Former NPR reporter and analyst Juan Williams is neither the first nor last news personality to land a lucrative gig at Fox News after being dismissed for politically incorrect remarks that offended liberals, reports Paul Farhi of the Washington Post. Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report covering TV news, tells Farhi that Fox News chief Roger Ailes is being “opportunistic” with a string of recent hires, including Williams, former CNN host Lou Dobbs and local TV news veteran Doug McKelway, who was fired this summer by Washington’s WJLA for “gross insubordination and misconduct.” “It’s a way to play the culture wars,” Tyndall says of Ailes’s hiring spree, and jokes that Fox may be turning into “the safety-net network.

The Sundance Institute on Wednesday (Dec. 1) revealed the lineup of competition for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in January. Two ITVS-funded docs are on the list: “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation,” profiling a radical environmental group, in the U.S. Documentary competition; and “Family Portrait in Black and White,” in the World Cinema Documentary competition, an examination of interracial individuals and relationships in Eastern Europe. Other entries include “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey,” which follows Kevin Clash, the man behind the iconic character. A Sesame Workshop spokesperson said it did not fund the project but provided access to Clash for the filmmaker.

“This show is a conversation between science and mystery,” says Jad Abumrad, host and producer of Radiolab, in a New York Observer feature about the WNYC series. “You’re right at the edge of what the science can tell you. Which to me is as much about, like, magical thinking and weirdness and poetry as the science itself.” BONUS for Radiolab fans: Abumrad was a featured speaker at 2010 MaxFunCon, organized by Jesse Thorne of PRI’s The Sound of Young America. You can watch a video stream or download audio of his presentation here.

Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity devoted six minutes of his Nov. 29 Fox News show to congressional Republicans’ pledge to defund National Public Radio, inviting political commentators Sally Kohn and S.E. Cupp to debate whether the federal government should subsidize public radio. Well, okay — it wasn’t a debate, per se — they shouted at each other and misrepresented basic facts about NPR’s history before Hannity wrapped up the argument. “Liberal propaganda is not the common good,” he said. “You wanna know why conservative talk radio works? People want to hear it.” If you watch it and wonder what was said amidst all the shouting, this summary of the transcript might help a little.

PBS has revealed the finalists of this year’s CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund (Current, April 19) request for proposals. More than 200 submissions were received in response to the RFP, PBS said. Sixteen now advance to panel review. They include State of the Re:Union TV from WGBH, a television version of the radio show that wrapped production on its second season this fall (Current, Aug. 9). Host Al Letson travels the country in search of “real America,” finding along the way compelling characters and “unveiling what makes our diverse country one nation.” Another finalist is It’s All Relative with Farai Chideya, former host of NPR’s News & Notes, a casualty of NPR budget cuts in March 2009.

KCET, the Los Angeles pubTV station dropping its PBS membership as of January, is one of nine station recipients, along with the PBS Foundation, sharing $2.2 million in membership challenge grants from the Newman’s Own Foundation. PBS announced the funding today (Dec. 1). “These grants will help us continue to serve those communities, foster rich civic dialogue, encourage participation in the arts and provide access to quality education,” Paula Kerger, PBS president, said in the statement. The PBS Foundation will keep $50,000, targeted to the arts. In addition to KCET, the stations are: Connecticut Public Television; KCTS in Seattle; Twin Cities Public Television in Minnesota; WAMC Northeast Radio in Albany, N.Y.;

A Republican Congressman hoping to keep his key committee chairmanship is citing CPB as an example of what funding he would cut, according to a story in today’s (Dec. 1) Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) yesterday made a presentation to the Republican Steering Committee, which will decide who will head the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees federal spending. Lewis, the top Republican on the committee for six years, declined to reveal the specifics of his presentation, but cited to the reporter three examples of funding cuts he supports: $12 billion in unobligated stimulus funding, $40 million in the elimination of grants for green jobs and $440 million in savings by ending federal support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

In a Nov. 23 online op-ed and analysis for the Guardian, media blogger and j-school professor Dan Kennedy describes the political campaign to defund NPR as part of a “culture war being waged by the right.” Kennedy examines the arguments of Republican lawmakers who are calling for an end to federal funding, including the assertion that NPR programming is “liberal,” and finds that they don’t hold water. Much of NPR’s programming, he writes, ” exudes a liberal sensibility reflected in cultural references and, to an extent, story selection. But the reporting itself is balanced and, if anything, errs on the side of caution.”

The FCC today (Nov. 30) unanimously approved a three-part rulemaking to begin to free up TV spectrum for wireless devices, TVNewsCheck is reporting. “These actions will lay the groundwork for the goals set in the National Broadband Plan to make available up to 120 MHz from the broadcast television bands for new wireless broadband services,” said Alan Stillwell, the FCC staffer who presented the proposals at the meeting. Pubcasters and other broadcasters will be faced with the decision to give up spectrum for cash, or keep it for future use (Current, Feb. 8).

AM: still used by several dozen pubcasters AM radio uses the low frequencies where radio began, which have much longer wavelengths. While FM antennas are relatively small and mounted high on towers, AM’s longer wavelengths use the entire tower as an antenna, along with a network of underground wires that typically surround the tower in a circle as wide as the tower is high. Experts in the black art of AM facility design recommend that AM towers’ height be a precise fraction, such as one-quarter, of the station’s wavelength so that the tower will resonate with the frequency. Stations with lower frequencies tend to have higher towers.

Noel Gunther remembers the moment when he realized that public broadcasting had to get involved in traumatic brain injury education. It was 2001. Gunther was producing a segment for WETA’s documentary series Exploring Your Brain. He was interviewing hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine, who had been forced to retire at age 34 after several concussions. The first, in 1990, knocked him unconscious and put him into convulsions — and yet LaFontaine was back on the ice 10 days later. After he retired in 1999, LaFontaine suffered from chronic piercing headaches and depression; his mind was in a fog. “Pat told me about trying to read a book to his daughter — a simple book,” Gunther said.

The CPB  Board’s 2011 business plan, now online (PDF), was approved during its meeting Nov. 15 and 16  in New Orleans. CPB’s six priorities for 2011: digital and innovation; diversity; dialogue, engagement and awareness; education; journalism; and core system support. That plan promotes station mergers and consolidations of functions such as joint master control operations — concepts the corporation has long encouraged (Current, March 1). CPB also will continue working to promote stations’ financial stability. “If that proves to be unfeasible” with a particular station, the document notes, “CPB will explore alternatives to maintain public broadcasting service to the affected community.”

Talk about collaboration! A typical FM/TV tower can be home to dozens of antennas for stations and other spectrum users. Five full-power TV stations and five FM broadcast from Pinnacle Hill in Rochester, N.Y. (right). Some FM translators and two-way radio and mobile users also share the tower. Pubcaster WXXI owns the middle tower and uses it to broadcast its TV signal and two FMs. 1 These are UHF TV antennas, typically 40-50 feet in length. The two on the crossbar atop WXXI’s tower aired analog signals until the analog turnoff and now will be removed. WXXI-TV’s DTV antenna is on the opposite side of the tower.

The FCC has extended the deadline for complying with new Emergency Alert System rules, reports Television Broadcast today (Nov. 24). The new deadline for all EAS participants to implement Common Alerting Protocol technology is now Sept. 30, 2011, instead of March 29, 2011.

Traveling for Turkey Day? Check out PBS NewsHour’s handy TSA Time page, which organizes Tweets by airport. This from O’Hare in Chicago: “OHare super nice. No line, arrived @ perfect time. Now 5 hour wait for flight.” Oops.