Voice of OC, the nonprofit investigative news agency in Orange County, Calif., is expanding its partnership with PBS SoCal. Voice of OC Editor-in-Chief Norberto Santana Jr. will appear weekly on KOCE-TV’s news program, Real Orange. “It’s a natural partnership,” said Mike Taylor, news director at PBS SoCal, in the Jan. 17 announcement. Santana said the partners hope to “give the public a front seat at public policy, not only after it’s being made but before it’s being made.” PBS SoCal is the primary PBS member station for Los Angeles, the second-largest media market in the nation. This article was first published in Current, Jan.

Several public-interest media organizations filed comments with the FCC regarding its October 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for spectrum incentive auctions to clear bandwidth for mobile devices. Deadline for input was Jan. 25. The 45-page filing from the Association of Public Television Stations, CPB and PBS stresses that auction rules need to ensure the public’s universal access to television service. It also recommends that licensees have at least three years to complete transition to any new channel assignments; that the FCC take “every reasonable step” to avoid off-air time; and that the agency seek funding from Congress for a public education campaign.

O. Leonard Press, who founded Kentucky Educational Television in 1968 after lobbying the state legislature for 10 years, has received the 2012 Vic Hellard Jr. Award recognizing his distinguished public service. The award lauded Press was for launching innovative live coverage of state General Assembly in 1978 and for his long track record of supporting programming that exemplified the KET tagline, “Bringing Kentucky Together.” “We are so pleased that Len Press is being recognized with this award,” said Shae Hopkins, KET executive director. “Through his vision and hard work, he created and established KET as Kentucky’s only broadcast network and one of the nation’s preeminent public broadcasting services.

The African-American Public Radio Consortium has added a new music show to its line-up of nationally distributed programs. Beginning in mid-March, WKCC in Kankakee, Ill. will syndicate a two-hour version of Friends of the Blues show  co-hosted by volunteer programmers D’Arcy “Shuffle Shoes” Ballinger and James “Dr. Skyy Dobro” Walker. The program is offered free to AAPRC through the PRSS ContentDepot. WKCC began exploring a distribution partnership with APPRC after the Public Radio Super Regional conference last November, said Mike Savage, g.m.  “There was a big push for collaboration and I thought, ‘Instead of contacting stations individually maybe I should look for a group that can reach out to many stations,” Savage said.

When Scott Finn begins his new job as executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Feb. 1, he faces an uphill task of re-energizing a network that has been beset over the past several years by funding declines and conflicts over its governance.

WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., is teaming up with a local museum to encourage a community dialogue on race relations. The Rochester Museum & Science Center is hosting “Race: Are We So Different?” The traveling exhibit from the American Anthropological Association examines the history, human variations and personal experiences surrounding racial differences. WXXI-FM produced five feature-length reports prior to the exhibit’s Jan. 19 opening. The reports aired during Morning Edition and All Things Considered and examined the political and cultural history of racism, the science and genetics of human biological diversity, the link between race and health, and other matters. WXXI Radio’s daily 1370 Connection public affairs show also is producing four one-hour programs with WDKX-FM, a local urban contemporary station, which run weekly through Feb.

WGBH is defending its underwriting practices in the wake of complaints from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) over Lockheed Martin’s sponsorship of Nova‘s “Rise of the Drones.” In a statement late Tuesday afternoon, WGBH, the presenting station for the science series, said:  “WGBH fully adheres to PBS funding guidelines and takes our public trust responsibility very seriously.  With regard to Nova “Rise of the Drones,” Lockheed Martin’s sponsorship of Nova  is not a violation of the PBS underwriting guidelines.” “First and foremost,” the statement continued, “Lockheed Martin, like all WGBH/PBS program funders, had no editorial involvement in the program.

A volunteer DJ has been charged with stealing donors’ credit card information from a Houston radio station and using it to make personal purchases. Michael Whitfield was arrested in December after police found him in possession of credit card information taken from more than 300 donors to KTSU, a jazz station licensed to Texas Southern University in Houston. He is being held on $200,000 bond. Police began their investigation in July 2012 after a KTSU donor reported unauthorized charges on their credit card, and they traced them to an IP address to Whitfield’s apartment. Investigators have confirmed 25 cases of theft so far, according to Donna Logan, an assistant district attorney for Harris County, Texas.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter is recommending that Idaho Public Television receive $1.6 million in the coming fiscal year’s budget, about a 2.6 percent bump from the current year’s funding. In 2010, Otter had considered zeroing out funding to IPTV, and last year, the state network faced loss of service due to cuts. IPTV President Peter Morrill told IdahoReporter.com this week that the agency was asking for $2.8 million to fund capital equipment requests as part of a total budget of $7.7 million. “It is effectively a flat budget recommendation,” Morrill said.

Veteran pubcaster Peter Dominowski, a founder of the Public Radio Program Directors Association, is the new president and general manager of Northeast Indiana Public Radio in Fort Wayne, the station announced today. Dominowski has worked as a researcher, facilitator and consultant with more than 100 pubradio stations, as well as the major national networks and professional organizations. Before forming his consulting company, Market Trends Research, he was a program director at WFMT, a commercial classical station in Chicago, and WMFE, a pubradio station in Orlando, Fla. He succeeds Will Murphy, who now leads WFIU, the Indiana University Public Radio station in Bloomington.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), a progressive press watchdog group, is criticizing Nova over sponsorship issues surrounding its recent report, “Rise of the Drones.” The report was underwritten by Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the unmanned aircraft. FAIR says that is a “clear violation of PBS’s underwriting guidelines.” The program included comments from Abe Karem, known as “the father of the Predator” drone. His company has a business relationship with Lockheed Martin, FAIR said, citing reporting from a blog on FireDogLake, a collaborative progressive news site. “The program’s sponsorship tie to the drone industry were never mentioned — though there were opportunities to disclose that relationship,” according to FAIR.

WMVY radio on Martha’s Vineyard has successfully raised $600,000 to continue programming on the web for another year, reports The Martha’s Vineyard Times. After nearly 30 years, the station lost its 92.7 FM spot on the dial when Boston’s WBUR acquired its signal late last year.