Funding of journalism and public media are on the agenda of the full-day FreePress Summit “Changing Media” set for May 14. The media reform group FreePress puts the questions at stake in these words: “What can we do to support hard-hitting journalism? Who will fund quality public broadcasting? How will we safeguard an open and neutral Internet? When will we have Internet access for everyone?” The group says top policymakers will speak at the event, but registration is now open for 250 participants who will have their voices, too, in discussion groups and individual voting using wireless keypads. PBS will be wrapping up its four-day annual PBS Showcase event in Baltimore as the FreePress event begins.

KERA in Dallas is eliminating four and a half positions “so that resources can be reallocated to other areas within the organization,” it said in a statement. Affected are staffers in volunteer services, data management, education programs and TV production. President Mary Anne Alhadeff said the station will use the funds to increase news and public affairs reporting and advance online services.

Amanda Hirsch, former editorial director of PBS Interactive, interviews Angela Morgenstern, senior director of PBS Interactive, in this Q&A about storytelling online. Morgenstern praises PBS KIDS GO! Broadband, “specifically, their pioneering efforts to overlay games directly onto online video. They are pushing the creative boundaries of the technologies daily, and as a result, creating an experience that will draw kids ‘inside the story’ in a way we haven’t seen to date.”

A North Carolina congresswoman is accusing Worldfocus of airing “propoganda” from the Al Jazeera English television network. “My concern is that the American people should be pretty darn upset about the fact that their tax dollars are going to fund this,” said GOP Rep. Sue Myrick. “I mean, they’re already upset about what their tax dollars are going to fund, and now they’re funding propaganda.” The show originates from WNET and features international news. In response, e.p. Marc Rosenwasser issued a statement explaining that Worldfocus reports come from several networks including Channel 10 of Israel, Britain’s ITN, Deutsche Welle of Germany, TV Globo of Brazil, Africa 24 and ABC of Australia.

Why is NPR cutting into its radio newsroom while continuing to invest in digital operations? It’s a question that’s been repeatedly posed to President Vivian Schiller as she leads the network through its latest round of budget cuts. “I’m here to tell you today, and I will continue to say this . . . until I’m blue in the face–this is a crisis we will not waste,” Schiller said during a March 30 speech at NVision 2009, a conference on the future of journalism. “The answer for us is not to retrench and just go back to what we do best, but to regroup.

A state audit of Nebraska’s NET reveals the pubcaster can’t account for almost $600,000 of property, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Missing inventory includes a $29,000 video camera and two $23,000 Betamax tape players. NET listed 91 items last summer it couldn’t find for at least four years. NET is reviewing its practices for tracking property. “On balance, I’d say this is a well-run agency,” state auditor Mike Foley said.

When KCRW’s Ruth Seymour responded to Susan Stamberg’s proposal to raise money for NPR by mounting a national pledge drive, she reminded the longtime NPR host that the recession is affecting local stations too: “We have our own programs to consider, our staffs to protect, and local communities to answer to,” she wrote in a March 31 email that accompanies this Wall Street Journal story on how NPR’s budget woes have exacerbated tensions with local stations.

KKFI, a community radio station in Kansas City, Mo., told volunteers that it could run out of money by the end of April, according to the Springfield News-Leader. The station fell $30,000 short on its fall fundraiser and then had to replace aging equipment after it was forced to move into new studios. In addition, the FCC fined KKFI for failing to renew its license on time.

After a special review of WYPR-FM in Baltimore, CPB’s Inspector General reported March 20 that the station violated the terms of its annual CPB grant and several policies required by Communications Act of 1934. The station, which angered local listeners with the January 2008 firing of longtime host Mark Steiner, did not maintain a functioning community advisory board, nor did it comply with open records requirements for financial records or EEO statistics, the IG’s auditors concluded. They also found that WYPR didn’t properly document how it spent its CPB grant. The report was lauded by station critics who mounted the campaign to “Bring Back Mark Steiner,” but WYPR President Anthony Brandon challenged the IG’s assertion that it didn’t have a functioning CAB.

Independent Television Service and PBS are jointly launching the Independent Digital Distribution Lab to explore revenue-generating partnership models for indie filmmakers and pubTV, according to an ITVS statement. Nearly 50 works will be distributed over the next six months through download-to-own and ad-based video sites. The initiative is part of ongoing efforts at PBS and ITVS to expand distribution to broadband audiences.

PubTV WLIW21 on Long Island has issued an apology to several Polish organizations regarding a an item in its current program guide, reports the Canada Free Press. The station apologized to the Polish American Congress, the Kosciuszko Foundation and the Polish Consulate for describing the Auschwitz concentration camp that Hitler’s SS operated in German-occupied Poland as “Polish” instead of German. The program in question, “Swimming in Auschwitz,” is being broadcast “as part of WLIW21’s special programming in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day throughout April as a way of acknowledging all the victims of Nazi actions,” the statement added.

When NPR’s Tovia Smith reported on March 24 about her network’s record-setting audience growth, the coverage made “a few folks inside NPR” uncomfortable,” reports Ombudsman Alicia Shepard in her latest column. Smith filed stories for NPR newscasts and for All Things Considered about dramatic growth of NPR’s audience last fall, and she included details about NPR’s recent financial troubles. To some NPR insiders it “sounded like an appeal for money,” especially as it aired while some stations were running pledge drives, Shepard wrote. NPR Managing Editor Brian Duffy explained the assignment in an email: “My thinking was that NPR does a very good job of being transparent about the bad news–layoffs, cutting shows,” he wrote.

There ARE other smartphones capable of running apps besides the iPhone. Last week BlackBerry launched BlackBerry App World (you have to use Microsoft’s browser for access), It offers Pandora, Clear Channel and Slacker audio players, AOL and Yahoo instant messengers, a New York Times shortcut, MySpace and Bloomberg apps. (BlackBerry’s maker, RIM, gets a 20 percent cut of every app sale, and cell companies want a cut, too, according to MoCoNews.) Palm is inviting developers to write apps for its new smartphone operating system. The Pocket Tunes online radio player, recommended by satisifed listener Izzy Smith, is now offered for earlier Palm and Windows Mobile smartphones as well as iPhones.

The Pacifica Radio board is moving to “secure our broadcast signals should we need to prevent legal liability,” according to a statement late last week. The precautionary measures will be taken at all Pacifica five stations under advice of counsel. New York’s WBAI owes the Pacifica Foundation at least $800,000. It’s been operating at a deficit of at least $30,000 per month. Fundraising has declined about 12 percent per year since 2003. Unpaid rent for the office and transmitter facility is nearly $198,000. “Pacifica no longer has the reserves to underwrite WBAI’s continuing deficits,” the statement says. Pacifica’s interim CFO, LaVarn Williams, is traveling to WBAI assess the situation.

“Doctors’ Diaries,” the 21-year doc project concluding tomorrow on Nova, draws rave reviews from Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik. He writes: “The editing is superb in its fluidity. In fact, I do not believe I have ever seen a PBS documentary that was more perfectly edited. As a viewer, you feel like you are skating along on a perfect sheet of words and imagery, and then, boom, suddenly [producer-director Michael] Barnes stops you in your tracks to make a major point about the price that must be paid to join the medical priesthood.” The project follows seven Harvard Medical School students, beginning in 1987, through their education, internships, professional careers and personal lives.