PBS NewsHour newsman Jim Lehrer is this year’s recipient of the Fourth Estate Award, the highest honor from the National Press Club. “Jim Lehrer has embodied the time-tested core values of journalism dating back to when many people had only black and white screens and continuing through today’s era of high definition television and social media,” National Press Club President Mark Hamrick said in a statement. “Amid the cacophony of a sometimes shrill media landscape, he has remained the true voice of reason, balance and fairness.” Lehrer is the 39th recipient. Previous award winners include Walter Cronkite, Christiane Amanpour and David Broder.

An April 2 fire at KUAR-FM in Little Rock, Ark., is being investigated as possible arson by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. When the station suddenly went off the air around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, the station’s engineer went to the transmitter site on Shinall Mountain to determine the problem. Smoke was pouring from the building but the lock on the front door had been changed so he couldn’t enter. KUAR is currently using a standby transmitter to broadcast at a lower power, and General Manager Ben Fry estimates damages at between $100,000 and $200,000.

The Center for Public Integrity is launching the iWatch News site dedicated to nonprofit investigative journalism, the New York Times is reporting today (April 4). It’ll be updated daily with 10 to 12 original investigative pieces and aggregated content from other sources on money and politics, government accountability, health care, the environment and national security.

OK, so CNN discovered that some Americans think that public broadcasting accounts for 5 percent of the federal budget, or $178 billion (yes, with a “b”) annually. Whew. That got Salon columnlist Alex Pareene thinking about what NPR and PBS could do with that kind of money — like Thai silk tote bags filled with precious stones as pledge premiums.

WMFE is offering members a chance for donation rebates now that it has announced its pending sale to Daystar, the Orlando Sentinel is reporting. The station also told the paper that WMFE “had numerous conversations over the course of the last year about the various issues facing our station” with PBS, “including the burdens associated with being in an overlap market, the unsuccessful PBS fundraising platform and the inequities of the fee structure, which was predicted to increase by 37 percent over the next two years.” A source familiar with the PBS dues structure tells Current that under the existing model and early estimates for fiscal 2012, WMFE’s fiscal dues would increase around 6.1 percent; under the proposed formula being considered, its dues would not increase.

Jose Fajardo, president of WMFE in Orlando, told WMFE-FM today (April 4) that station management and the board “looked at mergers, partnerships, going the KCET route as an independent public TV station” before deciding on the sale, announced April 1. “The numbers just didn’t add up, no matter which alternative we looked at.” One insurmountable problem he cited: PBS dues. He said WMFE pays about $1 million dollars a year, and he said that could increase up to 37 percent under a new formula the network is considering. Meanwhile, its pledge support is down 34 percent since 2007. After WMFE’s sale announcement, PBS released a statement saying: “PBS learned today of WMFE’s decision to sell its television station.

Community Educators of Orlando Inc. — which has the same mailing address and president as Daystar religious broadcasters — has filed with the FCC to purchase WMFE in Orlando, Current learned today (April 4). Greg Guy, a managing partner at media broker Patrick Communications in Elkridge, Md., confirmed the $3 million price. The FCC application, filed by WMFE licensee Community Communications Inc., can be viewed here.

WHDD in Sharon, Conn., the smallest NPR station in the country, gets its own story in today’s (April 4) New York Times. “In its own eccentric way, in these quite perilous times for public broadcasting, WHDD is not a bad model for what truly public radio might be,” it notes. The station — motto: “Robinhood Radio: Slightly off … but very good” — airs an eclectic amalgam of shows, from segments on language by Nat Benchley, grandson of humorist Robert Benchley and brother of Peter, author of Jaws; to shows on NASCAR racing and Indian music. As one fan put it, it’s “a hybrid between an old fashioned-community radio station and a highbrow NPR station.”

“It would be a shame,” writes New Republic reporter Eliza Gray, “if populists and yuppies, fighting a culture war over tony NPR, ended up taking down PBS in the process” as Congressional budget cuts continue to loom for funder CPB. She contends that “yuppie elites” are focused on saving NPR because “they’re afraid they won’t be able to poach eggs and drink coffee on Sunday morning anymore while listening to This American Life.” None of the GOP criticisms of liberalism apply to PBS, she notes, “whose viewers mirror the demographic makeup of the United States almost exactly, yet its budget still appears to be on the chopping block along with NPR’s.”

Now might not seem like the best time for the public broadcasting system to be pondering philosophical questions of identity and purpose, since its unwanted promotion to high-profile partisan punching bag in Congress. The official ponderers of the system’s Editorial Integrity for Public Media initiative beg to disagree. Now more than ever, they say, public broadcasting must make its case by defining its purpose and identity to the larger world — because if it doesn’t, its critics will. “In this political environment there’s a lot being thrown around about integrity, bias, and ‘just who are these public broadcasting guys, anyway?’” said Tom Thomas of the Station Resource Group, co-director of the editorial initiative.

South Florida’s WXEL-TV/Channel 42 may be purchased by its current management for $700,000, the Palm Beach Post is reporting today (April 1). That’s “a bargain price any way you look at it,” said station President Bernie Henneberg. He said he’d need $1.5 million for both the sale and initial station operating costs. About 15 of 30 invitees showed up at a potential backers’ meeting Thursday. The station went up for bids more than six years ago (Current, Nov. 29, 2004). Current owner Barry University agreed last year to sell WXEL-FM to American Public Media’s Classical South Florida in Broward County for around $4 million.

WMFE, the public TV and radio station in Orlando, Fla., said today (April 1) it’s getting out of the TV business and sticking with public radio. It has agreed to sell its TV operation and filed with the FCC to transfer its channel to a buyer, not yet identified, according to Lorri Shaban, a spokesperson. For WMFE-TV, underwriting revenues are down 68 percent since 2007, and individual giving is down 40 percent, according to the news release, but WMFE-FM reached its pledge goal ahead of schedule, and has had strong audience growth since going all-news in 2009. The decision was different from the choice made at KCET in Los Angeles, which dropped PBS programs, but had one of the same causes: WMFE divides the PBS audience with overlapping public TV stations — in WMFE’s case, WDSC in Daytona and WBCC in Cocoa.

Two longtime pubcasting congressional advocates, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), will receive this year’s Champion of Public Broadcasting awards from the Association of Public Television Stations, it announced today (April 1). The annual honors are presented to members of Congress and other individuals who have had a “tremendous impact on the ability of local public broadcasting stations to meet the most critical needs of the communities they serve,” APTS said. Previously, APTS had praised Cochran for his support for station financial stabilization funds in 2009 (Current, Dec. 14, 2009) and he also received the Ralph Lowell Award, public television’s highest honor, in 2000 from CPB.

Nova’s March 30 episode, “Japan’s Killer Quake,” was watched by some 7 million viewers, based on Nielsen data from 49 metered markets — the series’ largest audience for an original broadcast in five years, according to PBS.

Jon Meacham is leaving the co-anchor’s chair at Need to Know, and Alison Stewart will be the solo host, according to MediaBistro’s TV Newser blog. Meacham is staying on with producing station WNET to lead a new series, Perspectives, to air on TV and online. “I love Alison and the Need to Know team, but I don’t think the broadcast needs me as a co-anchor,” Meacham said.