With Apple’s introduction of podcast features into iTunes, “every public radio station probably should be offering podcasts by now,” writes Steve Outing.

Garrison Keillor blends optimism and wistfulness in his debut newspaper column.

A Berkeley Daily Planet article details some of the latest disputes engulfing Pacifica’s KPFA-FM.

Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg says public TV is liberal (“it just is”) and shot through with contradictions between its claims and its reality. Cal Thomas meanwhile focuses on Moyers, citing a Current article.

The progressive website Media Matters asked CPB to recognize the Freedom of Information Act and release the bias studies commissioned by Chairman Ken Tomlinson. CPB contends that it isn’t subject to FOIA scrutiny but in the past has pledged to abide by it voluntarily.

Only 42 percent of Americans think the press generally stands up for America, says a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The score on that question returns to pre-9/11 days. After 9/11 it soared to 69 percent. Views different greatly by party affiliation, Pew notes: The press is too critical, say 67 percent of Repubs, 24 percent of Dems.

The National Park Service is rebalancing the politics of a video shown to visitors of the Lincoln Memorial, adding footage of pro-gun and pro-war marches and other right-side events to scenes of civil rights rallies and the like, AP reported.

In today’s Washington Post, public broadcasters and reporters labeled with the scarlet “L” respond to the content analysis study commissioned by CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times also report on the study in today’s editions. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who released the study, called it “a little nutty.”

Marketplace reports on the competitive threats and economic challenges facing public TV.

NPR reports on and provides downloads of The Mann Report, a CPB consultant’s study of political balance on PBS and NPR programs.

Pubcasters should be thrilled that the House restored CPB’s 2006 funding, but “that price will be paid, as is so often the case in today’s Washington, by the people who depend on government help for essential health care and education and job-training services,” writes David Broder in the Washington Post. The columnist looks at the programs that were cut to enable return of the system’s funds.

Public Radio Today, an Arbitron report, is chock-full of number-crunching thrills. (PDF)

CPB’s bipolar approach to political programming extends to its $20 million “America at a Crossroads” project, the New York Times reports. First, the corporation gave a preliminary grant for a film about controversial neocon and former Bush advisor Richard Perle to an old Perle pal. Then it commissioned a critical examination of Bush foreign policy to balance the first film. “I think the American tradition of journalism is that if something is controversial, the initial treatment of it would provide sufficient balance,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, who helped PBS update its editorial guidelines.

Big Bird and the usual Sesame Street suspects figure heavily in this collection of editorial cartoons about public broadcasting’s recent troubles, available via Slate.

Over at the TV Barn, Aaron Barnhart gives the rundown on the $112 million that’s still missing from the various coffers that fund public broadcasting every year.