Nice Above Fold - Page 451

  • Lacy coaxes creative talents to share stories of their lives

    The whole idea behind American Masters, the biographical series produced at New York's WNET, was to build a library of America’s cultural history. To meet that goal, Executive Producer Susan Lacy had to mount high-quality productions in sufficient quantity to make an impression on TV viewers and potential subjects.
  • This Old House follows homeowners still recovering from Superstorm Sandy

    PBS will present a special eight-episode series about homeowners struggling to rebuild.
  • Pubcasters win total of 173 regional Murrow Awards

    NPR stations won 82 large-market regional Murrow Awards, while small-market pubcasters captured 91. Among all stations, WLRN in Miami topped public radio’s regional winners by taking 11 awards in 13 Murrow categories: overall excellence, breaking news, continuing coverage, feature reporting, investigative reporting, news documentary, new series, hard-news reporting, use of sound, writing and website. “We feel thrilled and humbled by the honor,” said Dan Grech, news director. “I couldn’t be prouder of the team.” Four additional large-market pubcasters each won six Murrows: KQED in San Francisco, WBEZ in Chicago, KUT in Austin and WBUR in Boston. And four large-market stations each won four Murrows: KUOW in Seattle; St.
  • Was resignation of billionaire Koch from WNET Board related to controversial doc?

    On May 16, David Koch, billionaire and powerful backer of conservative causes, resigned from the board of WNET in New York City. The resignation “was the result, an insider said, of his unwillingness to back a media organization that had so unsparingly covered its sponsor,” writes Jane Mayer in the New Yorker. The problem, according to the story, stemmed from a documentary examining Koch’s wealth and influence, “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream” by filmmaker Alex Gibney. The doc was set to run last year, just as WNET was about to begin a big capital campaign. Koch “had been planning to make a very large gift,” the story said.
  • NYPR looking to boost coverage for classical station

    New York Public Radio has applied to the FCC to acquire 90.3 FM in Ossining, N.Y., from community licensee Hudson Valley Community Radio for $400,000. The broadcaster plans to use the new signal as a repeater for WQXR, its classical music station airing on 105.9 FM in New York City. Ossining is about 40 miles north of the city, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. The addition of 90.3 FM would expand WQXR’s reach to areas of Westchester County that were within its coverage area when it was owned by the New York Times. NYPR’s 2009 purchase of WQXR was a three-way transaction with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision that involved moving the classical station to a weaker signal.
  • California's KCLU expands reach with new signals

    KCLU-FM in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will extend its range to the northwest next month when it begins broadcasting on a new full-power signal in Santa Maria and translator in San Luis Obispo. California Lutheran University, KCLU’s licensee, acquired KHFR and the translator May 6 from Family Stations Inc. The religious broadcasting chain is led by Harold Camping, whose frequent and faulty predictions of apocalypse have received widespread attention. The school paid $475,000 in the deal. The new signals sign on June 18 and will carry local news, traffic and weather.
  • NPR, AIR unveil resource site for freelancers

    NPR and the Association of Independents in Radio have launched the Freelance and Station Contributor Resource Site, an online repository of information for reporters interested in filing stories with the network. “This first of its kind site includes Ethics Guidelines, examples of good freelance/station producer stories, ‘how stories go from idea to air,’ key editorial contacts, FTP filing guidelines, the most current AQH audience data for producers airing features on NPR programs, and more,” wrote AIR Executive Director Sue Schardt in an email announcing the site. Freelancers who want to sign up should go to nprstations.org and fill out the registration form, selecting “AIR” under “Station Where You Work.”
  • InsideClimate News wins Pulitzer for coverage of 2010 oil spill

    The nonprofit InsideClimate News won this year’s National Reporting Pulitzer Prize for its investigative series The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of. Reporters Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer took on a seven-month investigation about a 2010 oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. The winning package consisted of a three-part narrative and follow-up articles delving deeper into the circumstances of the oil spill. “It was an important story, and we told it well through the eyes of the people who experienced it and who are investigating it,” said David Sassoon, founder and publisher of ICN.
  • “If you can’t make it important, it’s probably not worth doing”

    In an extended interview with Current, Frontline creator David Fanning recalls how he came to work at Boston’s WGBH more than three decades ago, and how the show is positioning itself for the future.
  • Three NPR journalists will embark on fellowships

    Three NPR journalists will start academic fellowships starting this fall, with Dina Temple-Raston and Alison MacAdam joining the Nieman program at Harvard, and Louisa Lim attending the University of Michigan as a Knight-Wallace fellow. Temple-Raston, who covers counterterrorism for the network, will study the use of big data in intelligence gathering. MacAdam, a senior All Things Considered editor, will study the business of the art world. In Michigan, Lim will study the sustainability of China’s current political structures. She currently reports from Beijing. An NPR release notes that reporters Chris Arnold and Eric Westervelt recently finished fellowships, studying housing and new media, respectively.
  • Planet Money crowdfunder soars, PRI campaign falls short of goal

    Two of public radio’s three biggest distributors launched major crowdfunding experiments in the past month, with wildly different results.
  • PBS acquires new British drama to anchor Sunday nights

    Aiming to build on its successful strategy to boost viewing on Sunday nights, PBS acquired a new hit drama from the BBC, Last Tango in Halifax.
  • University of Kentucky sues WUKY reporter over open records request

    The University of Kentucky has sued a reporter at its public radio station, WUKY in Lexington, in an attempt to guard information she had requested about surgical practices at its pediatric hospital. By filing the complaint, UK is challenging the state’s attorney general, who in March endorsed reporter Brenna Angel’s request for documents. UK declined the AG’s request as well, citing state and federal privacy laws. The dispute began in December 2012, when Angel made an Open Records Request to the university regarding the cardiothoracic surgery program at Kentucky Children’s Hospital in Lexington. The program has been suspended pending an internal review, according to local media reports.
  • Kerger describes factionalism within pubTV as system's greatest threat

    MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — PBS President Paula Kerger called for local public TV stations and PBS to move beyond their reputations as a “dysfunctional family” to embrace “the power of a collective system” to strengthen their public service. In a keynote speech opening this year’s PBS Annual Meeting, Kerger said public television has reached an important moment in its history — one that she considers to be “the most important moment of my tenure” as PBS president. Kerger pointed to the outpouring of support for public TV when its federal funding came under attack during the fall presidential elections and the international attention and praise that accrued to PBS and stations following the blockbuster Masterpiece Classic hit Downton Abbey.
  • Burns to produce cancer doc for public TV

    Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is adapting a book about cancer into a six-hour series for public TV, reports the New York Times. The project was originally conceived by Sharon Rockefeller, CEO of WETA in Washington, D.C., who read Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer in late 2010. Rockefeller herself had been treated for advanced cancer. The broadcast will coincide with an outreach campaign.