Curious about Tweeting and the Monday Public Media Chats? Get up to speed Wednesday (May 26) at a Peer Webinar sponsored by the National Center for Media Engagement and American Public Media. Learn how to Tweet and Twitter and engage in all those other birdlike social media techniques from Rob Bole, CPB’s veep of digital media strategy; Katie Kemple, PR and social media consultant; Julia Schrenkler, interactive producer, digital media, Minnesota Public Radio; Jonathan Coffman, PBS product manager, social media; Adam Schweigert, director of new media at WFIU/WTIU in Bloomington, Ind.; and pubmedia consultant and prolific blogger John Proffitt. The one-hour webinar kicks off at 2 p.m.

American Public Television’s new contracts manager is entertainment attorney John Taxiarchis, said APT President Cynthia Fenneman in a statement today (May 25). Taxiarchis’ experience also includes intellectual property and new media, “both also important to APT,” Fenneman said. Taxiarchis will report to David Fournier, APT finance and administration veep.

Gravity Medium blogger John Proffitt weighs in on the bridge-burning farewell letter from former WLIW/WNET producer Sam Toperoff, which is quite the buzz throughout the system.

Ever read Mr. Ed’s obituary? How about the Flying Nun’s? Barry Nelson, WGBH’s director of on-air fundraising, has a new book out with those and more, co-authored with Tom Schecker. Mr. Ed: Dead! provides obits for everyone from Betty Crocker to Holden Caulfield. Why? They each had a fictional life and deserve “an equally creative death,” as the book’s website says. “We think it’s the perfect book for the public radio generation(s),” Nelson told Current, “filled with popular culture references and the kind of satirical humor they’ve been enjoying for years, such as The Onion and National Lampoon.” Nelson said the book will be available as a thank-you gift for pledge campaigns.

Millions of dollars in pubcasting funding through the Commerce Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture was cited Monday (May 24) as an instance of “programs that are heavily earmarked or not merit-based as well as those that are plainly wasteful and duplicative” by the Office of Management and Budget. Director Peter Orszog said in an OMB blog posting that President Barack Obama has sent to Capitol Hill the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010, which Politico describes as “a line-item veto with a twist: The president would have a limited time after a bill is passed to submit a package of rescissions that must be considered by Congress in straight up or down votes.”

Jim Kutzner, PBS chief engineer, is chairing the next-generation broadcast TV team of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, Television Broadcast reports. It’s one of three working teams, the other two probing the feasibility and market requirements for 3DTV, and broadcast Internet TV. Kutzner’s group will look at tech that might be used to “define a future terrestrial broadcast digital television standard,” according to the ATSC. The organization sets the tech standards for American broadcast television. It held its annual meeting last week in Pentagon City, Va., where the latest initiatives were announced.

The third Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will go to Sir Paul McCartney at a special concert in the East Room of the White House on June 2, the Librarian of Congress James Billington announced May 24. The show will recorded by WETA as one of the “In Performance at the White House” series, to air on PBS July 28 (check local listings). The concert will feature tributes to McCartney by stars including Stevie Wonder, Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Dave Grohl, Jack White, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Herbie Hancock and Corinne Bailey, as well as remarks by Jerry Seinfeld.

To meet its CPB grant requirements, KEDM in Monroe, La., has scheduled an emergency fundraising drive for June 2 -4. CPB Community Service Grant criteria calls for the university-owned station to raise 48 cents for every potential listener in its service area, or $152,000 annually, G.M. Joel Willer tells the local News Star. “We have been really falling short for some time and it’s finally catching up to us.” The station needs to raise $45,000 if it is to meet CPB’s standard. KEDU licensee, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, has stipulated that programs will be cut if the station doesn’t raise at least $30,000.

Pubcasting blogger John Proffitt today tackles “Closed vs. Open: Why Public Media Struggles With New Media.” The two types “are philosophically different, possibly opposed. One embraces community, drawing in participation and ‘hosting’ conversation and engagement. The other treats the public as a media receiver. Sure, there are some middle grounds here, but this is a big difference that has powered, silently, a lot of conversations in which I’ve participated, without realizing it. No wonder we struggle with this. No wonder there’s both dismissal of the new as irrelevant to the mission and nevertheless pitched battles over who will control the social network engagements, who gets or shares in the online revenue, and how and when content will or won’t appear online.

Matthew Lasar, a professor and media writer who authored a book on the history of Pacifica Radio, examines two of the “smaller recommendations” in Free Press’s recent white paper on public broadcasting reforms, and cautions against its proposal to strengthen the role of local station Community Advisory Boards. Free Press’s ideas for “pumping up” CABs assume that “there is an almost Rousseauean entity out there called ‘the public’ or ‘the community’ that, when consulted, will always serve up selfless suggestions about how to make a community or public radio station better….Lots of people who attend public media board meetings go there for self-interested reasons.

More than 25,000 Wisconsin veterans and their supporters journeyed to the LZ Lambeau outreach May 21-23 in Green Bay, Wisc., organized by Wisconsin Public Television, the state Department of Veterans Affairs, the Wisconsin Historical Society and many vets’ groups. The gathering was meant as a “welcome home” for Vietnam-era military members (image: Current). The highlight was an evening show inside legendary Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, with music performances and preview segments of WPT’s documentary on veterans from the state. A moving “Missing Man Table Ceremony” honored POWs and MIAs, and 1,244 empty chairs nearly filled the football field, one for each military member and civilian from Wisconsin killed or missing in action in Southeast Asia.

Two different takes on NPR’s mobile strategy began circulating on the Web yesterday: MobileActive reports on how NPR’s work in the mobile space is attracting an audience with different usage habits than visitors to NPR.org; and pubradio fundraising consultant John Sutton writes that NPR’s aggressive push into mobile distribution could eventually undercut the dues-based business model that sustains its newsmagazines.

Austin’s KUT will begin booking acts for the Cactus Cafe, a music venue and bar in the University of Texas’s student union, in August. The partnership, announced after months of discussions about how to keep the Cafe open, puts KUT in charge of scheduling performances 200 nights per year and devising a business plan that will make the money-losing venue self-sustaining. That will include some mix of live broadcasts from the club, sponsorship sales, improved box office operations and sales of downloadable podcasts; managers of the Texas Union will oversee bar operations separately. “We believe the Cactus Cafe plays an essential role in the Austin music experience and are committed to preserving and sharing that experience with the UT campus and beyond,” said Stewart Vanderwilt, KUT director.

Pubcasters including WNET President Neil Shapiro and Malcolm Brett, PBS Board member and director of broadcasting and media innovations for Wisconsin Public Television, donned hardhats and jaunty reflector vests for a May 19 tour of the spiffy new Austin City Limits theater construction in Austin (background, Current, July 20, 2009). Leading the group through the maze of building material was Bill Stotesbery, g.m. of KLRU. It’s part of a $300 million downtown redevelopment just across from city hall. The 2,500-seat venue is on schedule for a December opening, and funding work is going well. Above, that’s the stage to the right and seating to the left.

A veterans’ group is complaining that Wisconsin Public Television’s LZ Lambeau outreach event this weekend “has become a pro-war exhibition aimed at getting kids into the military,” writes the Green Bay Press Gazette. Veterans for Peace will conduct its own workshops and discussions on recruiting, combat stress and ongoing international conflicts as the massive event takes place in Lambeau Field (Current, July 6, 2009). WPT envisions the weekend as a tribute to Vietnam-era veterans who never received a proper welcome home. But the Veterans for Peace website calls the happening “a militaristic fair.” LZ Lambeau Project Manager Don Jones told the Press Gazette he welcomes Veterans for Peace participation, and there will be space at Lambeau Field for all veterans’ groups to distribute literature.