Northern Michigan University is cutting its budget in response to state financial woes–and its public TV and radio stations are on the chopping block.

Bill Moyers’ Becoming American: The Chinese Experience is a “model documentary that gets almost everything right,” says a New York Times reviewer. “It crams nearly two centuries of tangled Chinese-American history into a few engrossing hours while remaining surprisingly light on its feet.”

An anti-war activist believes he was dismissed by NPR’s Scott Simon in a recent on-air interview.

Pacifica continues to land coverage with its antiwar slant, an oddity on any radio dial, this time with a write-up in the Wall Street Journal.

Two public radio news directors are among the journalists who tell the Poynter Institute’s Jill Geisler how they’re covering the war. And MJ Bear, former v.p. of online at NPR, is reviewing war coverage on her site.

The NewsHour performs “a quadruple double correction with three half-twists” for Fox News Sunday With Tony Snow, reports the Washington Post. (Scroll down.) Online NewsHour posted the correction with transcripts and real audio of Terence Smith’s original report.

A Mighty Wind, the latest improv comedy from Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best of Show), culminates with a spoof of a public television special. Harry Shearer, host of public radio’s Le Show, also stars.

Following in the footsteps of This American Life, To the Best Of Our Knowledge goes Hollywood. Listen to the trailer for TTBOOK: The Movie. (RealAudio required.)

For now, at least, NPR is keeping correspondent Anne Garrels in Baghdad, reports The Washington Post.

On the Media‘s Bob Garfield had a little run-in with Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson–over a bagel.

Time reviews NPR’s growth and touches on a few of the other biggies in the field.

NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin says NPR commentaries have excluded expressions of “unabashed and unconditional support (and there is lot of it) for the administration” and war against Iraq. (Dvorkin’s column now appears weekly–catch up in the archive.)

The New York Times previews Domestic Violence, a Frederick Wiseman documentary that airs this week on PBS stations. “Mr. Wiseman subscribes to the “give them enough rope” philosophy: let anyone talk long enough, and they will sooner or later reveal themselves,” writes David Edelstein. “He provides the longest ropes in the business.”

American Masters profiles Alice Waters, the cook and restaurateur who “made it possible to feel progressive while eating really good food in really nice places.” The New York Times previews the documentary, which airs on PBS stations March 20.

The Los Angeles Times focuses on the polar-opposite views local listeners can get from Pacifica’s KPFK and its hawkish right-wing neighbors on AM.