NPR’s Tavis Smiley tells the New York Daily News he would never have disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair on his show because he’s “an embarrassment to any African-American journalist in this country.”

Dee Davis, longtime Appalshop chief and producer of docs on public TV, helped fend off CBS’s “reality” remake of Beverly Hillbillies and now intends to fight a UPN series that, critics say, will exploit Amish teenagers, the New York Times reports.

Chicago’s WBEZ-FM expands its reach to the southwest tomorrow with the signing-on of WBEQ-FM, a transmitter licensed to Morris, Ill.

Santa Monica’s KCRW fired commentator Sandra Tsing Loh for using a four-letter word in her feature Feb. 29, the Los Angeles Times reported. (Registration required.) The word aired twice even though it was pretaped. Congress meanwhile is still aroused politically by the Super Bowl incident. A House subcommittee approved increasing the fine for broadcast indecency to $500,000, according to wire service reports. [More at L.A. Observed and LA CityBEAT.]

Bet you didn’t expect that the brains behind the new Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! The Washington Post has the scoop.

Seattle’s KEXP-FM will program KBTC-FM in nearby Tacoma, Wash., the stations announced today. Public Radio Capital purchased the station from Bates Technical College for $5 million. (Coverage in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Denver Business Journal.)

Alistair Cooke, 95, has filed his last Letter from America and was absent from the BBC broadcast last week because of illness, the Observer reported. He had reported from the States to BBC listeners for 58 years. Via Pubradio.

The marriage of Christopher Lydon and Minnesota Public Radio “sounds like a natural union,” says the Pioneer Press, but the two are still sizing each other up as Lydon sub-hosts for the network’s Midmorning. (Via Romenesko.)

The incoming board of the Pacifica Foundation inherits almost half a million dollars in debt for legal expenses, according to a report from the network’s CFO. The report also briefs new board members on other financial data.

The late Joan Kroc was last year’s most generous donor, reports the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She gave more than three-quarters of her estate to the Salvation Army and her second-largest gift of $200 million went to NPR.

Pointing pointedly in the direction of Janet Jackson’s chest, PBS chief Pat Mitchell painted public broadcasting as a “safe haven” for families with kids in yesterday’s House appropriations hearing on CPB funding, the Hollywood Reporter reported.

A Wired article looks at “Walkman Busting”, an occasional segment on public radio’s The Next Big Thing.

The Pacifica network has wrapped up elections for its station boards and national board, the first to be held since activists gained control of the network in 2001.

Jim Russell, executive producer of the forthcoming Public Radio Weekend, takes another stab at explaining the sound and feel of the show.

NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin addresses Wal-Mart’s underwriting on NPR and a spoof of The Passion that upset some listeners in his latest “Media Matters” column.