Like many newspaper commentators, Arizona Republic‘s Robert Robb found inspiration for a column in what he heard on NPR, or saw on its website, in this case: The painful-to-read profiles of the Virginia Tech victims. He wrote: “So many lives of promise. I was holding it together until I came to Henry Lee, a computer engineering freshman at Virginia Tech. Lee moved to the United States from China as a child and entered elementary school here not speaking English. He nevertheless became his high school salutatorian. He was, however, reluctant to speak at his graduation ceremony, but was talked into it.

Two public broadcasters active in southern California during the 1960s and 1970s, James Lee Mathes and Fred Burgess, retired to Kansas together in the 1980s. They died within seven months in 2007. James Lee Mathes James Lee Mathes, 73, a pioneer in public TV at KCET and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, died March 27 [2007] in his home state, Kansas. He had pancreatic cancer. Mathes worked on such KCET projects as Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series and an eight-nation simulcast, as well as fundraising and general administration. Before joining KCET in the late 1960s, Mathes produced and directed educational TV programs at USC.

Ernest James Wilson III, a CPB Board member, was named dean of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication on Thursday, the USC Daily Trojan reported. He is a visiting professor of public diplomacy at Annenberg and a faculty member at the University of Maryland. He succeeds Geoffrey Cowan, who was also a Democratic member of the CPB Board.

Register and vote by April 27 for the annual Webby People’s Voice Awards. Nominees connected with public TV and radio include: PBS Kids Sprout cable channel’s Sprout Diner in Family/Parenting; NPR.org in News and in Radio; the NPR Podcast Directory in Podcasts; Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly in Religion; NPR’s This I Believe in Religion; Nova scienceNow in Science; P.O.V. in Television; and Curious George in Youth. The public chooses the People’s Voice Awards, while the 500-plus members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences choose the Webby Award winners in a parallel competition. Both sets will be announced in June.

Ken Burns and PBS executives met yesterday with leaders of the “Defend the Honor” campaign to discuss the filmmakers’ plans to collaborate with Hector Galan in producing new material for The War. Spokespeople for Burns and PBS are refuting the Washington Post‘s account of the meeting. The Post reported that Burns agreed to re-edit his series to incorporate the new segments. “Ken is not opening his film,” Burns’ spokesman Joseph DePlasco told Current. “Ken’s film is done.” During the meeting, Burns emphasized that the new material “needs to be added in a way that’s seen as part of the broadcast and doesn’t seem like an orphan or an appendage,” DePlasco said.

Ray Dilley, 67, manager of the Nebraska Radio Network, founding manager of Vermont Public Radio and developer of NPR Worldwide, died over the weekend of April 13-15.

Integrated Media Association has proposed that public radio’s web operations use Google Analytics as their standard system for measuring website usage. To establish the metrics for a pilot group of 50 stations by July 1, the IMA Board decided to invest up to $25,000 of the surplus from its February conference. It’s asking the CPB Radio Program Fund to put in $500,000.

Hector Galan, an Austin-based filmmaker and TV producer, will collaborate with Ken Burns in producing segments on Native and Hispanic American veterans’ World War II experiences, according to AP.

By bowing to pressure from Latino activists seeking changes to The War, PBS and filmmaker Ken Burns set a “lousy precedent,” writes Charlie McCullom, TV writer for the San Jose Mercury News.

The Copyright Royalty Board yesterday rejected all requests from webcasters that it reconsider the new fee structure for Internet radio it announced March 2. Webcasters have said the new rate structure, which raises the royalty rates and assesses fees on a per play basis, will cripple Internet radio. In addition, pubcasters that stream lots of hours would see their own rates rise dramatically. The new fee system goes into effect May 15; lawyers representing webcasters say the next step is likely an appeal to D.C.’s U.S. Court of Appeals. Coincidentally, a coalition of artists and webcasters yesterday announced “a national campaign to save Internet radio.”

NPR has outgrown its office space in Washington, D.C., and plans to move to larger quarters in 2011, the Washington Post reported today (second item in roundup). The network now occupies 210,000 square feet in two buildings near the city’s new convention center. On its last move, 13 years ago, NPR left a building where it had 88,000 square feet.

WETA, which oversaw production of the America at a Crossroads series, will make an uncensored version of one of the films, Operation Homecoming, available to stations that request it but hasn’t publicized the offering, reports the Los Angeles Times. PBS will only offer a sanitized version of the film depicting soldiers’ war stories, some of which include profanity. “Our policy, in the name of trying to eliminate errors so a station doesn’t unwittingly punch up the wrong version, is to keep it relatively clean and straightforward,” said John Wilson, PBS programming chief. The film is scheduled for 10 p.m.

Check out this spoof revised agenda for this week’s Community Broadcasters Conference: “0815-1000: Case Studies in New Facilities and how building would have been easier with webcasting and everyone at RIAA dead from painful diseases.”

Tucker Carlson, briefly host of a PBS talk show between his gigs on CNN and MSNBC, will host a game show pilot for CBS, Who Do You Trust?, TV Week reported. With his game tryout on Dancing with the Stars, Carlson continued his climb to bow-tied personality status — someday potentially eclipsing altogether the memory of George Will, Pee Wee Herman, Bill Nye and even Orville Redenbacher.

New York’s WNYC-AM/FM has received a $6 million contribution from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, the largest gift ever given to a public radio station, reports PlaybillArts. The gift goes to the station’s newly announced capital campaign, which will support its programming and a move to new offices and studios this fall.