At a Media Impact Funders event, attendees considered new funding models and new ways to measure the impact of public media’s efforts.

Pubradio won a pair of medals for reportage on youth and families. WYNC’s Radio Rookies won a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for Coming of Age in 2011, a series of reports covering youth-identity issues such as immigration status, mental-health diagnoses, the foster care system and the process of coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The award was given in the College Park, Md.–based organization’s new youth-media category. “It’s a rare treat to listen to a first-person narrative that moves you; it’s even rarer to find storytellers who are brave enough to confront their own issues and face other people who may not always tell them what they want to hear,” judges said.

WNYC led public media in the 2012 national Edward R. Murrow Awards announced June 12 by the Radio Television Digital News Association. Among 17 pubcasting entities receiving Murrows for excellence in electronic journalism, the New York station won three trophies for two of its nationally distributed shows, Studio 360 and Radio Rookies. Public stations winning national Murrows in large- and small-market radio divisions excelled during an earlier phase of RTDNA’s annual journalism contest — the regional Murrows awarded in 13 multistate contests this spring. Public media news outlets won national Murrows across four divisions. Radio networks: WNYC’s Studio 360, a co-production with Public Radio International, for feature reporting and use of sound, and Radio Rookies, writing; BBC World Service, hard news reporting and news documentary; American Public Media’s Marketplace, investigative reporting; and NPR, website.

KPCC and Vermont Public Radio led public radio news rooms in PRNDI’s three-tiered contest honoring outstanding local news coverage. In the competition among stations with the largest news staffs, KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., and VPR each won four first-place prizes. Top winners in other divisions included WBGO in Newark, N.J.; Wyoming Public Radio; KLCC in Eugene, Oregon; and WCAI in Woods Hole, Mass., each of which won at least three PRNDI awards. In Division A, comprising stations with five or more full-time news staffers, Vermont Public Radio took four top prizes for its coverage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Irene.

Weiss worked at NPR for 28 years, rising to senior v.p. of news in 2007, a post she held for four years. Before that she was senior editor of the network’s National Desk from 2001 to 2007. She also served as executive producer of All Things Considered from 1989 to 2001. “Ellen’s leadership and commitment to public radio journalism resulted in stronger stories from NPR reporters, as well as from newsrooms around the country,” said George Bodarky, newly elected president of PRNDI and news director at WFUV in New York, in an email to Current. “During her time at NPR, Ellen consistently took time out to share her knowledge and expertise with member station newsrooms. 

The public TV station serving eastern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley recently decided that the best way to survive as an independent station was to step back from its status as the primary station serving its market. For WLVT in Bethlehem, a small city less than 70 miles north of Philadelphia, becoming a PDP station “was a natural,” said Tim Fallon, acting c.e.o. “It just doesn’t make sense that two stations, just two channels away from each other, have exactly the same programming.” WLVT, which is locally branded as PBS39, was hard-hit by budget cuts in 2009 when the state sliced its $1 million in annual support to $100,000.

At least 10 public television stations could be at risk of losing vital CPB community service grants this fiscal year and next because they have not raised the required minimum of $800,000 in nonfederal financial support.

Bates, a producer/director who rose through the ranks to become network chief in 1996, announced his retirement plans June 22, initiating the second leadership transition for the state network’s top job since its founding 58 years ago. Bates arrived at NET in 1975 as a producer/director working on a one-year assignment. He ended up devoting his career to NET, earning a promotion to senior producer and eventually moving into fundraising. He became director of development for Nebraskans for Public Television Inc. in 1985 before being appointed to succeed Jack McBride, NET’s founding general manager, in the mid-1990s. “Rod Bates’ leadership has brought NET to the highest level of service in our history,” said Ron Hull, a semi-retired NET veteran who hired Bates as a TV producer more than three decades ago.

Two New England public television stations are moving to sever their ties to state and university licensees, cutting loose to become community-based nonprofits as they adapt to new business models and learn to live without state subsidies.