NPR should have its journalists phase out any long-term contracts for appearances on other media outlets, monitor those appearances more carefully and make clearer distinctions between reporting, analysis and commentary in its programming, the network’s ethics-policy task force advised Feb. 25 [2011]. Bob Steele, head of the task force, presented recommendations for revising the ethics code to the NPR Board last month. Steele, director of the Prindle Institute for Ethics and distinguished professor of journalism ethics at DePauw University and a journalism values scholar with the Poynter Institute, was retained by NPR President Vivian Schiller to head the task force. The 13-member task force included NPR employees, outside journalists and citizens at large.

WNET/Thirteen has a unique fundraising offer: A guitar autographed by Rolling Stones legendary musician Keith Richards. “To show his personal support of music programming on New York Public Television, he has generously donated an autographed Midnight Wine Fender Telecaster Electric Guitar,” it reports on its Inside Thirteen blog. Add it to your collection for a “generous donation” of $40,000. “Like public broadcasting, Keith Richards is a towering original, who continues to walk his own path, speak his mind, and do his own thing,” the blog adds.

UPDATE: Text of the speech is online here. NPR President Vivian Schiller’s speech to the National Press Club is being live-streamed here starting at 1 p.m. Eastern today (March 7). From the Press Club’s release: “As NPR celebrates its 40th anniversary, listening to public radio is at an all-time high and the audience for NPR’s digital services has sky-rocketed. In a keynote speech today at the National Press Club, Schiller will address the powerful journalism at the root of public radio’s mission – evident no more so than in recent weeks of continuous coverage from the Middle East – and NPR’s vision for the future.

Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations advocacy group, calls the Congressional attempts to de-fund CPB a “mortal threat” in today’s (March 7) USA Today. He also notes that the $430 million reduction in aid would do little to reduce the $1.6 trillion federal deficit. He tells the paper that APTS has hired two lobbying firms, and that its 170 Million Americans outreach has generated some 300,000 notes to Congress. (More on 170 Million Americans in the Dec. 13, 2010, issue of Current.)

Shelly Palmer, host of NBC’s Live Digital with Shelly Palmer, a weekly half-hour show about living and working in a digital world, writes on his blog that public broadcasting needs just three more years of government funding to see it through to its next incarnation. “I have listened (and been drawn into) many cocktail conversations debating whether or not Public Broadcasting should be an Internet-only service,” he says. Now is the time for that decision, he contends. “Would an online, broadband, app-centric, wireless, wired, fixed wireless, over-the-top, IPTV, Internet-Television, 4G, WiMax, Digital Tier ATSC, MSO Public Channel, LPTV, Web, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Social Media-ized version of Public Broadcasting work?”

After a four-show trial run last spring, Minnesota Public Radio is mounting another season of Wits, its concept for a next-generation stage-show broadcast pairing smart, literary humor with contemporary music and powered in part by social media. For the season’s opener, March 25, host John Moe welcomes comedian Patton Oswald and musician Grant Lee Phillips to the stage of MPR’s F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, the St. Paul home of A Prairie Home Companion. That performance of Wits will be live-tweeted, webcast with video on Ustream.net, and recorded for statewide radio broadcast. Lineups for subsequent shows, monthly through June 24, will feature pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman, comedian Sandra Bernhard and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman.

“At this point, any and all funding for public broadcasting is at risk,” the Association for Public Television Stations said.

NPR is proposing to give public stations more help in building and maintaining dynamic websites and mobile apps by reconfiguring its Boston-based tech services group.

Whenever public broadcasting is threatened by hostile politicians, the conventional wisdom is to circle the wagons and fire back. As a member of the public television community for almost 50 years, I would rather see today’s challenge as an opportunity to reassess public television’s goals and achievements. Perhaps we should do this every few years to make sure we haven’t gone astray in our aims and practices. In many ways I think NPR has surpassed its original goals and promises, but public television is another matter. We have accomplished many things. We have reached a larger audience than anyone originally imagined; created lots of polished programs, and some rough-edged ones; caused controversy and laughter (the good kind); made children smile.

The nonprofit DFM News, launched in June, last week received a big (but undisclosed) funding boost from a major and ongoing sponsorship from the Corporation Service Co., a Wilmington-based business, legal and financial services firm, reports Delaware Online. The site focuses on state and local government, business, science and education. At the helm is Micheline Boudreau of WHYY’s Delaware Tonight newscast, which ended production in 2009. Delaware First Media’s staff is currently made up of three full-time employees and a dozen freelancers, and is planning to add more of each as it expands over the next two years.

In the past three years, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has invested more than $90 million in federal funds on new journalism initiatives, points out the Associated Press. In one of CPB’s local news initiatives, stations in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico have hired nine reporters for its Fronteras: The Changing America Desk bureau. “I think we have a place at the table,” and more respect, said Natalie Walsh, senior news producer, “now that we have the boots on the ground to back it up.”

Tampa-based WUSF bought WSMR for $1.2 million last year to shift its classical music to the Sarasota station and offer daytime NPR programming (Current, Aug. 9, 2010). But technical delays and interference issues delayed the station’s full-power debut from Sept. 15 to Feb. 22 — and even now, signal woes continue, reports the St. Petersburg Times. Some listeners to the south still can’t receive the signal through the static. Nancy Preis, board member of the Florida Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Opera, still can’t receive the programming. “I consider this to be a major screwup,” she said. 

The World TV channel, launched in 2007, re-imagined over the past couple years (Current, Sept. 8, 2009) and relaunched last year (Current, June 7, 2010), continues to evolve in its quest to lure younger viewers to its PBS documentary programming and website, reports the MediaShift blog. “Currently, a majority of our viewers are your usual PBS demo of 50- to 60-year-olds,” said Matey Odonkor, WorldCompass.org’s manager of online communications. “Not that this is a bad thing.” However, “we want to offer age-relevant programming to young adults who grew up watching PBS programs with their parents but stopped watching.”

Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced a bill Friday that would end federal funding for public broadcasting, reports the National Journal. “Americans struggling to make ends meet shouldn’t be forced to fund public broadcasting when there are already thousands of choices for educational and entertainment programming on the television, radio and web,” DeMint said.

Here’s a look at WNET/Thirteen’s upcoming 2011 Celebration of Teaching & Learning from the Brooklyn Eagle. More than 10,000 educators from all 50 states are expected at the sixth annual event March 18 and 19 at the Hilton New York in Manhattan. Speakers include NBC News anchor Brian Williams, author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, and ABC News co-anchor Cynthia McFadden. Participants have access to six plenary sessions, some 40 featured speakers, more than 100 hands-on “In the Classroom” workshops, and two exhibitor halls.