Work on WHYY’s $12 million Learning Lab has begun at the station’s main facility in Philadelphia. The pubcaster said the focus of the lab will be digital media, audio and new media. Part of the project is the 4,100-square-foot Lincoln Financial Digital Media Education Studio. The lab is set to open in 2010.

Michael Getler, PBS ombudsman, uncovers the back story of Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Jose Pequeno, who was featured in the PBS broadcast of the National Memorial Day Concert from the West Lawn of the Capitol.

About 150 students, waving photos of Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Clifford the Big Red Dog, gathered today on the steps of Lincoln Elementary School in Erie, Pa., to support local pubstation WQLN. It stands to lose some $800,000 in state funding if Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed budget is approved. The budget would eliminate state funding for all eight of Pennsylvania’s public television stations. “If the budget passes, we would also lose another $70,000 in federal matching funds,” Tom New, WQLN’s director of creative services, told the Erie Times-News. “That’s 25 percent of our total revenue.”

A Zune media player unveiled this morning by Microsoft includes HD Radio tune-in capability among other new features. Zune HD combines a multi-touch screen and Web browser with a built-in HD Radio receiver. In addition, consumers who buy a separately sold audiovisual dock will be able to play high-def videos on HD TV sets. “Microsoft is blazing a trail for a whole new generation of small, hand-held HD Radio enabled products,” said Bob Struble, president of iBiquity Digital Corporation. But gadget reviewers are yawning. “I’m a proud Zune owner myself…, and while I think Zunes are great, I’m not thrilled with what I’ve learned so far,” writes Dan Nosowitz of Gizmodo.

In her forthcoming book from W.W. Norton, On the Media‘s Brooke Gladstone will appear as a cartoon version of herself to tell the story of the press’s role in American history, the New York Observer reports. Gladstone first tried writing the book as a graphic science fiction novel set in the year 2032, but dropped that approach for a comic book collaboration with Brooklyn artist Josh Neufeld. “[A]s counterintuitive as it sounds, this is the closest I can get to radio,” Gladstone said. “I feel that it’ll be a simulacrum of a radio presence, and that’s how I communicate best….Radio

The divorce of Dorothy Cann Hamilton, host of the 26-part pubTV series Chef’s Story, has turned into a lawsuit involving millions of dollars. Her estranged husband, venture capitalist Douglas A.P. Hamilton, says he bankrolled the series and several other of his wife’s projects. The suit is complex and involves ownership of the the French Culinary Institute (which she founded), and two trusts in Milwaukee. “Unfortunately, it’s a very messy divorce,” she said. The two have been married 15 years.

Michael Kinsell, who planned to present himself as the next Mister Rogers at a controversial gala on Sunday in San Diego, told Current in an e-mail Thursday night that he is canceling the show. Kinsell, who said he is 18, had publicized the May 31 fundraising event as a star-studded posthumous tribute to the famous host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

PBS is accusing a San Diego teenager of “falsely claiming association” with the network and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He is selling tickets for a May 31 gala event where, according to a news release by his publicist, he will present himself as successor to the late Fred Rogers. Michael Kinsell, who told Current he is 18, said he has produced six episodes of a new show, Michael’s Enchanted Neighborhood. Kinsell described the benefit event, to be held at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, as a tribute to Rogers that will raise funds for “children’s public television” and, he hopes, for his own new show.

Teya Ryan, brought on as president and executive director of Georgia Public Broadcasting in March, tells Atlanta Journal Constitution political columnist Jim Galloway that changes are afoot. She said she wants to use a “commercial discipline” to transform the network. Some public affairs programming has been canceled for now. “Over the next year you’ll see some very creative initiatives,” she said.

A new journalism training program offered by NPR News and funded by CPB will train 22 public radio reporters from 19 states to cover business and economics in their communities.

KTOO in Juneau, Alaska, is cutting three workers, eliminating 1.5 vacant positions, reducing two full-timers to part time, lowering benefits and freezing salaries. The pubcaster includes KTOO-TV, KTOO News Radio, KRNN Rain Country Radio and KXLL Excellent Radio. General Manager Bill Legere told The Juneau Empire that the station has lost federal and state money, as well as production contracts. He also cited the $5 million cost of digital transition.

How do you know when your little boy feels all grown up? When he announces that he’s stopped watching Clifford the Big Red Dog.

The Minnesota Public Radio Advocates Network is celebrating passage of the Legacy Amendment in the state, a $2.65 million funding bill for the pubcasters to create “new programming and events, expand regional news service, amplify Minnesota culture to a regional and national audience, and document Minnesota’s history through the Minnesota Audio Archives.” The network is a statewide group that supports the work of MPR and other pubcasters at the state Legislature and U.S. Congress. The Advocates mobilized to place hundreds of phone calls and send emails and letters. The bill now goes to the Governor for his signature.

Nearly a third of senators have signed letters of support for fiscal 2010 funding for public broadcasting, according to APTS. Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Florida circulated the two letters, for Labor-HHS and for PTFP. “We have not had this documented show of Senate support in many years and we are thankful to all our stations that contacted their senators,” APTS said in a legislative update. All signatories were Democrats, along with independents Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernard Sanders of Vermont.