The impact of digital tools on charitable giving and the outlook for future mobile giving will be studied by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, it announced today (Jan. 18). The research, the first of its kind, will survey persons who gave to Haiti earthquake relief efforts to determine how mobile donors differ from general donors. It also will examine how social media spread the mobile-giving campaigns. Partners in the study are the mGive Foundation and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project; it’s supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Current reported on the mobile donation efforts of public broadcasters, which so far is limited (March 22, 2010) but holds potential (April 19, 2010).

Public access channels nationwide are intensifying their ongoing fight to stay on the air with today’s (Jan. 18) launch of a new website from the Public Television Industry Corporation. The channels across the country are being threatened with shutdowns as longtime funding contracts expire. The site links to a 10-minute video that says public access TV is “being murdered by a cabal of cable and telecom industries.”

Here are some cool photos from the NETA convention, and a little wrapup, from the Marmalade Gypsy blogger. One of the pics captures two Current staffers, reporter Dru Sefton (on the right, with the scarf) and Kathleen Unwin, marketing director, at Lucky Table 13. Give yourself extra points if you can figure out the identity of the writer, an anonymous pubcaster. (Hints: Jeanie in Michigan.)

David Brauer, local media reporter for MinnPost, complains in a column today (Jan. 17) that Twin Cities Public Television viewers weren’t given the opportunity to see the Jan. 12 memorial service for the recent Tucson shootings.TPT spokesperson Lorena Duarte said the station was told that commercial networks would cover the entire service – which they didn’t, opting instead to only run President Obama’s remarks. “We also received word from PBS that they would not be providing coverage of the memorial event,” Duarte said. “This changed late in the afternoon, which would have made it very difficult for us to put it on [main channel] TPT 2 (and at that point we still thought the networks would be carrying it).”

WAMU-FM will not renew its contract with Capitol News Connection when it expires April 30, the Washington Post is reporting today (Jan. 17). The Post had written last fall (Current, Sept. 9, 2010) that CNC is owned by the wife of one of the station’s top managers, which presented a potential conflict of interest at the pubradio station. CNC’s Power Breakfast and This Week in Congress have aired on WAMU since late 2007, and the production company also provides spot news coverage of Capitol Hill activities. In a Jan. 14 e-mail to staff, station News Director Jim Asendio said WAMU’s newsroom is now sufficiently staffed to provide that coverage in-house.

In an interview in today’s (Jan. 17) Broadcasting & Cable, KCET Board Chairman Gordon Bava insists the station has not “terminated” its relationship with PBS, but “we have suspended it indefinitely. We aren’t sure PBS is willing to accept that distinction, but that is our express intention. So that when the dust settles and we see maybe in a couple of years what the future of PBS holds and its role will be, we certainly would be open to returning on a reasonable and sustainable basis.” He also calls the system of PBS member stations “vulnerable” since it has been losing money for years.

The newly convened New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority last Friday (Jan. 14) okayed a three-month budget of $3.4 million to preserve New Jersey Network, according to the Star-Ledger. That figure includes $2.1 million in new state aid and $1.3 million in lottery revenue and current leases. Authority Chairman and State Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said he expects the state to have a partner secured by April 1 to run the network, which the governor is attempting to wean from state support (Current, July 6, 2010). The Treasurer’s office has hired Public Radio Capital to help draft a request for proposals for the operation of the network’s television and radio stations.

Public broadcasters in Kansas are the latest in the crosshairs for state budget cuts. In his budget proposal, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback wants to end all state money to public television and radio, amounting to $1.6 million. According to the Kansas City Star, “Federal stimulus funds totaling $450 million helped the state limp through the recession, but the money is set to expire later this year. And that’s ripping big holes in the state’s budget as it struggles to recover from years of slumping revenue and budget cuts.”

In an unprecedented move, the San Francisco School Board voted unanimously to extend a line of credit up to $200,000 to KALW, “even as the district faces its own financial woes and major cutbacks,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle today (Jan. 15). The 70-year-old NPR affiliate is licensed to the district but operates independently. The station has been losing money for three years and currently is some $120,000 in debt, said KALW general manager Matt Martin. “We have not taken cash (from the district) for nearly 20 years,” he said. “That’s not what we want here. We want a loan we can pay back with interest.”

The National Center for Media Engagement is sponsoring a webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern Wednesday (Jan. 19) on the CPB-funded SAFER (Station Action for Emergency Readiness) initiative. It aims to help pubcasters in TV and radio become reliable sources of public information during an emergency. Also participating will be folks from KPBS in San Diego, Calif., and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Register here.

In the wake of the Tucson shootings on Jan. 8, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler is wondering why PBS doesn’t have some way to bring breaking news to its viewers on weekends. “There are no doubt impressive-sounding reasons, financial or otherwise, why there is no PBS NewsHour, or something similar, on Saturday and Sunday evenings,” he writes in his latest Mailbag. “But it has always seemed to me like an abdication of duty that also has the side effect of sending regular PBS viewers to other networks.” Also in the mailbag this week: Why didn’t PBS carry the Tucson memorial service?

Pittsburgh’s NPR News and jazz music station WDUQ is to be sold for $6 million to a joint partnership of WYEP and Public Media Company, a new local ownership and operating entity established by Public Radio Capital. The sales contract is half the price that the license-holder Duquesne University sought to earn when it put WDUQ on the market last year. “It’s a market issue,” said Dr. Charles Dougherty, president, during a Jan. 14 news conference. The university started with the “highest possible asking price,” as any seller would do. The final deal, approved by an executive committee of the Duquesne University board, strikes a balance between providing cash to invest in the university’s academic programs and preserving the station and its 60-year history as a community service, Dougherty said.

Lots of stuff going on at international programmer MHz Networks. Spokesperson Stephanie Misar was on hand at NETA in Nashville Thursday (Jan. 13) to announce that starting Feb. 1, spot time will be available for local promos or underwriting on its MHz Worldview channel. Also, its 31 affiliates soon may feed their local programs back to MHz for worldwide distribution as the MHz America channel, which is nearing launch. International broadcasters are hungry for quality local content from America, Misar said, and so far eight affiliates are involved. And MHz is in early talks with commercial broadcasters to carry its content.

Twenty-three pubcasters took home 31 trophies from the annual NETA awards Thursday (Jan. 13) in Nashville. The luncheon presentations kicked off with the special NETA Education Board’s Enterprise and Innovation Award, which went to KET’s Executive Director Shae Hopkins and the KET education division for their “exemplary success in delivering education services to generations of students, teachers, parents, and care providers throughout the state of Kentucky,” even in the midst of a tight budget. KET also scored a win for its instructional media. In addition to that category, honors are presented for content production, promotion and community engagement. There’s a list of all the honorees on the NETA confab blog.

Two takes on the congressional push to end federal aid to public broadcasting: Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam explores to what extent hometown stations WBUR-FM and WGBH-TV/FM depend on their CPB grants. Not so much, he discovers, except for TV production grants that WGBH relies on to create shows such as Between the Lions: it’s the little stations serving rural communities whose futures hang in the balance. “Public broadcasters — and especially prosperous stations like Boston’s WGBH and WBUR — might be better off without the government’s money.” Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) tells the Washington Examiner that he’s waited a long time for his legislation to defund NPR and CPB to gain political traction.