Online-news nonprofits and public broadcasters took home multiple awards from the annual Online News Association conference, held Oct. 17–19 in Atlanta.

WESA-FM in Pittsburgh is marking the 75th anniversary of the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast with a live performance of the H.G. Wells story — this time, set in its own city. The pubcaster is partnering with local theater troupe Bricolage for the event, at 9 p.m. Oct. 30. On that date in 1938, an episode of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, directed and narrated by Orson Welles, created panic among listeners who believed the U.S. was under really attack by Martian invaders. The Bricolage performance will feature WESA’s Paul Guggenheimer, host of the newsmag Essential Pittsburgh.

Following legal pressure from another public media outlet, Twin Cities Public Television is rebranding its younger-viewer outreach initiative five months after its initial launch. Andi McDaniel, manager of TPT’s Open Air project, announced Oct. 15 on the project blog that the network would be changing the name, citing “the fact that there are other public media brethren entities using the name” as one of the reasons behind the change. In July, Colorado Public Radio filed a trademark infringement and violation suit against TPT in federal court over use of “Open Air,” which is also the name of a Denver-area Triple-A music station that CPR has operated since 2011.

Management at KPBS in San Diego is discouraging staffers from unionizing with SAG-AFTRA, the San Diego Beat reports. The alt-weekly newspaper reported that KPBS employees petitioned management last month to recognize representation by the union. In a statement, the union said an “overwhelming majority” of KPBS workers who produce, host, report and present local and national programming have signed a petition asking management to recognize their representation by SAG-AFTRA, which was formed by the 2012 merger of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In a response last week, the newspaper reported, management told employees in a memo that said it “strongly believes that a union is not in the best interest of our employees or the future of KPBS.”

The Pacifica Foundation is seeking another nonprofit organization to help operate WBAI, its financially struggling station in New York. In a Request for Proposals (RFP) issued this week, the foundation specifies that it intends to retain ultimate control over WBAI programming under a Public Service Operating Agreement. It plans to employ two members of the station’s staff, one of whom would have managerial responsibilities and report solely to Pacifica. The RFP outlines costs that prospective co-operators would be expected to cover, including the two employees’ salaries, studio expenses and rent payments for its lease on the Empire State Building, where WBAI’s transmitter is located.

A group of some 80 pubcasters will gather Friday night in San Francisco to celebrate the return of KQED Newsroom, that title of a groundbreaking early public TV series that has been revamped as a multiplatform production. Many attendees worked on past versions of the program, which debuted during a 1968 newspaper strike. KQED Newsroom was the first nightly news series to be produced and broadcast by a public television station. It preceded The Robert MacNeil Report, a national news show that debuted in 1975 and was later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. KQED Newsroom aired for nine years, backed by a $750,000 Ford Foundation grant.

Neal Conan’s first foray out of the studio in 11 years took him very far from the studio indeed — all the way to Greenland, where he documented climate change for public radio’s Burn: An Energy Journal. The former Talk of the Nation host contributed to “Rising Seas,” the sixth installment of the ongoing series reporting on energy issues. Conan hadn’t reported from the field since 2002, when he took the TOTN hosting job. He left NPR in June, when TOTN was canceled. Burn host Alex Chadwick, who previously anchored NPR’s Day to Day, enlisted Conan after TOTN ended.

American Public Television is presenting an exclusive look at the taping of Season 6 of Doc Martin in a pledge special set to be released Thanksgiving Day. Doc Martin: Revealed goes behind the scenes with actors and producers from the series to discuss the characters, the location of Port Isaac, the unique Cornish accent and the challenges of shooting a television series in all sorts of weather. More than 60 licensees have signed on to air the special, which is available as a 90-minute pledge event with pitches by cast members or as a one-hour pledge program suitable for stations to localize or run as-is.

St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon, a nonprofit news site, have negotiated a merger agreement that will be taken up by the University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators at its next meeting in November.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Ray Suarez, chief national correspondent for PBS NewsHour, is resigning after 14 years with the program, effective Oct. 25. Executive Producer Linda Winslow told the staff in a memo late this afternoon that Suarez is leaving to “pursue several other ventures,” including writing a book. The news comes three days after NewsHour founders Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil announced they intended to transfer ownership of the program to presenting station and producing partner WETA in Arlington, Va. “At the NewsHour, Ray has been a member of the Senior Correspondent team that has helped us cover an enormous array of topics (he even added football to his repertory this week) and story developments over the years,” Winslow wrote in the memo, adding: “My Inbox is filled with rave reviews of his performances written by delighted station executives around the PBS universe.”

According to a report released Thursday by CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan, the president of Robin Hood Radio must choose between running the station or running for a spot on the local school board. Marshall Miles is president and co-founder of Sharon, Conn.-based Robin Hood Radio, which operates WHDD-FM and an FM and AM repeater. Miles is campaigning for election to the Region One Board of Education in Sharon in November. Four complaints filed with CPB questioned whether Miles was unfairly using his station to further his campaign. Miles also runs a separate political blog focused on that Board of Education that was the target of an FCC investigation in 2012.

NRK, the Norwegian public broadcasting network, is at it again. “In its latest experiment with live coverage of mundane events,” The Associated Press reports, the network will air five hours of an attempt to break the world’s record for knitting. Yes, five solid hours of knitting. This, from the network that brought viewers five days straight of the “action” on a Norwegian cruise ship as it slowly wound its way along the coastline. The Nov. 1 needlework extravaganza will open with a four-hour documentary on how “the wool off a sheep’s back turns into a sweater,” according to the AP.

NPR Digital has altered the latest version of its Composer software used by stations for tracking playlists and scheduling programs. Composer 2.0, which replaced the earlier Composer Pro product, rolled out in beta this spring. The changes respond to feedback from classical-music stations, who said the new version, as well as its predecessor, didn’t fit their needs. The software couldn’t accurately track scheduling of symphonies and extended performance credits, according to St. John Flynn, p.d. of Classical 91.7/Houston Public Media and president of the Association of Music Personnel in Radio. Composer’s developers plan to adapt the software by revamping the user interface for classical music and adding new playlist entry fields, said Stephanie Miller, director of station relations for NPR Digital Services.