In its latest experiment with soliciting text donations, This American Life used the push notification system on its iPhone app to ask listeners to support the show. The response from tech savvy readers of Ars Technica was not positive. “The pushed message for donations felt a bit off-putting,” the online technology journal reported last week. “Getting a donation pitch during or after a show is expected. A random notification pushed to your phone isn’t.” Sixty readers commented on the article, including Seth Lind, TAL production manager, who apologized for the annoying iPhone message. “We’re all learning how to use this stuff!”

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler takes on comments on Tavis Smiley’s show that have created a bit of a buzz in the conservative blogosphere. In his May 25 program Smiley interviewed Avaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch parliament. Ali said that radicalized Islamist terrorists “got into their minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter.” Smiley replied, “But Christians do that every single day in this country.” Ali: “Do they blow people up?” Smiley: “Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that’s what Columbine is — I could do this all day long.”

A draft copy of a Federal Trade Commission paper on bolstering journalism includes recommendations to spend more money on CPB, and establish a commercial broadcast spectrum auction tax going toward pubmedia. The paper, “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism” (PDF), is not an official document, rather a draft for discussion at the third and final FTC workshop on news coverage on June 15. It advises boosting funding for CPB, noting that its 2009 federal budget allotment was $409 million, while per capita spending on pubcasting in Finland and Denmark is 75 times that figure. It offers up an idea for a spectrum auction tax on commercial stations, with proceeds going to a pubmedia fund.

Liane Hansen, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday since 1989, plans to leave the program next May. She’ll be visiting public radio stations over the next year while other NPR journalists take turns behind the mic. “It’s not you, it’s me,” she said in a letter to listeners broadcast on Sunday. “I’ve made the personal decision to move to where I have always wanted to live — by the ocean.” Hansen will continue working for NPR as a freelancer once her contract as WESUN host expires. In other people news, former NPR correspondent Kim Masters will join the Hollywood Reporter as editor-at-large.

WKYU in Bowling Green, Ky., said in a statement today that it is the first PBS affiliate in the country to use a revolutionary light emitting diode (LED) lighting system, which will reduce energy consumption by 97 percent. The equipment is so new — manufacturing began in 2009 — that one commercial station is the only other TV facility using it. WKYU’s old lights were around 40 years old and “regularly malfunctioned,” according to the station. Those were incandescent tungsten, manufactured in the 1960s and ’70s, with specialized bulbs expensive to replace. “The control panel looked like a huge old telephone switchboard, with knobs on retractable cords that plugged into a patch panel above,” the station noted.

The Federal Communications Commission today (June 1) released a survey showing that 91 percent of respondents were either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their home broadband speed. The telephone survey of 3,005 Americans (PDF) in April and May also showed that 80 percent did not know the broadband speed to their home computer.

“Public Insight Journalism = New Voices, New Stories” is the subject of tomorrow’s (June 2) webinar from the National Center for Media Engagement and American Public Media. Speakers will give pointers on PIJ, developed by Minnesota Public Radio. Thousands of Minnesotans make up the Public Insight Network to assist MPR in its reporting. Learn why public insight journalism is an important method for engaging communities, how to use it, and the benefits that stations have gleaned from it. The hourlong webinar starts at 2 p.m. Wednesday, click here to register.

From PBS’s June 2010 request for primetime series proposals to be funded by the CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund. See also Current feature on the Explorer Archetype. The Explorer Archetype Research shows the most successful brands embody a single archetype. To define and fully leverage PBS’s brand, we are employing Archetypal Branding, a proven strategy in which an organization aligns all activities behind a single unifying concept. We believe adopting this strategy will help us increase audience engagement, raise money and build brand loyalty. What are Archetypes? Archetypes are universally recognized images or themes found in art, literature, myths, legends and stories.

Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson yesterday (May 27) used a line-item veto to override state legislators on a proposed funding cut of around $1 million for public broadcasting, reports Channel 3, the Wichita NBC affiliate. “I know it’s going to save programming and some of the work we do in the community, because that’s a lot of money,” said KPTS President and CEO Michele Gors Paris. In addition to affecting KPTS in Wichita, the cuts would have had an impact on Smokey Hills Public Television in Western Kansas and radio stations such as High Plains Public radio in Garden City.

A Central Michigan University Public Broadcasting truck was vandalized between 5 p.m. Tuesday (May 25) and 8 a.m. Wednesday. The driver and passenger side windows were shattered, reports Central Michigan Live. CMU Police Officer Bill Martinez said landscaping stones around the PBS affiliate building in Mount Pleasant, Mich., are somtimes used for similar vandalism. As the news website notes, Martinez mentioned the building’s proximity to local bars as a “contributing factor.” Damage is estimated at $400.

New York Times senior business correspondent Micheline Maynard will oversee the Upper Midwest Local Journalism Center, one of seven around the country funded by CPB (Current, April 5, 2010). Michigan Radio, WBEZ FM-Chicago and Cleveland’s ideastream (90.3 WCPN and WVIZ/PBS) are collaborating on the coverage theme of “Changing Gears: Remaking the Manufacturing Belt,” which traces the transformation of the region’s industrial-based economy to one with a post-manufacturing focus. In addition to her newspaper work, she teaches college and has written four books, including 2009’s The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream (Random House).

Public radio news veteran Michael Skoler will join Public Radio International as v.p. of interactive media on June 1. Skoler, founding director of American Public Media’s Center for Innovation in Journalism, established the Public Insight Journalism model for tapping listeners’ expertise in news reporting. His earlier reporting career included stints at NPR as African bureau chief, science correspondent and science editor/producer. At PRI Skoler will develop interactive strategies for PRI programs and spearhead new digital content initiatives. “I’ve learned that culture is even more important than strategy for success in today’s networked media world,” Skolar said in a statement. “PRI has both — a creative, risk-taking culture and clear-eyed strategy for creating value.”

Click here for Current’s slideshow of LZ Lambeau photographs, shot by Senior Editor Dru Sefton. More coverage of the Wisconsin Public Television outreach in the next issue of Current, June 7.

The Bay Citizen, the online news start-up in which KQED was to have been a founding partner, launches today with a top story on how San Francisco’s wealthiest homeowners benefit from a property tax loophole written into California’s Proposition 13. The public media group, formerly known as the Bay Area News Project, has recruited a team of 13 editor/writers and two interns; among them is Queena Kim, a Makers Quest 2.0 grant recipient and producer/reporter who left Pasadena’s KPCC to join the launch team as community editor. Editor-in-chief Jon Weber plans to partner, not compete, with local bloggers and nontraditional news outlets, reports the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Event organizers have announced the final count of visitors to LZ Lambeau, Wisconsin Public TV’s massive “welcome home” for Vietnam vets last weekend. More than 70,000 people attended over the three days, and some 26,000 were present for the Saturday evening tribute event (above, Current image). Despite rain on Friday, 1,244 motorcycles completed the LZL Honor Ride from LaCrosse, Wisc., to Lambeau Field. A TV crew from PBS affiliate WGVU in Grand Rapids, Mich., was there capturing the happenings and getting tips for its LZ Michigan in July. “It’s moving, and it impacts more than just, ‘Here’s a documentary,’ or, ‘Here’s an event,'” Timothy Eernisse, development and marketing manager for WGVU, told the Green Bay ABC affiliate.