After an exhaustive critique of complaints about historical inaccuracies in the 2003 PBS documentary Einstein’s Wife, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler recommended that PBS “pull the plug” on the show’s companion website and suspend DVD sales of the documentary, pending a scholarly review of the content. Rather than remove the website, PBS posted an editor’s note [scroll down] informing visitors that web producers and outside scholars are reviewing the online content. DVDs are still for sale on Shop PBS.

PBS hired the founding executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, Jason Seiken as senior v.p., interactive, the network announced today. He has been an AOL content executive at headquarters and in London. Cindy Johanson, who had led PBS’s online efforts for more than a decade, left the network after a reorganization in June.

MarketWatch‘s Jon Friedman profiles Katty Kay, a co-anchor on BBC World News and Washington correspondent for the British network. “Yes, BBC World reaches 281 million households worldwide,” Friedman writes. “But, like soccer, the BBC remains second-string, and probably always will be, to the tradition-bound American audience.”

With a recess appointment of Warren Bell to the CPB Board, President Bush circumvented Senate opposition to the controversial nominee, reports the Los Angeles Times. (CPB press release.)

The New York Times reports on the return of Postcards from Buster, the PBS children’s series that was “attacked by the secretary of education, pilloried by conservatives, then abandoned by its underwriters” after a 2005 episode portraying the lives of real kids with lesbian parents.

The Government Accountability Office concluded that the Smithsonian followed contracting guidelines in negotiating its controversial programming partnership with Showtime Networks, but the institution failed to provide sufficient information about the deal to policymakers and filmmakers. After reviewing the contract and Smithsonian internal policies, GAO investigators report that it’s too early to determine whether the partnership will limit filmmakers’ access to Smithsonian archives. Reporters for Associated Press (via freepress) and the Washington Post interpreted GAO’s conclusions differently.

WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., and WFMU-FM in Jersey City, N.J., received grants from the New York State Music Fund, which was created from settlements between the state and major record labels over violations of payola laws.

WETA-FM in Washington, D.C., might return to airing classical music if the city’s sole classical outlet, a commercial station, switches to sports news, reports the Washington Post. WETA abandoned classical for news/talk last year after losing audience for some time. The Post‘s Marc Fisher praises the potential return to classical: “Finally, the notion that public radio exists to serve the public in ways that commercial radio cannot or will not crept back to center stage.” Meanwhile, pubradio consultant John Sutton calls it “a lost opportunity for all of public radio.”

The Scientist writes up NPR’s Radio Lab. “People are still daunted by words like ‘physics’ and ‘biology.’ Say ‘science’ and they get a funny look in their eyes,” says co-host Robert Krulwich. “Say ‘Travolta’ and they know exactly where they stand . . . You’ve got to bring them over gently.” (Current article about the show.)

Andy Carvin offers another peek into the wacky holiday customs of NPR employees. This time, it’s the NPR Holiday Road Race.

Blogger Dave Winer says he submitted an essay to This I Believe, the series airing on NPR’s newsmags, and never heard back–until he got an e-mail asking him for a donation. “I poured my heart into the essay, after spending a year thinking about what to write,” he writes. “Now I gotta wonder, if I don’t send the money, will they consider my essay. Or if I do send the money will they run it?” TIB co-producer Dan Gediman apologized, Winer reports (scroll down), and NPR has tried to distance itself from the whole thing. (Via Romenesko.)

WGBH’s Beat the Press took a beating for an erroneous report about bloggers who are funded by political campaigns. The Boston Herald and the Boston Phoenix report on the controversy and a blogger for Blue Mass Group proposes his own set of remedies.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on the money-making prowess of telegenic Dutch violinist Andre Rieu, whose current U.S. tour is being co-sponsored by many PBS stations.

Michael Coleman has resigned as g.m. of WDET-FM in Detroit after a year and a half in the job, reports the Detroit News. “I was hired to do a specific job and we changed the format, restored balance to programming, brought the roots music programs back and increased audience numbers substantially,” Coleman said. “I’m looking forward to the next great adventure.”

T.J. Lubinsky, producer of PBS’s Doo Wop pledge specials, will spin vinyl and take listener requests on Doo Wop Gold, a weekly show debuting on Sirius Satellite Radio tonight, reports the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.