A Baltimore Sun op-ed makes the case for eliminating taxpayer support for PBS.

NPR ought to correct its imbalanced coverage of the Democratic presidential candidates, argues Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin in his latest column.

Inconsistent branding strategies make it increasingly difficult for viewers to see the connections between PBS, the programs it distributes and the local stations that air them. PBS convenes a meeting with station communications execs at Braddock Place this week to discuss how to rectify the problem, a remnant of age-old tensions over what public TV should call itself. The pow-wow follows up on a study by the branding strategy and design firm Interbrand, which concluded that the profusion of public TV brands undermines the PBS brand’s ability to raise money from viewers and sponsors. Interbrand noted that cable competitors and successful nonprofits focus on national brands.

Pacifica Radio is emerging from bitter years of factional struggle with new bylaws that may make it the world’s most democratic media organization. The bylaws, which escaped legal challenge and won approval by a California judge Sept. 15, entrust listeners, volunteers and staff members to elect boards at Pacifica’s five stations. Those boards will oversee station matters such as spending, programming and hiring top managers, as well as appointing a national board of directors to run the network. About 90,000 of Pacifica’s listeners and 700 of its volunteers and staffers are eligible to vote in the first election under the bylaws, estimates Carol Spooner, secretary of the network’s interim national board.

USA Today says Naked in Baghdad, the new book by NPR’s Anne Garrels, is an “engaging and instructive diary.” (Via Romenesko.)

A Maryland PTV v.p. arranged for her boyfriend to win a $54,000 piece of a CPB website grant, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The Columbia Journalism Review profiles the low-power FM movement. CJR‘s website also features an interview with Pete Tridish of the Prometheus Radio Project, the low-power advocacy group that recently won a stay on the FCC’s new media ownership rules. “I really hope that NPR comes to its senses on this issue,” he says of the network’s stance on LPFM.

Barring yet another internecine squabble or legal challenge, the board of the Pacifica Foundation has passed new bylaws. By some estimates, the bylaws make Pacifica the world’s most democratic media organization, granting its listeners, staff members and volunteers a role in electing local and national boards.

The Washington Post charts public TV’s worrisome financial decline.

The FCC has adopted rules for digital “plug and play” cable compatibility, which will allow viewers to plug their cable directly into their digital TV sets without the need for a set-top box. (PDF.)

Torey Malatia, president of Chicago Public Radio, chats tonight at 8 pm Eastern Time on the website of the Association of Independents in Radio.

The bad news: Public radio is a small part of a rapidly expanding nonprofit sector. Competition with other nonprofits for mind-share and donor support will intensify. Moreover, public radio lacks the financial transparency that donors increasingly expect.

Scott Simon and Mara Liasson made remarks that some journalists and colleagues thought went too far.

Fundraisers got an outsiders’ view of pubradio from a former insider at the Public Radio Development and Marketing Conference, July 10 [2003], in Snowbird, Utah. This article is adapted from remarks by longtime public broadcaster Robert G. Ottenhoff, president of GuideStar, a leading source of information for monitoring the performance of nonprofits of all kinds. Ottenhoff founded Newark’s WBGO-FM, served as executive director of the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority and then became chief operating officer of PBS. I was asked to come here today and give you an outsider’s perspective on public radio. I’m an avid listener of public radio.

Discovery Communications plans to expand delivery of its media content to schools through its acquisition of United Learning, a major partner with public TV stations in delivering streamed instructional content to schools.