Nice Above Fold - Page 902

  • In today’s Los Angeles Times, Tavis Smiley and NPR President Kevin Klose respond to the revelation that the political content analysis secretly commissioned by CPB Board Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson examined programs helmed by Smiley and Diane Rehm.
  • CPB named 11 more producers receiving R&D money for its America at the Crossroads project, which aims to prepare 20 hours of programming for broadcast around the fifth anniversary of 9/11. When the producers have completed R&D, CPB will choose which will get production funds.
  • In an epilogue to her feature on pubcasting funding, On the Media co-host Brooke Gladstone reveals that Lyndon Johnson invented the Internet [RealAudio file] — or at least foresaw it at the time he was godfathering public broadcasting. The BBC will double spending on journalism training to 10 million pounds a year, but has decided to do it online rather than creating a bricks-and-mortar college, The Scotsman of Edinburgh reported.
  • The New York Times Magazine profiles Nic Harcourt, music director at KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif.: “At a time in radio when D.J.’s generally possess little personality and no responsibility for choosing the music they play, he has emerged as the country’s most important disc jockey and a genuine bellwether.”
  • A California appeals court overruled the sale of Orange County’s public TV station to the KOCE Foundation, saying that a decision to reject the higher bid of religious broadcasters was the “rankest form of favoritism,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
  • Over objections, CPB hires Patricia Harrison as president

    The CPB Board followed its own inclination over the urgings of numerous public broadcasters last week, naming former GOP chair Patricia S. Harrison as the corporation’s next president.
  • Opponents want him gone, but Tomlinson sits tight

    The White House confirmed that Tomlinson will not be dismissed.
  • House votes 2 to 1 to restore CPB aid

    A week of rallies, petitions, public service announcements and entreaties to Congress persuaded the House of Representatives to restore the $400 million appropriation for next year that Congress advance-funded two years ago.
  • Public TV lobbies and bids to keep grants for kids’ television

    Public TV has to move on two fronts to protect Ready to Learn, the Department of Education grant program that supports several PBS Kids series.
  • “Then on Thursday a Rove dream came true: Patricia Harrison … ascended to the CPB presidency,” writes Frank Rich in a New York Times op-ed today. The right doesn’t want to kill off public broadcasting, Rich says, but “annex it to the larger state propaganda machine….”
  • Dora the Explorer runs circles around Barney & Friends, according to this Slate analysis of kidvid marketing strategies.
  • Public radio commentator Gabriel Wisdom was kicked off San Diego’s KPBS-FM and booted from Marketplace after one of his commentaries for the business show sounded remarkably like a column in Slate.
  • People for the American Way called it a “landslide.” Urged on by pubcasting backers around the country, the House voted 284-140 to restore $100 million cut from CPB’s budget in a subcommittee, AP reported. However, the House did not undo the $23 million deletion of the Ready to Learn program for children’s TV or $89 million in requested aid for digital transition and pubTV’s satellite system overhaul. More than 80 Republicans joined Democrats in supporting an amendment by Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Jim Leach (R-Iowa), said Free Press, one of several groups that helped pubcasters publicize the issue.
  • Patricia Harrison, the controversial candidate for the CPB presidency favored by Board Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, has been named President and CEO, AP reports. CPB announced the appointment in a news release as the House debated funding for public broadcasting.
  • Who supports public broadcasting? In the heat of battle over federal funding to the field, “Democrats in Congress and liberal organizations have emerged as public broadcasting’s most visible and vocal supporters, while Republicans and conservatives have stayed mostly silent,” reports the Washington Post.