NPR has recruited Sandra Bartlett, a veteran CBC Radio journalist, for its new investigative reporting unit. She joins her former CBC colleague Susanne Reber, NPR deputy managing editor for investigations since January, who announced the hire today in a memo to staff. “Sandra has worked in radio news and documentary production for more than two decades and has been an instructor and mentor of investigative journalism programs at CBC Radio, where she was part of the Investigative unit,” Reber writes. Bartlett reported daily news and produced documentaries while on several foreign assignments. She also started a new radio production, World This Weekend, a half-hour news show that she founded and directed.

Angela Morgenstern, longtime senior director of PBS Interactive, has departed for Current TV, aka “Al Gore’s network” (Wikipedia), according to several sources. She’ll have the title of vice president of content. Previous to her PBS post she claimed several awards for her development of the Frontline website, and was an online producer/content developer at KQED in San Francisco. Before her pubmedia career she helped launch MTV News.

Jake Shapiro, executive director of Public Radio Exchange, responds to some criticisms of the PRX distribution system in the latest edition of AIRblast, which recently published a two-part guide to pubradio program distributors by indie producer Barrett Golding. In the latest installment, producers questioned PRX’s decisions over which programs merit heavy promotion; Golding also suggested that talks between PRX and the Public Radio Satellite System’s ContentDepot might eventually lead to a partnership between the two services. In his response on PRX.org, Shapiro describes the conversation as one-way. “Over the past five years–starting before the launch of ContentDepot–PRX has repeatedly and unsuccessfully proposed working with PRSS on integrating our systems, sharing code and standards, and other collaborative ideas….We

Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that Democratic Michigan Rep. John Dingell has sent the FCC commissioners letters asking for clarification of the National Broadband Plan with respect to several issues, including public broadcasting. The former House Energy and Commerce Committee chair wants to know if spectrum give-back will remain voluntary even if the goal of 120 MHz is not achieved; if the FCC would involuntarily reallocate noncom spectrum from stations decline to participate (Current, Feb. 8, 2010); and if the FCC have to propose amendments to the Public Broadcasting Act. In the letters Dingell said he would like answers by April 16.

Oregon Public Broadcasting is a partner in a $554,000 project funded by the National Science Foundation for a three-year computer science camp for middle-school girls, according to the organizer, Pacific University. The camp, dubbed Girls Gather for Computer Science (G2CS), will provide mentors, field trips and beach housing. The funding also goes toward tracking the participants for a decade. A total of 90 girls will attend starting next year. OPB will create video profiles of women computer scientists and interactive games.

Three public broadcasters will head to USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism in Los Angeles next month as part of the annual National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater, the school announced this week. Attending will be: Ian Buckwalter, a theater critic on NPR.org; Elizabeth Kramer, arts and humanities reporter, Louisville Public Media in Kentucky; and Emiko Tamagawa, associate producer, WBUR’s “Here and Now,” Boston. Participants will engage in writing workshops and individual master classes May 17-27.

Pubcasting show Saddle Up With Dennis Brouse is caught up in a tax-credit controversy, reports the DesMoines Register. The director of the state film office, which lures film and TV productions companies to Iowa to generate revenue, was fired last September. He’s charged with official misconduct and goes on trial Friday. The state wants to hold him responsible for approving what the attorney general’s office calls “blatantly false, fraudulent and exaggerated” claims for state tax breaks. The newspaper obtained documents detailing the projects involved, which include Saddle Up. The paper reports that Brouse’s show was awarded the most tax credits of any production in the past two years, some $9.3 million.

Amid all the buzz over the launch of Apple’s iPad last weekend, the free app and specialized website that NPR created for the device are getting lots of attention–and generating lots of downloads. Some 30,000 proud new iPad owners downloaded the NPR app on Saturday, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Apple says it sold more than 300,000 iPads as of Saturday, which means about one of every 10 iPad buyers on day one downloaded the NPR app,” the Journal reports. “We’re excited about this latest innovation because we think it brings us closer to capturing NPR’s unique identity on a digital platform,” blogs Kinsey Wilson, senior v.p.

Round 15 is now open for Digital Distribution Fund grants from CPB. Funding for television transmission facilities, digital translator projects and digital centralcasting projects is available. Stations should note that CPB is now accepting applications only for centralcast master controls that serve more than one station (Current, March 1, 2010).

Barrett Golding, producer of Hearing Voices, describes the ins and outs of public radio distribution in a two-part series for AIRblast, the newsletter of the Association of Independents in Radio. He talks with program directors and other producers about how they use Public Radio Exchange and the Public Radio Satellite Service’s Content Depot. Part I covers the basics–what are PRX and PRSS, and how do they work? Part II examines what types of programs are most likely to be acquired by p.d.s. and how producers are compensated (or not). Richard Paul, an indie producer who sells a lot of programs on PRX, advises his indie colleagues: “Producers should put a value on their show.

Comcast has won an important lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission that may threaten its ambitious broadband agenda, reports the Washington Post. In a unanimous decision (36-page PDF), three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that FCC doesn’t have authority to require Comcast, America’s largest broadband services provider, to treat all Internet traffic equally, a concept known as “net neutrality” (Wikipedia). The judges examined whether the FCC has authority over broadband services, categorized separately from phone, cable television and wireless; the FCC now has only “ancillary authority” over broadband. The ruling says in part: “The Commission may exercise this ‘ancillary’ authority only if it demonstrates that its action .

  Producers for public broadcasting — and developers for its websites — received 14 Peabody Awards, announced March 31, 2010 Regarding websites, the judges honored two in public media: Sesame Street’s (“prodigious adaptability . . . delightfully educational, interactive,” the Peabody announcement said) website NPR’s (“one of the great one-stop websites. And there’s music you can dance to”) website Peabodys went to six PBS programs — double the number won by any other organization: “Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About,” about the great New York choreographer, from WNET/American Masters, produced and directed by Judy Kinberg, with Susan Lacy, e.p.

This paper began with a simple question. A station manager wanted to compare the sizes of her station’s web audience with its radio and television audiences — an apple-to-apples comparison. When she saw the results, her reaction was “OMG, why is that web audience so small?!”

The masterminds of efforts such as NPR’s Bryant Park Project and Chicago Public Radio’s Vocalo know well the difficulties of cultivating new, younger and more diverse audiences for public radio. Now imagine giving it a go in one of the country’s most competitive media markets, Los Angeles. That is the assignment from CPB accepted by L.A. Public Media, a multiplatform service managed by Fresno-based Radio Bilingüe and tailored for younger listeners of color. Imagine further, eight months after taking the assignment and a $2 million grant, there’s still no FM channel to use. LAPM is preparing to launch in July, but probably online instead of on the air.

Paula Kerger wants public TV stations to know that the combination of flat station dues, dwindling resources and balanced budgets may be slowly strangling PBS’s ability to fund new-media innovation. “We can’t continue to go down this path,” the network president told her board March 26 [2010]. PBS’s member stations are strangling, too, and the network probably can’t count on them to contribute more in dues for fiscal year 2011, which starts in July. The board endorsed a balanced budget — to be sent to stations for comment — that relies on no increases in assessments for member services, program services or fundraising programming.The