PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler questions why PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer paid little attention to John Edwards’ admission of an extramarital affair. “[T]he decision not to report the Edwards confirmation story struck me as both patronizing to people who depend on PBS for news, and journalistically mind-boggling,” Getler wrote in his weekly column. But the ombud also noted that most NewsHour viewers who wrote him on the subject favored the show’s decision not to cover the story when it first broke.

Arbitron is gearing up to introduce its Personal People Meter ratings system in Los Angeles, and the LA Times reports on local broadcasters’ reactions to the new methodology. “By and large, it’s a more accurate way of monitoring how people truly do listen to the radio,” Southern California Public Radio President Bill Davis tells the Times. “The overall audience is actually much larger, but time spent listening is going to be less.” Arbitron reports data from its June trial run of PPM in Los Angeles here [PDF]. There’s more PPM news on PRPD’s website, where Arthur Cohen blogs about Arbitron’s first people meter measurement of digital radio.

PubForge, a group of veteran web programmers collaborating on open-source tools tailored to the needs of public broadcasters, is conducting a survey to determine what tools and resources programmers and producers need the most. The group’s wiki already offers some applications and invites others to share expertise and collaborate on problem-solving. KJZZ webmaster John Tynan, a PubForge organizer, describes his objective for convening the group here.

Two initiatives led by NPR will soon offer station websites greater automated handling of editorial content and national sales of underwriting to help support those sites.

The Public Radio Exchange announced this week that it received a $250,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to support expansion of its website, creation of unique content and strategic planning. The online marketplace received a MacArthur grant earlier this year to support similar efforts (coverage in Current).

Fifteen pubcasters received CPB grants to support programming about national issues in this year’s elections. The grants are part of the funder’s Station-Based Election Programming Initiative.

Nova’s “The Bible’s Buried Secrets,” scheduled to air Nov. 18 and still in production, is already raising the ire of the conservative Christian American Family Association, whose members have written scores of letters to PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler (scroll down). Apparently prompted by an Orlando Sentinel story that referred to a clip of the program and panel discussion from the summer Television Critics Association press tour, AFA founder Donald E. Wildmon sent out an “action alert” asking his flock to sign “a petition urging Congress to stop using tax dollars to fund PBS.” Wildmon wrote: “The Public Broadcasting System, probably the most liberal network in America, will present a program this fall that says the Old Testament is a bunch of made-up stories that never happened.”

“Sesame Street‘s new website is no ‘Gabba Gabba’,” writes Maria Russo in an Los Angeles Times review. “It pains me to says this as someone who grew up loving PBS–overall, on Noggin and Playhouse Disney, the creativity factor is in another league,” and those networks have “more fun computer games,” she writes, referencing Nick Jr.’s “funkadelic variety show” Yo Gabba Gabba. Sesame‘s game-driven site, which officially launches August 11 (sneak peak here), is hosted by Sesame Workshop instead of PBS, the show’s primary broadcaster, and cost $14 million to develop, according to an earlier New York Times story.

The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced the moderators, schedule and locations for the three presidential debates and one v.p. debate. The Newshour‘s Jim Lehrer will moderate the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., and Gwen Ifill, Newshour correspondent and Washington Week anchor, will moderate the v.p. debate on Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Tom Brokaw and Bob Schieffer will moderate the last two debates in Nashville and Hempstead, N.Y. 

Blair Feulner’s exit from KPCW in Park City, Utah, is the “end of a sleazy era,” writes Salt Lake Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh. Some online commenters point to “sleaze” elsewhere. The Tribune also reports that KPCW withdrew its late-filed FCC applications to build six new noncommercial stations. “Part of what you’re seeing is the effect that a stronger and more independent board of trustees is having on the direction of Community Wireless,” says Joe Wrona, spokesperson and executive committee member for KCPW’s licensee.

In a brief filed today with the Supreme Court, ABC, CBS and NBC claimed that the legal underpinnings of the landmark Pacifica decision and other content regulation precedents are no longer valid, Broadcasting & Cable reports. The filing is in support of Fox in an indecency case that the Court will hear later this year — the FCC asked the justices to reconsider a lower court’s finding that the commission was wrong to fine Fox for airing curse words uttered during a live awards show broadcast. The FCC wants the justices to consider only narrow legal questions specific to the case, but the networks in their filing urged the Court to broadly examine the legality of broadcast indecency enforcement as a whole.

A devoted Mister Rogers fan has started a campaign to restore daily broadcasts of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood to PBS stations. Brian Linder is protesting the network’s decision to feed episodes of the show on a weekly basis starting next month. “As long as children need to be nurtured, then there is a place for this program because there’s nothing else like it,” Linder tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

NPR and Public Radio International announced yesterday that NPR will acquire Public Interactive, PRI’s web services company. PRI will continue to manage sales and marketing for PI until the end of the year. A memo to NPR stations excerpted on PRPD’s blog said, “Public media’s web capabilities are dramatically under-resourced and clearly, we need to pool resources to develop our collective potential.”

Producer Doug Gordon offers his Modest Proposal for Making Public Radio More Entertaining and invites your comments and ideas on DirectCurrent.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas will replace Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska) as the GOP’s ranking member on the Commerce Committee, which oversees broadcast legislation, while Stevens is under indictment, TV Week reports. Congress is about to recess for its August break and the party conventions and won’t be back in session until mid-September.