Henry Becton Jr., who retired as WGBH president last fall and is now vice chairman. Becton discussed his career and WGBH in a Current Q&A in September.

The Knight Foundation announced a $327,000 grant to Quiddities, a web development company partnering with KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz, Calif., to develop and test a Drupal-based content management system tailored to public radio stations’ needs. The open-source software package, dubbed RadioEngage, will be designed to “promote local discourse, expand participation in the arts, and increase civic participation in local and regional communities,” the partners said in a news release. Quiddities is among 16 winners in the foundation’s second annual Knight News Challenge, and plans to share the new software package with other public radio stations. Full descriptions of this year’s News Challenge winners are posted here, and foundation President Alberto Ibarguen discusses this year’s submissions and grantees here.

NPR is reviewing whether the recent Infinite Mind program “Prozac Nation: Revisited” meets its editorial standards and practices, according to Ombudsman Alicia Shepard. The program, which NPR distributed on its Sirius satellite radio channel, criticized the media for overplaying the link between antidepressant drugs and violent behavior, and didn’t reveal that experts who appeared on the program had financial ties to drug companies that manufacture antidepressants. Also: the series itself received a substantial grant from Ely Lilly, maker of Prozac, two years ago, according to Shepard. “Being upfront about real or potential financial conflicts of interest is key to establishing credibility,” Shepard wrote.