The first phase of Public Radio Makers Quest 2.0, a CPB-backed grant program for audio-centric experiments with new media, is off and running. The Association of Independents in Radio, which is managing the program, began accepting nominations for potential grantees last week and named members of the talent committee that will decide which of the nominated producers move on to the proposal-writing phase. The nomination deadline is Oct. 31.

In a posting on The Daily Beast, the new website from former New Yorker editor Tina Brown, Scott Horton wonders whether PBS’s decision not to air the documentary Torturing Democracy (by Sherry Jones) is connected to the Bush Administration’s propositions to slash PBS funding. More than half of pubTV stations are airing the doc independently tomorrow night because “PBS would not run the show–at least not until President Bush has left office,” says Horton, who writes on legal and national security affairs for Harper’s Magazine. The doc, which digs deep into the administration’s torture policies, “was completed and circulated to PBS decision makers on schedule in May of this year.

Thoughtcast explores ideas for reinventing public radio for a more diverse audience in this piece, reported by host Jenny Attiyeh at last month’s PRPD conference.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer interviews John Hockenberry about his new morning drive-time series The Takeaway, now airing on KXOT in Tacoma and KSER in Everett. The live, conversational approach of the PRI-distributed show “allows us to take advantage of the instantaneousness of information sources,” Hockenberry says, yet it comes with its own set of challenges. “The work is remaining vigilant to how quickly things are changing in a news environment . . . .There’s no such thing as a line-up in our show. We sort of understand what we’re doing 20 minutes ahead.”

Prairie Home Companion‘s Garrison Keillor dissects the righteous reform message of the Republican presidential ticket for Salon. Here’s a snippet: “In school, you couldn’t get away with that garbage because the taxpayers know that if we don’t uphold scholastic standards, we will wind up driving on badly designed bridges and go in for a tonsillectomy and come out missing our left lung, so we flunk the losers lest they gain power and hurt us, but in politics we bring forth phonies and love them to death.”

Mark Erstling, currently the acting president of APTS, has been named senior v.p. of system development and media strategy at CPB. In his new position, Erstling will “oversee all of CPB’s activities related to public television and related digital media platforms except for content,” according to a release. Since 2001, Erstling has served as executive v.p. and COO of APTS, where he manages deployment of the Digital Emergency Alert System for the Department of Homeland Security and heads up development of the American Archive for public broadcasting. He has also led APTS efforts to educate consumers about the digital transition.

“She sounded unlike anyone else on the radio . . . which is what you want,” says This American Life‘s Ira Glass in this Washington Post profile of Sarah Vowell. The TAL contributor and author appeared on the Daily Show last night and will be in D.C. tomorrow to promote her latest book, The Wordy Shipmates, in which she explores and explains America’s Puritan heritage. The unruly English colonists of the the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose writings and quarrels are the focus of her book, are “my ideal of America,” she says in the Post.

Sarah Lutman is leaving Minnesota Public Radio to become president of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Lutman, who currently serves on SPCO’s board, has been senior v.p. of content for MPR and American Public Media since 2004.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago Public Radio will get a $1 million grant over three years from the MacArthur Foundation in support of :Vocalo, its radio-web hybrid angling for a more ethnically diverse audience. (Earlier article in Current about :Vocalo.)

Democratic senators may have ended, perhaps temporarily, Republican member Cheryl Halpern‘s stint on the CPB Board. The Senate yesterday confirmed the three new White House nominees to the board and one reappointment, retired Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.). They were confirmed unanimously by the Senate Commerce Committee, and Senate leaders put them in a large package of generally noncontroversial unanimous-consent items put forth for quick passage yesterday as Congress moves toward adjournment, says a committee source. But Halpern, successor of ex-Chair Ken Tomlinson, got two nay votes along with 18 thumbs up–from committee Chair Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) and a senior member, Byron Dorgan (N.D.)–and

KCTS-TV in Seattle has hired Maurice “Moss” Bresnahan as its president, according to South Carolina’s TheState.com. Bresnahan has served as president of South Carolina’s ETV for seven years. At KCTS, he will replace Bill Mohler, who has led the station since 2003.

Nearly a million more viewers tuned in for PBS’s broadcast of the vice-presidential debate last night than watched the first presidential debate last week, reports Broadcasting & Cable. According to Nielsen, 3.5 million viewers on average tuned in for the debate and the coverage that followed.

The media’s “subdued response” to the arrests of working journalists during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul sends the message that “we don’t care all that much when our watchdog role is threatened,” writes Adam Reilly in the Boston Phoenix. Scant coverage by mainstream news media was partly due to the “Goodman effect,” he writes, referring to the arrest and detention of Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman. The video of Goodman’s arrest quickly made her “a cause célèbre on the left,” and may have deterred by major news organizations from pursuing the story, he reports. Reilly’s story, which includes a video of his interview with Goodman and her producer Nicole Salazar, is here.

Robert Heck was reappointed to a three-year term on Baltimore’s school board, the city’s Sun newspaper reports. Heck hosts Bob the Vid Tech, a children’s show on Maryland Public Television.

At the Huffington Post, Judy Muller writes that moderator Gwen Ifill ought to have taken Sarah Palin to task during last night’s debate by pushing her to answer questions more directly. “… [F]or whatever reason, the debate got away from her and Palin got away with passing off folksy platitudes as substitutes for substance,” Muller writes. Meanwhile, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler uses his column to address the controversy surrounding Ifill and her upcoming book about race and politics, which prompted some criticism that the moderator favors Barack Obama. Ifill and the Commission on Presidential Debates should have publicly discussed the book earlier, “in plenty of time to be discussed and explained, to have potential public perceptions considered, and to be checked with the candidates,” Getler writes.