NPR announced today that Alicia C. Shepard has been named the new NPR Ombudsman. In a memo sent to Jim Romenesko, NPR President Kevin Close said, “Lisa brings a strong portfolio in analyzing and explaining journalism and media policy. She is currently teaching a graduate-level course in Media Ethics at Georgetown University and writing a chapter on the media for the Center for Public Integrity’s forthcoming book, The Buying of the President. She has also served as a journalism instructor at American University and the University of Texas.” Shepard recently published the book Woodward & Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate and is co-author of Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11.

The trustees of a small Seventh-Day Adventist college just outside Washington, D.C., took its noncommercial FM station off the market yesterday, giving up, at least for now, expanding its thin endowment by some $20 million that American Public Media offered for WGTS. “The Lord performed a miracle today and we give him all the praise and thanks for what happened,” says John Konrad, g.m., in announcements on the station and its website. The college didn’t explain the board’s decision or say whether the decision was final. Konrad said the sale was off “for now.” If APM bought 91.9, its format was expected to leap from “family-friendly” Christian rock music to secular news/talk.

In today’s PBS ombudsman’s column, Michael Getler posts letters from viewers who are angry about Iowa Public Television and AARP’s exclusion of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel from tonight’s debate.

Dennis Kucinich chastized AARP and Iowa Public Television in a recent release for excluding him from tonight’s Democratic Presidential Forum, which will focus on health care and financial security. The Iowa Democratic Party has said Kucinich does not have an “active organization” in the state. Kucinich said: “How can AARP and Iowa Public Television claim they are committed to education and informing the voters of Iowa on the number one domestic issue in this campaign when they deny a voice to the only candidate who is leading the effort to bring real reform to the health care system by ending the control of for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies?”

The companion book to Ken Burns’ The War, co-authored with Geoffrey C. Ward, “was released last week and makes its debut today at No. 34 on USA TODAY‘s Best-Selling Books list,” reports the paper. The $50 book follows successful print renditions of The Civil War and Baseball.

“The leading contenders for the Republican nomination have indicated they will not attend the All American Presidential Forum organized by black talk show host Tavis Smiley, scheduled for Sept. 27 at Morgan State University in Baltimore and airing on PBS,” reports the Washington Post. Party leaders are concerned this decision may further alienate black and Latino voters–earlier this month, top GOP candidates (except McCain) declined an invition to debate on Univision.

“Four protests of [Ken] Burns’ documentary at local PBS stations are planned Sunday in California; a Capitol rally is to be held in Austin, Texas; others will hold exhibits, commemoration days and panel discussions in their cities,” reports the AP on Latino groups’ continuing opposition to Burns’ 15-hour PBS series The War, which premieres Sunday evening.

San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre, who requested public records from KPBS after it cancelled the public affairs show Full Focus, explained his actions in a recent press release: “Since the public records request was made public by KPBS, I’ve received more citizen concerns questioning whether KPBS is fulfilling its responsiblity as a public broadcasting station for the people. In addition, the Editors Rondtable‘s [a KPBS weekly radio program] regular opinon-maker is the Union-Tribune‘s Editorial Director, and people have expressed concern that the newspaper already enjoys a virtual monopoly on editorial content disseminated to the citizens of San Diego.”

Online voting is underway on five-minute demos created by the five remaining contestants in the Public Radio Talent Quest.

Like many viewers, PBS ombudsman Michael Getler wasn’t too impressed with Jim Lehrer’s questioning of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Sept. 12. Getler writes of the NewsHour segment, “For an issue that is at the heart of this moment in our history, the half-hour, as a whole, seemed too flat and dry to me, an under-utilized opportunity. It offered a calm nod to those frustrations that engulf millions of Americans about where this war is going without really pressing more specific questions about military and diplomatic strategy and the associated costs in lives, money and reputation that are on people’s minds.”

The suburban Chicago Daily Herald points to a broadcast segment about a bar fight between spunky two women to characterize :Vocalo, Chicago Public Radio’s idiosyncratic new offshoot station for the young and nonwhite. The new station in Indiana, which reaches only southern parts of Chicago, went 24/7 this month, the Sun-Times reported. CPR President Torey Malatia described the thinking behind :Vocalo in Current. Listen for yourself.

San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre has requested documents from KPBS related to cancellation of its local program Full Focus, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Aguirre also requested documentation about the station’s largest donors and how KPBS chooses participants for its Editors Roundtable. KPBS spokeswoman Nancy Worlie told the Union-Tribune, “There’s not much in the documents, but whatever Aguirre does with this only Aguirre knows. We are flattered he wants to spend his time looking into us.”

“I’ve long thought that someone should make a documentary on the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the Latino experience in the United States,” says San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. in a commentary about Brown Is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream (airing tonight on PBS). The film, says Navarrette, fulfills this wish. It unpacks Latino identity as it relates to “politics, business, entertainment, marketing and media,” and also addresses the “contradictions and mixed messages that Latinos send everyone else.” Navarrette quotes filmmaker Phillip Rodriguez: “‘Latinos are such an enigma to America.'”

The largest producing organizations in public radio and TV, NPR and WGBH, said in a release today that they’re buying what is probably the largest broker of underwriting time on local stations, Boston-based National Public Broadcasting. It represents 60 stations in pubTV, 120 in pubradio, NPR, NPR.org, PBS.org and the NewsHour. Bob Williams, a sales exec who had built an earlier business selling ad time on cable TV, established the business 10 years ago as National Public Television and later expanded into radio.

Alex, the super-smart parrot who appeared on