PBS tells the Associated Press that it was contacted by the same fake Muslim group that arranged a meeting with an NPR executive and secretly videotaped him calling the tea party racist. PBS spokeswoman Anne Bentley said today (March 9) that the network had an initial conversation with the Muslim Education Action Center but had concerns about the group. She says a PBS executive was contacted, but when PBS couldn’t confirm the organization’s credentials, they halted discussions.

Alicia Shepard, NPR ombudsman, took questions in a live online chat at WashingtonPost.com at 1:30 p.m. Eastern today (March 9). The chat is archived. Shepard said that Betsy Liley, NPR’s senior director of institutional giving, who was also caught in the sting video, is now on administrative leave. “I’m not sure how she could continue effectively for NPR,” Shepard said. Shepard also referred participants to her blog posting on NPR President Vivian Schiller’s resignation.

One day after denouncing her top fundraiser and nine weeks after asking her news chief to resign, NPR President Vivian Schiller stepped down today at the request of the NPR Board. She fell victim to a series of executive mistakes and mishaps that muddied NPR’s reputation in a poisonously partisan runup to key federal budget votes affecting public broadcasting. Schiller, who made extraordinary progress in crafting a digital service strategy for NPR and its local stations since arriving in January 2009, ultimately took the fall for her management team’s political errors during an unaccustomed moment of scrutiny. After the controversial firing of former news analyst Juan Williams last fall, Schiller seemed to recover from the missteps that put public radio in the crosshairs of Republicans who went on to take the House majority in November.

The Aspen Institute has issued a statement that Ron Schiller, at the center of NPR’s video sting, has decided not to join its staff. “Ron Schiller has informed us that, in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements, he does not feel that it’s in the best interests of the Aspen Institute for him to come work here,” the institute said in a statement Wednesday (March 9). Schiller was set to start work with the institute on April 1 as director of its Arts and Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence programs.

Josh Silver, president of the Free Press media reform organization, is stepping down to become founding c.e.o. of the Democracy Fund, a foundation that will “challenge the influence of corporate lobbyists over government policymaking,” Free Press said in a statement Tuesday (March 9). Silver was a co-founder, with media scholar Robert W. McChesney, of Free Press in 2002, and will remain on its board of directors. The organization has been a strong supporter of public broadcasting and has fought for government funding increases (Current, May 10, 2010). Stepping into the leadership role at Free Press will be Craig Aaron, currently managing director.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Senate Democratic leaders are proposing broadening budget cuts into the “more politically volatile terrain” of subsidies and entitlement programs to break an impasse over Republican proposals. Recommendations from the two parties on the fiscal 2011 Continuing Resolution are $50 billion apart. Reductions in the GOP version include zeroing out CPB’s $460 million appropriation (Current, March 7, 2011). The paper notes that this change in Democratic strategy could mark a major shift in the budget battle. Up until now, debate has focused strictly on discretionary programs controlled by annual appropriations, a tiny amount of total federal spending.

Vivian Schiller has resigned as NPR president, the news organization has just announced. Her departure, effective immediately, follows yesterday’s release of a video sting involving NPR fundraising chief Ron Schiller, who exited late yesterday. In a statement posted on NPR’s own news blog, NPR Chair Dave Edwards said the NPR Board accepted Vivian Schiller’s resignation with “understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.” “Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization. She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR’s mission, and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn, the Colorado Republican who has authored several bills to defund public broadcasting, tells the Washington Examiner that he’s “amazed by the condescension and arrogance” expressed by outgoing NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller in the covertly recorded video that conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released this morning. “They seem to be viewing themselves as elites living in an ivory tower, and they are obviously out of touch with ordinary Americans.” Lamborn says he hopes the video prompts Democrats to reconsider their support for public broadcasting.”I hope that once and for all we can put this issue to bed.”

APTS President Patrick Butler told The Hill today (March 8) that GOP members of Congress are signaling support for continued public broadcasting funding. “Republicans in both the House and the Senate want to stand with us and give us a good result in the end,” Butler said, but declined to name individuals. “It’s not going to be a unanimous vote, but I do think if there ever comes an up-or-down vote on public broadcasting itself, we’ll wind up with a bipartisan majority in favor of continuing our funding.” Although, he noted, “I’m not sure at what level.”

The conservative Washington Times says that “lawmakers and conservative critics” insist public broadcasting stations are breaking two laws with their spots alerting viewers and listeners to Congressional moves to defund pubcasting: One rule that prohibits using taxpayer funds to ask Congress for more taxpayer money, and the other that bans nonprofits from doing lobbying work. In the story, spokespersons for stations including WGBH and WETA point out that their federal funds are strictly segregated from any money spent on advocacy. Last December, APTS and NPR sent to stations rules for conducting such advocacy efforts, citing court cases establishing the legality of doing so.

NPR issued this brief statement on the video sting released today by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe: “The fraudulent organization represented in this video repeatedly pressed us to accept a $5 million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept. We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for. Mr. Schiller announced last week that he is leaving NPR for another job.”

Kyle Dyas, the popular music director and on-air personality at KUNC-FM in Greeley, Colo., jumped to his death from atop the 42-story Spire building in Denver on Sunday (March 6). The city’s medical examiner ruled the manner of death was suicide. As of Tuesday morning, more than 200 listeners had posted remembrances on the station’s website. “The two words that keep showing up (on the online posts) are ‘gentle soul,’” KUNC President Neil Best told the local Tribune newspaper. “I think in radio you can’t fool people on how you come across.” Dyas, 42, joined KUNC in 1996 as a staff announcer and became music director in 2002.

A covertly recorded video of NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller meeting with prospective donors was released by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe this morning. Schiller, whose appointment to a new job with the Aspen Institute was announced last week, was recorded in February describing members of the Tea Party as “white, middle America, gun-toting…..They’re seriously racist, racist people.” Schiller was having lunch with two men from a fake Muslim foundation who said they were interested in donating $5 million to public media. In the heavily edited, 11- minute video, Schiller told them NPR would “be better off in the long run without federal funding.”

NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller has taken a new job as director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence Program. Schiller, who joined NPR in September 2009, worked to build fundraising collaborations between NPR and member stations through projects such as Impact of Government. Schiller starts his new position on April 1, and will work out of the Institute’s offices in Aspen, Colo., where he has lived on at least a part-time basis since 2006.

Usually the only speakers in the “public comment” period after an NPR Board meeting are several regional reps of stations, but they were joined Feb. 25 by Sue Schardt, executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio. Schardt spoke extemporaneously to the board and NPR execs about how public radio could address criticism that has undercut its case for continued federal aid. This is an edited transcript. I speak as someone who has 23 years of experience in the industry. What I’ve been thinking a lot about lately resonates, I believe, for those of us who have been around a long time.