Bill Moyers will interview Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, on Bill Moyers Journal this Friday. The recently retired Wright, who was Barack Obama’s pastor, has been in the media for controversial comments he made in his sermons about 9-11, racism and other topics. This is his first broadcast interview since.

At a party last night for WNYC’s new national morning show, The Takeaway, Studio 360 host and New York media wag-in-chief Kurt Andersen described the new offering as “the bastard child of Bill O’Reilly and, I don’t know, Brian Lehrer,” Mediabistro reports. Lehrer, a popular WNYC host, played along during a panel discussion: “Don’t tell anyone… Bill O’Reilly was great.” John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji will host the PRI-distributed show, which debuts with one hour April 28 and will eventually expand to three or four. Hockenberry’s concept for the show is somewhat loftier than Andersen’s, according to Mediabistro.

As Salt Lake community radio station KRCL prepares for its May 5 format switch, displaced volunteer programmers and former staff are planning the launch of Utah Free Media, an Internet-only radio station that will stream on bandwidth donated by Utah ISP XMission. “We’re doing it more for the love of radio, and community and music,” says Troy Mumm, former KRCL operations director, in the Salt Lake City Weekly. “Our purpose is to have a continuation of grass-roots, volunteer-based radio.” Donna Land Maldonado, KRCL g.m., tells the Salt Lake Tribune: “More power to them.”

Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices is mining the audio vaults for examples of “What NPR Was”–creative non-fiction radio that drew you in with authentic voices and evocative sound. The first two audio postings are from the 1980s–a Morning Edition promo by Jesse Boogs and Death in Venice, produced by Larry Massett for the NPR series The Radio Experience.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly will offer live coverage and analysis of the Pope’s address to the UN General Assembly on Friday, to be broadcast on the digital channel PBS World. The public affairs program, based in D.C. and produced by WNET in New York, has been airing special reports on the Pope’s U.S. visit.

Community radio station KZYX in Mendocino County, Calif., has ousted a newspaper editor from her weekly public affairs program because of her on-air advocacy, reports the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. K.C. Meadows, editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal, has helped lead a citizen campaign to repeal the county’s liberal laws on personal marijuana use. The issue is on the June primary election ballot, and Meadows’ advocacy violated KZYX’s policy to provide a non-partisan forum, according to the station.

The WYPR board of directors abruptly adjourned its public meeting yesterday after Chair Barbara Bozzuto declared the firing of former talk show host Marc Steiner “will not be undone.” Steiner’s supporters, who packed the meeting room of a Baltimore church, booed her down, according to the Save WYPR blog and Baltimore Sun.

WQED in Pittsburgh is helping Bermuda develop its first public television station, Community Information TV, run by the Government of Bermuda. CITV, which first went on the air in October 2007, offers public affairs, culture, history, science and health shows, produced with assistance from WQED staff. Go to CITV’s website here.

The Supreme Court will soon consider a complaint by Fox against the FCC about a proposed indecency fine, leaving the commission in legal limbo until the Court hands down a decision — its first indecency ruling in three decades — probably early next year, the Los Angeles Times reports. The FCC and broadcasters have gone back and forth in federal court since the 2003 Bono ruling and early 2004 Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction ushered in a more aggressive campaign against on-air naughtiness. Pubcasters have taken a number of steps to stay out of harm’s way, but at least one, KCSM in San Mateo, got caught in the FCC’s dragnet.

Click and Clack’s As the Wrench Turns, the animated TV version of NPR’s popular Car Talk, has its first 10 hour-long episodes in the can and is ready to debut in PBS primetime in July. The idea for an animated Car Talk series floated around for years but picked up momentum — and crucially, funding — after Paula Kerger arrived as president of PBS.

A TV studio at the University of Alabama’s Center for Public Television and Radio will be out of commission for months because a faulty sprinkler soaked the place after a fire alarm went off on Thursday, the Tuscaloosa News reported.

Is the online radio audience growing or flat? Researchers behind The Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platforms chart an “all-time high” in weekly listenership, but marketing strategist Mark Ramsey says the data “sure seems weird.”

The Columbus Social Media Cafe, an endeavor to engage local bloggers in the creation of Web 2.0 public media that benefits the communities served by WOSU-TV/FM/AM, is planning a new website. Intended to be an “agora for information and communication,” the website will aggregate content created by and about Central Ohio, creating a “loop of communication” between topics discussed on the Web and covered by the WOSU stations. Elements of the site, and video footage of the most recent Social Media Cafe meeting, are posted here. WOSU’s Susan Meier discusses the ideas and how-to elements of the project here.

The Public Radio Exchange has received a MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, an annual $500,000 grant awarded only to previous MacArthur grantees with budgets of less than $2.5 million. “By gathering and distributing new programming and using technological innovation to expand content choices, PRX is leading public radio to become more interactive, diverse, and participatory,” the foundation said today in its release. PRX explains that it will use the money to upgrade its web service, encourage the development of new PRX content and create a capital reserve that will support the creation of an independent board of directors.

Public TV’s lobbying unit, the Association of Public Television Stations, said today it expects to hire a new president by September. The Boston-based search firm of Issacson, Miller, which specializes in nonprofit leadership posts, will conduct a nationwide hunt. Jane Gruenebaum, a onetime congressional staffer who was executive director of the League of Women Voters and c.o.o. of the Center for Policy Alternatives, is heading the search, working with Gail Gregory. In March, John Lawson left APTS after leading it for seven years.