The Public Broadcasting Caucus has suffered its first defection in the aftermath of the NPR video sting, reports The Hill. Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) is a former co-chair of the bipartisan caucus. “As a father of five children, I have been supportive of PBS children’s programming in the past,” he said. “However, the recent events involving NPR undermine their claims of objectivity in their reporting. Because NPR has crossed the line to political bias, I will no longer serve on the caucus.” McCaul voted in favor of a 2005 amendment that rescued CPB support in the House (Current, June 27, 2005).

“More than a dozen WGBH honchos at PBS’ taxpayer-subsidized flagship station are raking in upwards of $200,000 a year while toiling in the lap of a luxurious $85 million multimedia palace dubbed the ‘Taj Mahal’ that boasts a 200-seat amphitheater, state-of-the-art recording studio and Hamburg-Steinway grand piano,” reports the Boston Herald in a story today (March 10) about the pubcasting powerhouse’s finances. Update:: Abbott responded in a letter to the newspaper. The Herald‘s review of the latest IRS records (2009) for the station, which then employed around 950, found that four vice presidents and producers pulled in more than $300,000 in compensation; 10 employees took home more than $200,000; 145 earned more than $100,000; ex-WGBH president Henry Becton Jr.,

Harvard scholar and PBS documentarian Henry Louis Gates said he can’t imagine that any “self-respecting” member of Congress would vote to cut or zero out pubcasting support. In an interview with the Zap2it TV and movie news website, Gates called public broadcasting “one of our truly great national resources,” and added that the funding fight “just shows you how politicized the arts have become by the Right, and it’s disgusting. And I think we should all be embarrassed by it.”

Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University who blogs at PressThink, has a 10-point response to public media’s tactics for recovering from the video sting that brought down NPR’s chief executive and its top fundraiser. Rosen views the ouster of President Vivian Schiller as a “stupid and cowardly act” by the NPR Board that reveals a fundamental weakness in public broadcasting’s political strategy and its commitment to positioning itself as an impartial news service. Culture warriors of the right wing “want to destroy you,” Rosen warns public media. “You don’t get to decide whether you have political enemies or not.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) — the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, which oversees pubcasting funding — says it’s now time to discontinue federal support to NPR. In a letter to subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Shelby said he intends to “look at all available appropriations vehicles to discontinue funding directly related to NPR programming.” It is also signed by Labor/HHS subcommittee members Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).

A link roundup of last night’s (March 9) reactions to NPR President Vivian Schiller’s resignation in the wake of fundraiser Ron Schiller’s remarks caught on undercover tape: Juan Williams on Fox’s Hannity program, saying in part: “This to me is finally is a window into how they [at NPR] really think.” ABC  World News with Diane Sawyer, hosted by George Stephanopoulos. The report featured pubcasting foe Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) saying, “There are some real serious problems at NPR,” and supporter Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) noting, “Obviously it doesn’t help when somebody does idiotic things.” WAMU’s Diane Rehm on CNN, telling John King that inside NPR, although Schiller’s resignation was a shock, “you had the feeling that another shoe was going to drop.”

Veteran pubcaster Dennis Haarsager, who steered NPR through its last executive leadership transition, weighs in on the turmoil at the top of NPR on his blog Technology 360. Noting that he wasn’t plugged into the decision-making process behind Vivian Schiller’s resignation yesterday, he writes: “Boards and c.e.o.s rely on mutual trust and confidence. Boards and c.e.o.s part ways when this is out of whack. It’s that simple and that complicated. It’s tempting to speculate beyond this….But this speculation is almost always wrong.” Haarsager was responding to Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, who blasted the NPR Board for sending Vivian Schiller out the door, describing it as “ballless in the face of pressure,” and asserting that member stations’ parochial objections to Schiller’s agenda for digital news undermined support for her in NPR’s boardroom.

Vivian Schiller decided to resign as NPR president after receiving “a late-night ultimatum” from Board Chair Dave Edwards, according to the Washington Post. Reporter Paul Farhi quotes “one person involved in the decision” who said: “The idea was to placate the Hill” and “They needed a human sacrifice.” Mark Vogelzang of Buffalo’s WBFO, a former NPR board member, told the New York Times, “Frankly, the management of NPR shouldn’t be in the press….When personnel issues are handled poorly at a national level, it reflects poorly on our member stations in our communities.” Today’s Politico reports on reactions to the NPR turmoil on Capitol Hill.

The Senate today (March 9) rejected the Republican Continuing Resolution proposal, which would end funding for CPB. Broadcasting & Cable noted that the move was expected.

The NPR video sting and subsequent resignation of its president Vivian Schiller prompted little reaction from listeners at two Washington state NPR affiliates. The Seattle Times reports that “the news was greeted in Seattle with a collective shrug: two e-mails and one phone call” to KUOW-FM. Station President Wayne Roth said that “unlike the Juan Williams affair, that got a lot of response from both listeners and nonlisteners, this seems relatively quiet.” At KPLU in Tacoma, two e-mails arrived. “They just wanted to know what happened,” said Paul Stankavich, g.m. “It was a good conversation.” Has your station heard from viewers or listeners?

The Association for Public Television Stations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting today (March 9) issued statements regarding the undercover video sting of NPR executives Ron Schiller and Betsy Liley, and today’s resignation of NPR President Vivian Schiller. From APTS President Patrick Butler: Since assuming the presidency of NPR two years ago, Vivian Schiller has led her organization to new heights of news coverage, audience growth and financial strength, and her friends and admirers in public broadcasting wish her well in the next chapter of her remarkable career. The comments of former NPR executive Ron Schiller are indefensible and reprehensible, and in no way do they reflect the philosophy of the thousands of people in public broadcasting who are committed to providing a civil forum for in-depth, objective reporting and discussions of public issues at the local, national and international levels.

KLRU’s Austin City Limits has created a new position, general manager, and hired former Arista Records exec Tom Gimbel. Bill Stotesbery, station c.e.o. and g.m., said the growth of the franchise over the past several years (Current, July 20, 2009) created the need for the post. Gimbel’s background also includes founding Clatterhead, a social media advertising and marketing company, and High Wire Music, an independent management, label services, and music distribution company for more than 20 artists. Gimbel will oversee business development, production and digital strategies for the longtime hit pubcasting show.

Michael Maness is the new vice president of the Knight Foundation’s Journalism and Media Innovation program. Maness joins Knight after more than three years as vice president of innovation and design at Gannett. He succeeds Eric Newton, who becomes senior adviser to Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen (a former PBS Board chairman). During the last five years, the Knight Foundation has invested more than $100 million in its Journalism and Media Innovation Initiative, which includes work on national media policy, technology innovation, public media transformation and the evolution of the World Wide Web. Part of the initiative is the popular Knight News Challenge, now in its fifth year, which competitively awards up to $5 million a year to develop platforms, tools and services to inform and transform community news, conversations and information distribution.

The Continuing Resolution, with its elimination of CPB funding, probably won’t be passed by the new deadline of March 18, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told a breakfast meeting for reporters today (March 9). He said Congress will probably pass another temporary measure to avoid a federal government shutdown.

The White House today (March 9) signaled that it still supports taxpayer funding for NPR, despite news of the video sting and NPR President Vivian Schiller’s resignation. The Associated Press is reporting that White House spokesman Jay Carney said that both Democratic and Republican presidents have supported such funding in the past and that there remains a need to support public broadcasting.