The Seattle Post-Intelligencer profiles NPR’s Luke Burbank, a 30-year-old National Desk reporter and fill-in host for Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! When Burbank was interviewed for an NPR gig, writes Susan Paynter, “he watched himself take off his suit jacket, roll up his sleeve, and show the man the queen and ace of hearts tattoos on his arm, thinking all the while, ‘Why am I doing this?'”

A decision to add radio shock jock Eric “Mancow” Muller as Chicago Tonight commentator riled up WTTW viewers, but Carol Marin told the Chicago Tribune she won’t walk over the hiring. Comments posted on the Tribune‘s media blog suggest that many viewers were sufficiently disgusted to threaten to stop watching the show or contributing to the station. “Mancow is just a colicky pre-adolescent who seems to have an effect on other stunted adults who’ve never grown up,” commented one viewer. “I teach seventh graders all day and the last thing I want to do is sit down and watch another one on WTTW.”

Donovan Reynolds was named president of the Public Radio Partnership in Louisville, Ky., effective Sept. 6. Reynolds resigned as director of Michigan Public Media in Ann Arbor earlier this year after an embezzling scheme was uncovered at the station. He was not implicated in the affair but cited a need to “take responsibility” by stepping down.

The Station Resource Group held its annual planning retreat this week. SRG’s website features a few documents related to the event, including an overview of what was to be discussed.

Chicago’s Time Out previews the new FM service in development at Chicago Public Radio, which will aim to appeal to a younger, more diverse audience. (Hence the accompanying photo of three of the station’s creators looking more like indie rockers than radio dudes?) The service now has a website.

Public Radio Capital and two partner institutions announced today the creation of the Public Radio Fund, a first-ever investment fund to support station acquisition. The Calvert Foundation has contributed $3 million and the Ford Foundation $1.5 million to start the fund, which PRC hopes will expand to $15 million within a year. Audio of today’s press conference (Windows Media) is expected to be available by 6 p.m. Eastern time.

Producers and marketing execs at Sesame Workshop hope that Abby Cadabby, the “girly-girl” Sesame Street character to be introduced to tot viewers next Monday, will bring a feminine balance to the male-dominated Muppet cast and possibly become the “female equivalent of Elmo, a huge money-maker for the nonprofit organization behind the show,” reports the New York Times.

The Ford Foundation, the Calvert Foundation and Public Radio Capital will announce Wednesday a multi-station public radio investment fund for individuals and institutions. The groups will discuss the fund in a news conference, with audio online by Wednesday evening. We’ll provide details after the announcement.

Parents and PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler react to the decision by PBS Kids Sprout to fire Melanie Martinez as host of The Good Night Show. Seven years ago, Martinez appeared in spoofy PSAs as a “technical virgin.” After the videos reappeared on the Internet, PBS Kids Sprout management decided that the performance was inappropriate for a children’s TV show host, fired Martinez and pulled the interstitials in which she appeared. The New York Times reported on the backlash from viewers.

NPR tests have determined that a third of commercially available FM modulators exceed acceptable emissions limits, reports Radio World. The devices, which feed satellite radio signals into car receivers, often broadcast on frequencies that can interfere with the nonreserved band.

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that public radio websites are among those now off-limits to state employees in Kentucky, where the government is trying to stop its workers from goofing off online. Some site operators accuse the state’s Republican governor of singling them out. (More from WFPL-FM in Louisville.)

I’m in Boston reporting an article about Open Source, the public radio show, and meeting with some other public radio people. Here are some photos I’ve taken of the Open Source staff in their Cambridge offices. —Mike Janssen

Ruth Seymour, g.m. of KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif., shares her thoughts about NPR’s Blueprint for Growth (PDF). “Choose the best option for your station. Not for the group. Not for some amorphous ideology whose premise is questionable to begin with.”

Stephen Hill looks at the shortcomings of HD Radio as compared to other emerging technologies: “Of the major usage trends that are driving the growth of Internet radio — new ‘long tail’ niche and alternative content, on-demand delivery, user-created content, podcasting (subcriptions and portability), and time-shifting — only time-shifting is even doable with HD, and then only in a relatively crippled way due to memory and interface constraints. Even this undermines the one incontestable advantage of conventional radio: ease of use.” UPDATE: Dennis Haarsager chips in: “If ‘HD’ is going to work, we need patience, some advanced features beyond the ones we now have that are implied in the mark-up language, some smart business thinking about multicasting and PAD features — and some luck.

Jake Shapiro ponders the place of voluntary financial support in a new-media environment: “. . . [E]ven if the underwriting revenue does the trick, I think there’s something important to continue and to redefine in the invitation for voluntary support.”