Gretchen Weber, associate producer for Climate Watch on KQED in San Francisco, is spending two weeks at Toolik Field Station, an Arctic climate change research station, as a Logan Polar Science Fellow. Follow her adventures — including breakfasts of reindeer sausage — on her KQED blog.

Crain’s Chicago Business today (June 21) takes a look into both WTTW’s current money woes and pubTV’s future plans. The Chicago PBS affiliate endured recent staff reductions of 12 percent. Viewership has fallen almost every year since 2005, the paper says. Member, sponsor and government revenues are all down. “The Chicago PBS outlet faces a more fundamental problem, however: attracting viewers in a digital era that’s bombarding them with options,” the paper notes. Lawrence Grossman, PBS president from 1976 to ’84 and now on the Connecticut PBS network board, provided big-picture analysis, saying that pubTV “is not going to survive unless it reevaluates where it’s going.”

An NPR-led project this month officially launched planning for a joint Public Media Platform to put public radio and TV content on the Web and mobile devices. By year’s end it aims to create a “proof of concept” prototype....

Today, Seattle’s Crosscut.com concludes its two-part story on KCTS and its CEO, Moss Bresnahan. He’s hoping the station can work together with a new neighbor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose headquarters is going up across from KCTS. “We’ve talked to them about the fact that they’re going to be our new neighbors . . . and how can we make good use of this proximity,” Bresnahan said. “They’ll be bringing in world leaders of all kinds, and so are there ways that we could take advantage of that in terms of programming,” perhaps supplying guests for the station’s Conversations program, or producing shows on foundation initatives.

Pubcasting thought leader Rob Bole writes on his Public Purpose Media blog that public service media no longer has an innovation problem. However, “What we have is a risk problem. As a group, an industry, a system . . . we are not properly arming ourselves with the necessary enterprise skills, tools and perspective to make our efforts sustainable.” Pubmedia folks must realize that “inherent in the act of innovation is a risk assessment and acquiring the necessary skills to manage it.” As one commenter noted, “Provocative post, as always.”

History Detectives launches its eighth season Monday (June 21) with a live Tweetfest. Viewers get to chat with the show’s investigative team while watching the broadcast, which attempts to answer questions including: Is Andy Warhol’s art on the moon? (Spoiler alert! Answer here.) Use hashtag #histdet_pbs, or check out the show’s custom TweetGrid. The team will be online for two back-to-back sessions so viewers across the country may participate.

PRNDI honored Cincinnati-area news director Maryanne Zeleznik with the Leo C. Lee Award for her three decades of work in public radio journalism.

The primary figures in the histories of the PBS series Frontline and Sesame Street were saluted by PBS CPB Ralph Lowell Medal: Frontline auteur David Fanning received CPB’s 38th annual Lowell medal May 18 during the PBS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. The prestigious honor has been presented since 1975 for outstanding contributions to public television. Fanning began his career in journalism at a newspaper in his native South Africa before shifting to American pubTV in 1973. PBS “Be More” Award: Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) and prime creator of Sesame Street, received the award recognizing contributions to society that exemplify the PBS spirit of “Be more” — “expanding horizons, opening up possibilities and exploring new ideas.”

The Association of Public Television Stations thanked advocates beyond the D.C. Beltway APTS gave its David J. Brugger Grassroots Advocacy Award to Dr. Louis Sullivan, board chair of the Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collaborative Inc. and former U.S. secretary of health and human services. The Brugger Award, named for the former APTS president, recognizes an individual who has shown “exemplary leadership in advocacy on behalf of public television,” APTS said. APTS’ National Advocacy Awards for 2010 saluted individuals or stations that exemplify effective advocacy for pubTV. Recipients were: Malcolm Brett of Wisconsin Public Television, Molly Phillips of Iowa Public Television, and Rob Shuman of Maryland Public Television.

The Secret Life of Scientists, produced by Seftel Productions for WGBH’s Nova unit, won a Streamy The online series on PBS.org was judged the best reality or documentary series in the Streamy Awards announced in May. What’s a Streamy? Streamy awards, which just had their second annual outing, recognize program series streamed on the Internet — a category that Streamy organizers believe is a big enough deal that it warrants this new competition apart from the Webbie awards. The e.p. of The Secret Life of Scientists has had notable successes in an early cable “reality” hit as well as public TV and indie docs.

Zeleznik tapped for Leo C. Lee Award Maryanne Zeleznik, news director of Cincinnati’s WVXU, received the annual Leo C. Lee Award from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. during its annual conference in Louisville last week. PRNDI also bestowed 93 awards for public radio work produced in 2009. Among Division A stations, with five or more full-time news staffers, WAMU received three awards, Chicago’s WBEZ, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Pasadena’s KPCC won two each. In Division B, with three or four full-timers, Nashville Public Radio, Connecticut’s WSHU and Cincinnati’s WVXU took home two apiece. Among smaller stations, KCLU (Thousand Oaks, Cal.)

The Association of Public Television Stations is lobbying against two congressional proposals to eliminate millions in pubcasting funding. Republican Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn this week introduced a bill to eliminate all federal funding to CPB after FY 2012. That now has 12 cosponsors, all Republican. In a Dear Colleague letter Lamborn sent to House members Wednesday (June 16), he said that government funding of public broadcasting is “completely unnecessary in a world of 500-channel cable TV and cell phone Internet access.” He also referred to pubcasting as a “nonessential service.” Also, late last week, Democratic Ohio Rep. Charles Wilson introduced a bill to eliminate PTFP.

In the first of a two-part series today (June 17) on KCTS’s CEO Moss Bresnahan, the Crosscut news website delves into the Seattle station’s improving financial outlook and plans for the future. By year’s end, Bresnahan said, KCTS will focus more efforts on civics and public affairs. It will partner with local NPR affiliate KPLU-FM and Investigate West, a nonprofit journalism group, on several projects. And it’s making the weekly public affairs program KCTS Connects year-round, instead of taking a summer hiatus. Other projects include arts, history and science initiatives. The station is concentrating more on major giving and reducing pledge drives — from 120 last year to just over 100 this year.

Pubcasters have been awarded two of 12 grants from the Knight News Challenge, which funds digital technology for innovative journalism efforts, the Knight Foundation announced today (June 16). This fourth round of winners in the international contest received $2.74 million in grants. John Davidow of WBUR in Boston got $250,000 for his Order in the Court 2.0. Davidow wants to provide the public greater access to the judicial process by establishing best practices for digital courts coverage that can be replicated nationwide. He envisions a courtroom area for live blogging via WiFi, and live streaming of proceedings. He’ll also work with Massachusetts courts to publish a daily docket on the web and build an online glossary of common legal terms.

Good news out of South Carolina. State lawmakers continue to debate their way through overriding Gov. Mark Sanford’s 107 budget amendments, but they’ve decided to spare South Carolina ETV the ax, reports local ABC affiliate News 4 in Charleston. At risk was more than $5 million of its $10 million in state support.