Official selections have been finalized for the United States public broadcasting content to be screened at INPUT, the annual weeklong international public media showcase, coming in May in Australia. Screening in Sydney May 7-12 will be “Flawed,” the story of a woman’s long-distance relationship with a plastic surgeon, from POV; “More Than a Month,” about the history of Black History Month, from Independent Lens; “Southern Belle,” which went inside a Civil War historical-reenactment summer camp for girls, from Nashville Public Television and MakeWright Films; “Wham! Bam! Islam!,” on the man behind a comic book of Muslim superheroes, from Independent Lens, and “Worker Drone,” part of the online Futurestates project from ITVS.

PBS kicks off its first-ever Online Film Festival on Feb. 27, showcasing 20 short pubmedia films from PBS.org and YouTube over five weeks. Partnering in the project are organizations that make up the pubmedia minority consortia — the Center for Asian American Media, Latino Public Broadcasting, Native American Public Telecommunications, the National Black Programming Consortium and Pacific Islanders Consortium — as well as the Independent Television Service and P.O.V. The festival will be available on PBS.org, and also marks the debut of the redesigned PBS YouTube channel. Viewers may vote for favorites online for a People’s Choice festival award. PBS will Tweet from #PBSolff during the five-week run.

Jim Asendio’s sudden departure as news director of WAMU in Washington, D.C., was triggered by an internal dispute over his reporters’ participation in private meetings with major donors. Asendio objected when he and two journalists from his newsroom were required to participate in a “Meet the Producers” breakfast and panel discussion, which the station hosted this morning (Feb. 22). Involving WAMU reporters in the meeting was an unethical breech of the station’s editorial firewall, Asendio said in an interview with Current, and the sort of interaction that he forbid during his six-year tenure as news chief. “I maintain a strict firewall between the working journalists in the newsroom and the funders who fund the station,” Asendio said.

WFYI in Indianapolis is warning local organizations that it has no ties to Vision Media Television, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based company that says it can produce informational segments about the groups to appear on public television, reports the Indianapolis Business Journal. On its website, Vision Media Television references its relationship with Joan Lunden, but Lunden has posted a warning distancing herself from similar firms on her own website. PBS also includes a warning on its website, and cites Vision Media Television among various entities claiming to produce content for broadcast on  national public television for a fee. In Indianapolis, several nonprofits have been contacted by the company, which asks for up to $26,000 to cover production costs, and claims the content will run on public television.

The massive popularity of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Classic “couldn’t have come at a better time” for KOCE, the new PBS primary station in the Los Angeles market now known as PBS SoCal, writes TV Guide’s Michael Schneider at his blog, Franklin Avenue. “Downton Abbey enabled us to reach audiences that are not just the typical PBS audience, including younger people, and gave us a chance to establish ourselves as the area’s PBS station,” Mel Rogers, station president, told Schneider. Downton’s season finale on Sunday (Feb. 19) scored a 2.3 rating and 4 share in the Los Angeles market.

The recent announcement that South Carolina ETV was closing WJWJ in Beaufort County due to budget woes prompted this rich reminiscence in the Beaufort Gazette by the paper’s former longtime editor, Pete Pillow, who also spent five years as a producer and anchor on WJWJ’s weeknight newscast, from 1978 to 1983. “There was no high-def television or satellite reception back then,” he recalls. “A special antenna was needed to even get WJWJ’s signal. One of our initial tasks was teaching viewers how to avoid a snowy picture by manually fine-tuning their sets for Channel 16. A safecracker’s dexterity would have helped.”

WAMU News Director Jim Asendio has left the station, according to an internal station memo posted by the Washington Post. Mark McDonald, program director at the American University licensee in Washington, D.C., told staffers: “Jim has left WAMU. We wish him well in his future endeavors. Meymo Lyons is Acting News Director with immediate effect, and she and I will be working with the newsroom staff to find a replacement for Jim in the coming days and weeks.” UPDATE: Journalist Dave Hughes, who runs DCRTV, an independent website about radio and television in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore area, reports that Asendio told him: “I resigned as news director at WAMU because I did not agree with an upper management decision to have reporters meet with donors at a donor-only station-sponsored event.

While the Alliance for Community Media fights to keep PEG (public, educational and government) channels on the air, there are local bright spots emerging, such as in Exeter, N.H., which is starting a new public-access channel, according to the Exeter News-Letter in Portsmouth. “I think of it as an opportunity for people to be more of a part of their community and to know what is going on,” Doug York, the Exeter Public Television coordinator, told the paper. “It can also be a way for people to express themselves artistically.” Supporters of the public-access channel have spent the past few years working on the project.

The inaugural Prize for Civility in Public Life, presented by Allegheny College, a small liberal arts school in Meadville, Pa., goes to PBS NewsHour political commentators David Brooks and Mark Shields. In a column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, college President James H. Mullen Jr. said the school is “launching a quest” to reverse the “rise of incivility in our democracy” with the award, presented today (Feb. 21) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Jim Lehrer, PBS NewsHour executive editor, said in a statement, “Mark Shields and David Brooks deserve this and all other awards there are or ever will be for civility.

The Editorial Integrity for Public Media Project has released its Code of Editorial Integrity for Local Public Media Organizations, a set of guidelines intended to serve as an ethical compass for TV and radio stations throughout the system. The Code stems from a joint effort of public TV’s Affinity Group Coalition, which began work on the guidelines two years ago, and public radio’s Station Resource Group, and it draws on guidance from a wide range of stakeholders in public media. “We think public media organizations will find much in the Code that affirms current work and makes us proud of the principles for which we stand,” wrote SRG’s Tom Thomas and Byron Knight, emeritus director of Wisconsin Public Broadcasting, in an email accompanying the release of the Code.

Frontline swept the documentary and news categories of the Writers Guild Awards Sunday (Feb. 19) in Los Angeles, winning all four honors. “Top Secret America,” written by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser, claimed the documentary — current events award; “Wiki Secrets,” by Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith, documentary — other than current events; “Educating Sergeant Pantzke,” by John Maggio and Martin Smith, news — regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report; and “Doctor Hotspot,” by Thomas Jennings, news — analysis, feature or commentary. The WGAs were presented in Los Angeles by the Writers Guild of America, West. Here’s a complete list of winners.

Now that the second season of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Classic has wrapped up, creator Julian Fellowes took time for a question-and-answer session with the New York Times in which he reveals a few of his fave American TV shows (Mad Man, Sex and the City, Glee) and addresses what all Downton fans are wondering: Just how long will the hit Edwardian costume drama keep going? “Sufficient unto the day,” Fellowes said, laughing. “I feel that one can’t really think much beyond that. Although I agree, I do not think it should just go on and on forever.”

Ira Glass of This American Life is a recipient of a prestigious George Polk Award, announced today (Feb. 20) by Long Island University. Glass won for his reporting on “Very Tough Love,” an hour-long piece that showed “alarmingly severe” punishments by a county drug court judge in Georgia, LIU said in a press release. “Drug courts were set up to emphasize rehabilitation instead of incarceration, but Glass’ investigation revealed that Judge Amanda Williams strayed far from the principles and philosophy by routinely piling on jail sentences for relapses,”  it said. Williams ultimately stepped down from the bench. (For the back story on Glass’s reporting, see Current’s June 13, 2011, coverage).

The American Experience film Freedom Riders won for best edited documentary at the Eddie Awards presented by American Cinema Editors Saturday night (Feb. 18) in Los Angeles. Here’s a complete list of nominees, which also included Downton Abbey from Masterpiece Classic.

Karl Scroggin, classical music host at WUIS in Springfield, Ill., is retiring after a 30-year career that included, according to the State Journal-Register, assisting mezzo-soprano opera singer Marilyn Horne claim $600 in slot-machine winnings. Yes, you read that correctly. Years ago at an Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio conference in Las Vegas, Scroggin came across Horne at the Golden Nugget. “I said, ‘Marilyn, did you win some money?’ She said, ‘Yes, I won $600 on this slot machine. How do I cash it in?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll show you how to do it.’” After collecting the cash, Horne began waving it around and singing “The Gambler.”