In a new white paper, the American Enterprise Institute is recommending resurrecting the idea for PBS’s Public Square channel (Current, Jan. 19, 2004) as a home for public-affairs content. Norman Ornstein, lead author of “Creating a Public Square in a Challenging Media Age” — and a former member of the PBS Board — lays out four strategies to increase civic participation via media. It suggests working to keep newspapers alive, establish universal broadband access, get quality information to citizens, and develop a public-square channel, “the likes of which public television envisioned back in the mid-1990s.” Ornstein served while PBS President Pat Mitchell was pushing for the Public Square project.

Steve Waldman, who spearheaded work on the FCC’s recent 365-page report, “The Information Needs of Communities,” sat down with Columbia Journalism Review to defend the project, which has been widely viewed as disappointing (even by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps) for its lack of specific, feasible recommendations. Waldman said his researchers “made a lot of effort to try to come up with some ideas that were innovative, pragmatic, and practical, and that would actually be effective and not just push people’s buttons.” One aspect of the report Waldman feels has been overlooked by the press is the role of the nonprofit sector in future news coverage.

As the Federal Communications Commission seeks comments on maximizing spectrum usage to Native American lands, “it is critical the commission does not divest current spectrum being utilized by public television and radio interrupting current services already allocated to tribes and rural communities,” according to comments filed with the FCC by APTS, CPB and PBS on Monday (June 20). The orgs used an example of TV and radio translators in Utah. That state “possesses a complex and unique geographical make up,” and rural communities and Native American tribes have relied on translators for decades, they said. Utah currently operates and maintains 688 translators — 35 percent of all translators in the country.

Big changes continue at KCET in Los Angeles, which went independent from PBS on Jan. 1. Station execs told staff on Monday (June 21) that they’ll be moving next year from their longtime Sunset Boulevard home to a new 14-story office tower on Studio Row in Burbank, according to the Los Angeles Times. KCET sold its historic 4.5-acre studio lot to the Church of Scientology in April for $42 million (the paper reported in March that the property had been assessed at $14 million). KCET’s new home will be at the Pointe, completed in 2009 as part of the NBC campus.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (PDF) requesting clarification on several points of upcoming spectrum auctions. A few of the specifics he’d like to know: How many stations will share a channel or go off the air? How many stations will need to move to a new channel or be repacked? How many viewers will lose or gain service? Dingell is requesting answers by June 27.

Indie pubcaster KCET-TV in Los Angeles is having success with Al Jazeera English on its main channel, according to the New York Times. The news programming runs four times each weekday. In its main 4 p.m. slot, ratings jumped 135 percent from February through May, as the “Arab spring” uprisings continued. KCET says the newscasts are drawing more than 285,000 viewers per week. KCET Chief Content Officer Bret Marcus said he had been braced for viewer criticism about Qatar-based Al Jazeera English’s point of view, but “most people think it’s been very even-handed.”

Dan Rodricks, a Baltimore Sun columnist who also hosts the Midday talk show on NPR’s WYPR-FM, is weighing in on controversy surrounding a documentary set to air on several pubTV stations, including Maryland Public Television. At least one, WGBH, has dropped the program over content concerns. Under Our Skin: A Healthcare Nightmare, is distributed by NETA from producer Andy Abrahams Wilson. Rodricks calls it a “polemical film about Lyme disease that is built on fear-provoking speculations and assertions while advancing a central message that has been discredited by experts in infectious diseases.” The program suggests that tick-borne Lyme disease is an epidemic; the Infectious Diseases Society of America, its main target, disagrees, saying that long-term antibiotic treatment is unproven and unwarranted.

The Dutch government announced plans to scale back the activities of Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the pubcaster that produces and distributes programs for international audiences. Under a proposal announced last week, the world news service would no longer concern itself with providing information for Dutch people living abroad, or portraying a “realistic image of the Netherlands” through its broadcasts in other countries, according to report published on RNW’s website. It is to become an arm of the Foreign Ministry and focus its service on countries where free speech is suppressed or threatened. The cuts, proposed as part of an austerity plan to reduce government spending, would take effect in January.

The survival of public television in New Zealand will be debated Wednesday (June 22) at a Victoria University forum for stakeholders from industry, parliament, the state sector and academia, reports news site Voxy.co.nz. Participants will identify policy options to sustain public television, discuss funding and structural alternatives, look at sustaining local content, and examine regulatory arrangements.The forum originated with an open letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Broadcasting in April, signed by 61 media academics from around New Zealand, who urged the government to reconsider the series of steps it has taken “to dismantle the little that is left of public broadcasting in our country” by ending government funding.

PBS leads all networks with 10 Daytime Entertainment Creative Arts Emmy Awards. All were presented during nontelevised ceremonies June 17 instead of during the on-air awards show Sunday (June 19). Sesame Street won several, including preschool children’s series, performer (Kevin Clash as Elmo) and directing. Electric Company won three and was named top children’s series. American Public Television won three: Avec Eric for culinary program, Travelscope for single-camera photography; and New Orleans: Getting Back to Normal. A full list of winners announced June 17, including PBS, is here.

NewsWorks.org, the ambitious online community news site from WHYY in Philadelphia that launched in November, “just might be the most clearly articulated potential template for public media’s Web future,” notes NetNewsCheck in a story today (June 20). William J. Marrazzo, WHYY president, plans on pumping $1.1 million a year into the site, which has been in development for nearly a decade; NewsWorks generated about 45 percent of WHYY’s $100,000 online revenue during the company’s 2011 fiscal year. So far it receives about 210,000 visitors monthly, with a growth rate of about 20 percent per month. Marrazzo said the station wants to “cut our teeth on hyperlocal markets,” as well as broaden the multimedia skills of its journalists and reach a younger audience with the site.

WBGO in Newark, N.J., launches a new broadcast performance series this week, The Checkout: Live from 92YTribeca, hosted and curated by Josh Jackson as an extension of his weekly music magazine. Featuring modern jazz, the monthly series debuts on Wednesday, June 22 with a performance by New York-based pianist and composer Dan Tepfer, “one of the most formidable jazz musicians on the international stage,” and special guest saxophonist Noah Perminger. Performances will be broadcast live at 8 p.m. eastern on WBGO 88.3 FM, streamed on WBGO.org, and offered as a video webcast on NPR Music. The series is part of a larger service expansion that WGBO is rolling out this summer: it’s launching an HD Radio channel focusing on emerging jazz artists and strengthening its signal in Manhattan, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Summer 2011 issue of Nieman Reports is now online, chock full of intriguing reading on public-interest media. Former NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard ponders “Online Comments: Dialogue or Diatribe?” (her take: “We would have more honest, kinder, civil exchanges if people used their real names”). Other writers include former Steve Weinberg, Investigative Reporters and Editors director; and Michael Skolar, v.p. of interactive at Public Radio International. It’s published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

The fallout from Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s decision to end all state funding to public broadcasters continues. Five positions have been eliminated from WSRE’s full-time state of 27, the Pensacola State College station said in a statement online. Some local productions will go on hiatus pending future funding. And the station is dropping what it calls a “longtime favorite” program, The Lawrence Welk Show, to help reduce programming costs. “The difficult decision to cancel programs and eliminate the jobs of valued WSRE employees was made after an exhaustive review of our entire organization, and with the greatest reluctance,” said G.M.

LulzSec, the shadowy, mischievous hackers that launched a high-profile attack against PBS.org over Memorial Day weekend (Current, June 13), posted a statement Friday (June 17) explaining their motives and claiming they have access to far more secret information than they’ve revealed. “Do you think every hacker announces everything they’ve hacked?,” the statement says. “We certainly haven’t, and we’re damn sure others are playing the silent game. Do you feel safe with your Facebook accounts, your Google Mail accounts, your Skype accounts? What makes you think a hacker isn’t silently sitting inside all of these right now, sniping out individual people, or perhaps selling them off?