The CPB-funded Independent Television Service has posted an Egypt & Democracy page with content and resources to help visitors better understand the historical context behind the ongoing violent anti-government protests. “ITVS has a history of working with international filmmakers as well as community organizers, educators, and activists to trace the evolution of democracy movements worldwide,” spokesperson Voleine Amilcar told Current.

Today’s feel-good pubcasting story is brought to you by the Westchester.com local news site, with its story datelined Ossining, N.Y., about WDFH – a station with far too complex and quirky a history to detail here. It begins back when Marc Sophos spent about 20 years to get an FCC license, starting in 1973 when he was a student at Dobbs Ferry High School, and it includes the phrase, “This is the first time in the station’s entire history that it has had a viable signal and a studio at the same time.”

More than 10,000 e-mails have poured in to cable and satellite providers from Americans requesting that their cable and satellite providers carry the international news channel Al Jazeera English, the news org reported today (Feb. 5). The channel’s wall-to-wall coverage of the Egyptian revolution – which includes correspondents in the crowds that remain unnamed on the air to ensure their safety – has been getting a attention and praise from mainstream media outlets. Programming from AJE is offered to public stations via MHz Networks on its WorldView channel. Viewer response to last week’s extended news coverage on public stations has been positive, MHz spokesperson Stephanie Misar tells Current.

As might be expected, PBS SoCal, which picked up primary station status and the PBS National Program Service in the L.A. market on Jan. 1, is experiencing a ratings spike, the Los Angeles Times reports. Last year at this time, the former KOCE-TV in Orange County was pulling in a 0.2 household rating for its programming day; now that’s at 0.5 for January. Coincidentally, the Times points out, 0.5 is the same rating that KCET had during the same period last year. The station pulled out of PBS membership after a protracted fight over dues and overlap-market issues (Current, Oct.

There’s a new interactive story portal launching today (Feb. 4), supported by CPB and building on the Public Media Maps project from the National Center for Media Engagement. The two said in a statement that the portal showcases public broadcasting’s commitment to community engagement, as well as lets pubTV and radio stations identify opportunities for collaboration. It aggregates more than 300 stories to illustrate pubmedia’s local impact. Using Google Earth software, users click on green tags to pull up details on projects such as the High Risk High initiative from Prairie Public Broadcasting/KFME, which used a website, radio series and local town hall meetings to explore North Dakota’s problem of underage and binge drinking.

Thomas Hjelm, a former digital strategy executive at NBC’s Local Integrated Media websites and AOL, has joined New York Public Radio as v.p. and chief digital officer, the station announced today (Feb. 5). Hjelm’s portfolio will include digital business development, product development and design, web/mobile analytics and research and technology. He served as senior director of content strategy and business operations for NBC’s local media initiative, overseeing operations, content and product strategy for 10 major-market local news-and-lifestyle websites; he also co-managed the reorganization of the division’s digital operations and relaunch of its online services in 2008. At AOL he was director of broadband premium services.

Ira Glass of This American Life criticizes the 170 million Americans advocacy campaign to defend public broadcasting’s federal funding in today’s Boston Globe. The campaign, developed by American Public Media and the Association of Public Television Stations to recruit public radio and TV supporters as advocates, fails to address conservatives’ criticism that pubcasting programs have a liberal bias, he says. “Weirdly, my betters in the public broadcasting community have decided they’re not even going to argue about that,’’ Glass tells the Globe. “Instead they have this kind of vanilla ad campaign based on the idea that 170 million Americans watch public TV or listen to public radio, and these Americans are from all walks of life and are conservatives and liberals.

The 170 Million Americans campaign to support public broadcasting funding has posted on YouTube a short video titled, “Keep Public Radio On.” The initiative aims to draw attention  to what it says is the average number of Americans that interact with public broadcasting each month via programming, websites and outreach (Current, Dec. 13, 2010).

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has renewed its support of the  P.O.V. documentary series with a grant of $1.5 million for three years, it announced today (Feb. 3). The money will go to the PBS program as well as its related online and educational activities.

Public media thoughtleader Rob Bole is at it again, posing intellectually challenging questions to pubcasters everywhere. “Where is our online boldness?,” he writes in a blog post Wednesday (Feb. 2). “Where are the great challenges we are addressing in the lives of our audiences that have show us so much trust, loyalty and enthusiasm? Are we going to be incrementalists? How can we capture the art and vision that we put into our documentaries and journalism and turn that to the digital spaces that our country is rapidly inhabiting?” Intrigued? More here.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today (Feb. 3) announced a four-year, $4.2 million grant to Northwestern University for the Knight News Innovation Laboratory. The Knight Lab will be the first of its type in the nation, a partnership between Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern. Journalists and computer scientists will join forces to create new digital tools, build partnerships with media organizations and expand the media innovation community. Even the historic blizzard in Chicago couldn’t stop the announcement. A formal launch at the snowed-in university was scrapped for an online question-and-answer session with Eric Newton, vice president of the journalism program at Knight Foundation, and his team.

The National Children’s Museum, opening in Prince George’s County, Md., in 2013, will partner with Sesame Workshop, the two announced today (Feb. 3). The two will collaborate on museum programming for the young visitors, and Sesame Street characters will be featured in the exhibits.

U.S. Ambassador to Greece Daniel Smith, center, was on hand Wednesday (Feb. 2) to welcome travelers accompanying co-hosts for the public broadcasting show Grannies on Safari as they arrived at the Athens International Airport from Luxor, Egypt. The group had landed in Egypt on Jan. 26, as the country began to explode into anti-government protests. They finally made it out on a U.S. State Department charter flight. First row, from left: Jessie Shropshire of Ohio, Gail Bikel of Indiana, Ann Pinkney of Illinois, co-host Regina Fraser, Smith, co-host Pat Johnson, the ambassador’s wife Diana Smith, and Julio Martinez of Illinois, the show’s photographer.

Updated, Feb. 7: Rick Lewis, c.e.o. of the fundraising group Friends of WLRN for nearly seven years, will step down at the end of February. Jorge Perez-Alvarez, c.f.o. of the Friends group, will serve as interim chief executive. Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Miami-Dade County public schools, which owns WLRN-TV/FM, has objected to the independence of the nonprofit Friends group, which raises funds for the stations, and complained about the six-figure compensation of underwriting sales reps for the Friends group (Current, June 21). The Friends board has given Carvalho a voice in appointing Lewis’s successor, which he wanted. Friends Chair Charles Tatelbaum told Current that both he and the superintendent will appoint members of the search committee.

Public media applications for funding by the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program are due March 17. The full Funding Opportunity notice details the PTFP priorities and eligibility standards, and the FAQ has more info. A series of hourlong webinars to train applicants begins next week. Dates are Feb. 10, 14 and 23, and March 7. All begin at 2 p.m. Eastern. To reserve a spot in the webinars, write to Lynn Chadwick, lchadwick@ntia.doc.gov, before the close of business the day before. Last fall the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration bestowed about $20 million in matching grants to public stations and other nonprofit and noncommercial organizations.