Debate has been set to start Tuesday (Feb. 15) on H.R. 1, the Continuing Resolution (CR) that would keep the federal government running but also would slash the budget, including ending CPB funding as of fiscal 2013. The resolution also proposes eliminating FY 2011 money for the CPB Digital program, Ready to Learn, the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program, the Rural Utility Service’s digital work, and Radio Interconnection. “These draconian cuts will deal a devastating blow to local public television and radio stations if enacted,” APTS President Patrick Butler cautioned in an e-mail to stations today (Feb. 12). Amendments are expected to be put forward to save the pubcasting dollars.

Public broadcasting’s so-called “G4” – CPB, PBS, the Association of Public Television Stations advocacy organization and NPR – today (Feb. 12) issued comments on the formal proposal Friday by the House Appropriations Committee to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting as part of cuts in the Continuing Resolution to keep the government running. The statement from CPB: “Federal funding for public media is a smart and careful investment that continues to deliver proven benefits to the American people at both a local and national level. It is a successful example of a vital public-private partnership,” said Pat Harrison, president and CEO of CPB.

Virginia legislators have lots to talk about before agreeing on a budget, and that includes public broadcasting. The Senate restored $2.7 million that Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) proposed cutting from public broadcasting, while the House defeated a proposal to restore even a portion of the funding, according to the Roanoke Times.

In 2005, WTTW’s proposed preschool literacy show Word World was a surprise recipient of more than $7 million in Ready to Learn funding from the U.S. Department of Education. The perky program premiered on PBS in 2007, and went on to win three Emmy Awards. On Thursday (Feb. 10), Word World LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Reuters is reporting the company has liabilities of more than $10 million, including a $3.3 million convertible note and unpaid debts to animation and production studios. It has secured lines of credit allowing it to continue operations while it restructures. “It’s the classic story of a great company with a bad balance sheet that ran out of time,” said Don Moody, c.e.o.

Twenty members of the House of Representatives on Thursday (Feb. 10) urged their colleagues to sign a letter of support for public broadcasting funding (PDF). The letter reads in part: “We can all agree that we should right-size government spending, but we must do it in a way that doesn’t deprive citizens across the country of a fundamental way to be educated, informed and inspired. We cannot turn our backs on one of America’s most successful public-private partnerships, an indispensable service that delivers exceptional value to citizens in small towns and major cities. It is an appropriate role for our government and one that we hope you will support.”

The progressive website MoveOn.org has a petition on its site supporting public broadcasting as the debate on federal funding nears. From the page: “The Republicans just released their budget proposal, and it zeroes out funding for both NPR and PBS – the worst proposal in more than a decade. We need to tell Republicans that cutting off funding was unacceptable last time they were in charge, and it’s unacceptable now.” Signers’ information is zapped directly to their Congressional reps with the message, “Congress must protect NPR and PBS and guarantee them permanent funding, free from political meddling.”

The Berkman Center’s Online Media Legal Network will collaborate with the Investigative News Network (INN) to help its member nonprofit news organizations find pro bono and low-cost legal help. Based at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet Society, Online Media Legal Network is a legal assistance and referral service of more than 100 law firms, law school clinics, in-house counsel and 7,000 individual lawyers nationwide that provide free and reduced-fee legal assistance to qualifying independent journalists and journalism ventures. The INN was conceived at the 2009 investigative public media conference in Pocantico, N.Y. Its members include some of the top pubmedia news orgs, including California Watch, Center for Investigative Reporting and the Center for Public Integrity.

Robert F. Schenkkan, who worked with President Lyndon Johnson on the 1967 act that established CPB and was one of “the Six Pack” of early pubTV station managers who provided counsel on the membership design of the Public Broadcasting Service, died Wednesday (Feb. 9) in Austin, Texas, of complications of dementia. He was 93. Top public broadcasters were quick to pay their respects. Jim Lehrer, anchor and editor of PBS NewsHour, told the Austin American-Statesman, “He was the first to understand the immediate meaning and ultimate importance of public broadcasting. He really got it. It was ‘educational’ TV when he started, and he realized it could be so much more.

Spaces are quickly filling for the “Advocacy Journalism in the Digital Age” conference March 1 at the Newseum. The Ford Foundation and the American University School of Communication are gathering experts in social activism, public policy and journalism to help define the opportunities and challenges created by new digital technologies. Panelists include Clark Hoyt of Bloomberg News, NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard, and Nick Clooney, director of “Journey to Darfur,” tracing his trek to the war-torn country with his son, actor George Clooney. RSVP here.

Karen Avery, former director of foundation relations at the Smithsonian, is the new senior director of institutional giving at the PBS Foundation, working to raise funds from foundation and corporate sectors. She will report to Brian Reddington, senior v.p. of development, who was recently shifted from oversight of the Online Giving Campaign to focus solely on foundation work. Prior to Avery’s Smithsonian development work, she was assistant dean of Harvard College where she directed an initiative to raise the awareness of women’s issues at Harvard, and served as a hearing officer for complaints of sexual assault and sexual harassment.

President Obama will unveil his Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative in a speech today (Feb. 9) at Northern Michigan University at Marquette, reports National Journal.  The speech backs the idea of a voluntary spectrum giveback that could net the government a total of $27.8 billion over the next 10 years, $9.6 billion of which would go to deficit reductions, White House officials said. Those figures are estimates of what the government would have after giving broadcasters and others who relinquish spectrum a share in auction proceeds, and paying the costs of relocating or consolidating spectrum users into different bands.

Legislation authorizing the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority to continue soliciting donations through its private nonprofit fundraising organizations is coming up for a floor vote in the House of Delegates today. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Morgan, responds to a report issued last summer by the state legislature’s auditors, who said the pubcasting network’s relationships with its sister nonprofits– the Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Inc. and the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation Inc. — circumvent state spending regulations and travel rules. As introduced last month, H.B. 2695 authorizes West Virginia EBA employees to work with the Friends groups and make their broadcasting studios and facilities available to them for the purpose of fundraising.

New Jersey officials expect to transfer the New Jersey Network pubcasting network to a new overseer on July 1, three months later than originally projected, according to the Star-Ledger. A spokesperson for Montclair State University confirmed it would bid on at least one, if not all, of the three proposals. Richard Stockton College, also in New Jersey, had been considering a bid but may be dropping out. (UPDATE: The Press of Atlantic City is reporting Stockton will not bid.) Sharon Schulman, director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton, said Tuesday (Feb. 8) that “nothing will be turned over to us.

Television writer Joan Meyerson has won a Writers Guild Award for her work on PBS’s 2010 National Memorial Day Concert. She also won this award – the full category name is the Award for Outstanding Script Television Comedy/Variety/Music, Awards, Tributes/Specials – for the 2006 Memorial Day show. PBS has been producing the program live from the Capitol grounds for more than 20 years.

Anticipating a floor vote to eliminate funding for public broadcasting next week, the Association for Public Television Stations today (Feb. 9) called for stations to join the first big push to build political support in the House of Representatives. The House Appropriations Committee is preparing to debate a Continuing Resolution that would fund the government after the current CR expires next month, and CPB is among many federally-funded entities that could be zeroed out. The bill is expected to come to the floor during the week of Feb. 14. House leaders have said it will be debated under open rules that allow lawmakers to offer amendments targeting specific programs, according to APTS.