WPSU-FM and WPSU-TV at Penn State University have been tangentially drawn into the ongoing child sex abuse case against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Last week, Pennsylvania court administrators who assigned Senior Judge John M. Cleland to handle the charges announced that Cleland had no known connections to the university — but his wife served for 15 years on the Penn State Public Broadcasting Board of Representatives, a volunteer panel advising the university on the operation of the stations, reports The Citizens’ Voice newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Julie Cleland was on the board from 1995 through 2009, including as chairman and vice-chairman.

Phyllis Campbell, known to public radio listeners in southwestern Ohio as “Mama Jazz,” has died at the age of 89, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. She hosted jazz programming on WMUB in Miami from 1979 to 2006 and became one of the station’s most popular and distinctive personalities during 27 years on the air. “She was feisty as all get-out, passionately devoted to jazz, and unabashedly loyal to her legions of fans,” Cleve Callison, former WMUB g.m., told the Enquirer.

Arizona Public Media is launching a local version of the Create multicast lifestyle channel, to be called Ready TV, starting Dec. 1, reports the Green Valley News & Sun. “Ready TV is very similar to Create but it is programmed locally to accommodate the local Southern Arizona time zone,” said Sue DeBenedette, marketing manager for AZPM. “With Create, it was programmed and scheduled on the East Coast, so that primetime shows did not air in primetime here in Southern Arizona. Scheduling it locally gives AZPM the freedom to program those shows that resonate strongly here in this market rather than being dictated to by a national feed.”

American Public Media has acquired community news funding website Spot.Us, and will incorporate it into the Public Insight Network (PIN), APM announced today (Nov. 29). Spot.Us and PIN each “believe in the power of the independent voice in journalism,” said Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president of digital innovation at APM. Spot.Us, founded in 2008 with a seed grant from the Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge, lets the public fund journalism that is then distributed by newsrooms nationwide; PIN provides journalists with more than 130,000 self-identified news sources through its unique database.

House Republicans today (Nov. 29) released their spectrum incentive auction bill, reports Broadcasting & Cable. It was introduced by Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and is set to be marked up and voted on in the committee Thursday. It would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to reclaim spectrum from broadcasters for auction and compensate them from the proceeds. It also would compensate broadcasters not giving up spectrum for the costs of moving to another channel or sharing channels with another broadcaster, as well as the cost to cable operators of carrying the new signals. A Senate version of a spectrum auction bill has already passed out of the Commerce Committee.

Carmen DiRienzo, founding president and c.e.o. of the Spanish-language public TV channel V-me, has resigned her posts, effective Dec. 31, the network announced today (Nov. 28). She will continue to serve on its Board of Directors. Alvaro Garnica will assume the new position of general manager, with overall responsibility for daily operations. He is g.m. of Plural Entertainment, which V-me describes as its “sister company and primary production partner.” Garnica also spent nine years in programming at Grupo Prisa, a Spanish-language media conglomerate that purchased a significant stake in V-me Media Inc. in October 2009. In today’s announcement, DiRienzo said: “I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to lead a creative, dedicated team of professionals in such a worthwhile venture.

Next Avenue, which has been called “the biggest public media initiative being undertaken anywhere in public broadcasting,” has hired a staff of eight and so far raised $6 million in foundation money for the web-based project designed to “hyper-serve” America’s aging population. Staffers will be located in New York, St. Paul, Denver and Washington, D.C., creating “an interesting new model for a public television station — a virtual organization — as well as journalism hubs across the country,” the initiative, based at Twin Cities Public Television, announced on Monday (Nov. 28). The hires: Donna Sapolin will be Next Avenue’s vice president, editorial director and general manager; she’s former editor-in-chief of This Old House magazine and vice president/editorial director of Woman’s Day Special Interest Publications.

CNSNews.com, the news website of the conservative Media Research Center, is reporting that former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) is developing a Sunday morning talk show for Maryland Public Television. The first episode of The Whole Truth is scheduled to be produced Nov. 29 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., according to CNSNews.com, and will air in January. “This is a pilot, and we hope to put on many, many additional programs — depends on how well we do and how well it is received,” Specter told the news site. His first guests include former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Sen.

T.J. Lubinsky, whose musical pledge specials have brought in some $300 million for the pubcasting system, “is not a trained musician,” reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the paper in his adopted hometown. “He doesn’t play an instrument and can’t sing very well, but he has a keen, almost supernatural ear for music.” One example is a 3 a.m. recording session of Phil Spector’s “Be My Baby” and “Da Doo Ron Ron.” To Lubinsky, the castanets just did not sound authentic. And he was correct, because the castanets Spector used were made from ebony and used by flamenco dancers. “We found an instructor at Carnegie Mellon who had the real ones for teaching flamenco,” recalled producer Paul Brownstein.

Ron Della Chiesa, longtime broadcaster and host of Boston Symphony Orchestra performances on WGBH, has a new memoir out, Radio My Way. Among the memories he shared with the Boston Globe was what he considers to be the “worst interview” he ever did, with singer Eartha Kitt during his MusicAmerica show that ran from 1978 to ’96, also on WGBH. “I was playing this rare recording of ‘Lilac Wine,’ and she said: ‘It was stupid of you to play that. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done.’ I couldn’t go to black; it was live. She had a reputation for being tough.”

Frederik G.H. Meijer, a billionaire grocery magnate and philanthropist whose famous generosity benefited Michigan and whose name resides on the Meijer Public Broadcast Center at Grand Valley State University’s Grand Rapids campus, died Friday (Nov. 25). He was 91. “Fred’s support for PBS and NPR has enriched the lives of everyone who watches television and listens to radio in West Michigan,” Michael Walenta, general manager at WGVU, said in a statement. “We will be forever in his debt.” Meijer was No. 60 on this year’s Forbes 400 Richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $5 billion. Here’s his obituary in the Grand Rapids Press, which notes, “he delighted in seeing what his money could do for the area’s hospitals, colleges and cultural institutions.”

A Florida congresswoman wants American Public Media and other media outlets to stop airing underwriting spots and advertising by Allianz AG, a German insurer that did business with the Nazis, reports the Miami Herald. Allianz is one of two corporate underwriters of A Prairie Home Companion. GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who heads the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is backing a bill that would allow Holocaust survivors to sue the insurer and has launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at blocking it from advertising in America until it pays off all Holocaust survivors’ life insurance claims. During World War II, the Herald says, Allianz insured concentration camp facilities as well as sent money to the Nazis instead of rightful Jewish beneficiaries.

Starting Dec. 8, KCET will feature eight-minute, behind-the-scenes clips of the popular British dramedy Doc Martin following each episode, the Los Angeles indie pubcaster announced Saturday (Nov. 26). Bohdan Zachary, v.p. of broadcasting and program development, spent time on the series set earlier this year, interviewing the actors and hanging out in Port Isaac, North Cornwall, U.K., where the show takes place.

President and Mrs. Obama hosted an In Performance at the White House this week, paying tribute to country music. Check out the production photos — including performances by Kris Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett and Alison Krauss — on PBS Press Room’s flickr stream.

WJCT in Jacksonville, Fla., is in partnership talks with University of North Florida. Dual-licensee WJCT “would remain a community-based public broadcasting station but would work with UNF in a number of ways,” reports News 4 in Jacksonville. “It has yet to be determined how that relationship is going to be formulated,” said Michael Boylan, president of WJCT. “There are some financial benefits to having this kind of relationship.” In September WJCT-FM dropped A Prairie Home Companion and two others shows, citing a $500,000 drop in state funding.