In his debut column as NPR’s ombudsman, Bill Marimow surveys the work ahead of him. “Based on my conversations with Jeffrey Dvorkin, NPR’s first ombudsman, who held the job for more than six years, I’ll be doing a lot of listening,” he writes.

Robert MacNeil, former co-anchor, with Jim Lehrer, of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, will host next spring’s America at a Crossroads series, the project’s producing station, WETA in Arlington, Va., officially announced today. (See also the New York Times.) MacNeil, whose role with the series was also mentioned at last month’s PBS Development Conference, will anchor the CPB-launched series and provide spot reporting as necessary. The 11 initial Crossroads docs, funded largely by $20 million in CPB grants, will air 9-11 p.m. (EST) nightly, April 15-20, and will explore the “challenges confronting the world post 9/11,” according to WETA.

TV news vet Judy Woodruff, special correspondent for the NewsHour, will host Election Night coverage next week on Bloomberg TV, a 24-hour business-and-financial news cable channel, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer (via CTAM SmartBrief). Woodruff spent much of last summer working on a broad youth-focused multimedia PBS initiative, Generation Next. An hour-long doc will debut on PBS in January.

“The Chicken Man is in the house today” at NPR. Consider yourself warned.

NPR has asked the FCC to recall millions of FM modulators that enable drivers to play iPods and satellite radios through their car stereos, reports the Baltimore Sun. The network found that nearly 40 percent of the devices have signal strengths that exceed FCC limits, “enabling them to break into FM broadcasts in nearby cars with unwanted programming.” Non-commercial radio stations are especially vulnerable to interference because while newer modulators can be tuned to any FM frequency, older models still in use only offer consumers a choice from frequencies below 89 MHz. The FCC says NPR’s request is under review.

The membership of San Francisco’s KQED gave up their right to elect the station’s board of directors in a three-week mail balloting, the San Francisco Chronicle reports today. They voted two-to-one to end the board elections, which the station said were expensive ($250,000 was the cost cited) and delayed decision- making. Large majorities also voted to change the licensee’s name to Northern California Public Broadcasting and make five other changes to its legal documents, according to KQED’s announcement yesterday. KQED said it received about 30,000 ballots from its membership of 190,000, or about 15 percent of those eligible. Most stations have self-elected boards or are parts of larger nonprofits that do.

Iowa Public Radio has started a blog for communicating with its listeners as it morphs its three formerly disparate stations into a unified statewide network. “Iowans will be able to talk back to us, and they’ll be able to talk among themselves,” writes Todd Mundt, IPR’s director of content and media, on his blog. (Earlier coverage in Current of the network’s genesis.)

Yahoo made Remotely Connected, a PBS.org collaborative review blog, its website pick of the day for Oct. 26. The PBS project invites “a small, diverse group of bloggers” to comment “on major PBS programs airing in October and November, in an open forum.”

A new survey by the the Conference Board’s Consumer Internet Barometer says 1 in 10 online consumers now watches TV online, reports Multichannel Newswire. The most popular methods for viewing the broadcasts are streaming and free download, according to the survey: “Very few consumers are willing to pay per download or enroll in subscription services.”

NPR won’t carry sponsor credits for the British film, “Death of a President,” Reuters and others report. The movie is presented as a documentary following the investigation into President Bush’s murder in October 2007. NPR says the film is likely to generate controversy and news stories, and doesn’t want listeners to suspect that coverage is influenced by a sponsor relationship. CNN, which is also refusing ads for the film, is doing so because of “the extreme nature of the movie’s subject matter,” Reuters reports.

Boise Weekly profiles Peter Morrill, g.m. of Idaho PTV.

Harold Hacker, a founding director of WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., has died at the age of 90, reports the Associated Press.

Savor the vicarious thrills of a public radio pledge drive thanks to these photos from Spokane Public Radio. Mmmm mmmm, smell that bacon!

How does the widespread use of digital media affect young people and change the way they learn? The MacArthur Foundation will spend $50 million over five years to help answer this question. In addition to funding research and learning projects for its Digital Media and Learning Initiative, the foundation also launched Spotlight, a blog covering developments in in the field. PBS TeacherSource blogger Andy Carvin reports on the initiative in his latest column.

WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem, N.C., is considering creating a center for citizen journalism, reports the Winston-Salem Journal.