The Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher gives Sirius the edge in the public-radio category in a side-by-side comparison of satellite radio services.

College and community radio stations in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest are creating the Northwest Community Radio Network, a network for sharing content and expertise. Stations are meeting in Seattle next month. (Related article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.)

The Columbia Journalism Review examines the resurgence of personal narratives on public radio via StoryCorps, Transom, the Public Radio Exchange and This American Life. “We are social beings, and our lives got kind of fragmented — our media lives, our civic lives, our personal lives,” says independent producer Rob Rosenthal, director of the radio program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. “Listening to these kinds of stories on the radio can connect us to one another.”

The Center for Social Media has produced a 13-minute video about the Beyond Broadcast conference held at Harvard Law School in May. Conference participants discuss the growing popularity of participatory web media and its potential in the public sphere. (Current‘s Beyond Broadcast coverage.)

Did you work at WKNO in Memphis? The pubTV station promises “great music, food and drinks” at its 50th anniversary staff reunion Sept. 30. Details on the station website or through 901-458-2521.

Sesame Street is being destroyed by “idiot cuteness,” writes LA Times columnist Joel Stein. He blames “patronizing, baby-talking Elmo” and finds other adults who hate the furry red one.

Nguyen Qui Duc, host of public radio’s Pacific Time, is leaving the show Sept. 14 to return to Vietnam with his mother. “I had a lot of opportunity in this country, which has given us a lot,” Nguyen tells the San Francisco Chronicle. “But here, I’m on the computer 24 hours a day. Over there, I feel warmer in Vietnam. I have time for friends.”

Eleven public radio stations will receive their first Community Service Grants from CPB in fiscal year 2007, thanks to newly expanded eligibility criteria. The stations will collectively get more than $1 million.

Did the NewsHour soft-pedal its reporting on BP, the giant oil company and program sponsor that drew wide criticism last week after shutting down its Prudhoe Bay production facility? Some viewers think so, and others who wrote to PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler don’t like the ads on PBS Kids Sprout.

The St. Petersburg Times ponders the future of NPR’s News & Notes with Ed Gordon, which has lost 17 percent of the audience it inherited from The Tavis Smiley Show, which N&N was designed to replace, the paper reports. “Sometimes, I feel this show is being allowed to die on the vine,” Gordon said. “People say I haven’t connected with audiences. … That’s probably true because the show hasn’t connected with me.” Said one critic: “The problem with NPR is that everything is done by committee. And now that Ed is disengaged, it’s the bland leading the bland.” NPR and the African American Public Radio Consortium defended the network’s efforts to develop black-focused programs.

Another host who worked at WPFW-FM in Washington, D.C., has passed away — Raymond Whitfield, who died Aug. 2 at the age of 77, reports the Washington Post. Whitfield overcame drug addiction and went on to host two nationally distributed radio series about the criminal justice system.

The Dolan sisters’ Satellite Sisters, which began as a national pubradio show produced by WNYC, has been nominated as a finalist for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year in the NAB Marconi Radio Awards. Marconi winners will be announced Sept. 21. Satellite Sisters airs six days a week, three hours a day. During the show’s two-season pubradio run, its carriage peaked at 70 stations and then declined. The show won two American Women in Radio & Television Awards this spring.

Dorothy Ray Healey, a longtime Communist activist and Pacifica Radio host, died Aug. 6 at the age of 91, reports the Washington Post.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer profiles NPR’s Luke Burbank, a 30-year-old National Desk reporter and fill-in host for Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! When Burbank was interviewed for an NPR gig, writes Susan Paynter, “he watched himself take off his suit jacket, roll up his sleeve, and show the man the queen and ace of hearts tattoos on his arm, thinking all the while, ‘Why am I doing this?'”

A decision to add radio shock jock Eric “Mancow” Muller as Chicago Tonight commentator riled up WTTW viewers, but Carol Marin told the Chicago Tribune she won’t walk over the hiring. Comments posted on the Tribune‘s media blog suggest that many viewers were sufficiently disgusted to threaten to stop watching the show or contributing to the station. “Mancow is just a colicky pre-adolescent who seems to have an effect on other stunted adults who’ve never grown up,” commented one viewer. “I teach seventh graders all day and the last thing I want to do is sit down and watch another one on WTTW.”