Some happy pubcasting news: HoustonPBS is the first pubTV station to locally sponsor the Scripps National Spelling Bee, after The Houston Chronicle discontinued its longtime sponsorship. The bee is the third largest in the country with more than 1,000 schools in 42 counties participating. HoustonPBS coordinates the 1,000 school champions into 37 playoff bees and runs the final bee — broadcast live. The first HoustonPBS spelling champ, Aditya Chemudupaty, advanced to the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee and missed the finals by just one word. He was eliminated May 28 in the sixth round of the semi-finals on ESPN (pictured).

Rough economic times have prompted WNED in Buffalo to schedule its first June pledge drive. Senior managers have already taken 7.5 percent cutbacks, staff salaries have been cut 5 percent and some jobs are unfilled. If this month’s drive doesn’t bring in more cash, WNED-TV President Don Boswell told The Buffalo News, the station may cut programs.

CPB’s Mark Erstling, a senior veep, said the struggling WSEC in Springfield, Ill., needs “to have a plan so we can change their trajectory so they can become sustainable.” Erstling told the local State Journal-Register that he and COO Vinnie Curren met with station managers in May in Springfield. “Our goal is to make sure no one loses public television service in America,” Erstling said. “We’re a funder for public television and radio stations, but there’s not a lot of discretionary funds for dealing with situations like this.” Jerold Gruebel, CEO of the PBS affiliate, on May 29 told The Hannibal Courier-Post in Missouri that CPB is trying to “dismantle” smaller PBS stations.

As of July 1, reporter Keri Brown will be West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Northern Panhandle bureau chief. It’s part of a unique relationship between the pubcaster and several colleges around the state. “We cover the whole state so we need reporters all around the state,” Dennis Adkins, network exec director, told Current. The reporters are paid by the schools to teach journalism courses, and report exclusively for the pubcaster. Brown will be based at Wheeling Jesuit University. Elsewhere, the reporter in Morgantown teaches at West Virginia University; Huntington, Marshall University; Bluefield, Concord University; and Martinsburg, Shepherd University.

“It’s important for journalists to treat whomever they are interviewing with respect — and to keep their opinions to themselves,” writes NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard in her latest column. But Adam Davidson, the lead correspondent for Planet Money, “did neither” when he interviewed Elizabeth Warren about her watchdog role for the Troubled Assets Relief program, Shepard concludes. Davidson’s May 6 interview with Warren, who chairs the congressional oversight panel of TARP, was “really cringeworth stuff,” the Columbia Journalism Review‘s Ryan Chittum wrote on May 14. In Shepard’s June 1 response to complaints about the piece, NPR News Chief Ellen Weiss says the interview was “unsuccessful from the start.”

Sometimes working at headquarters definitely has its perks. About 100 lucky PBS staffers turned out yesterday when singer Josh Groban stopped by Arlington, Va., while in town to tape WETA pledge breaks for his new special. He chatted with employees including Betty Hickey, who said she has every one of his CDs and has been a fan “since before he was a big star.” As he departed, according to one insider, Groban told the crowd, “I just want to thank you guys for all the great work you’re doing.” A round of applause followed him.

Michael Getler, PBS ombudsman, is updating his recent column investigating the background of an injured soldier, Army Sgt. Jose Pequeno, and his caregivers. They were honored in PBS’s popular National Memorial Day Concert on May 24. “In the aftermath of last week’s column,” Getler writes, “more letters arrived and some of them continued to describe a real-life situation that is even more tense and complicated than it appeared.”

Comcast in West Virginia has reached an agreement to make the state’s pubTV station available to customers there — but despite negotiations with Gov. Joe Manchin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the deal is little different from the original. Comcast will not put West Virginia PBS back on its basic and standard cable tiers, which Charleston station requested after receiving angry calls from listeners. Comcast’s compromise: It agreed to provide free digital converter boxes to customers for two years instead of one. Meanwhile, in Georgia, Comcast yesterday “clarified” the channel shift of WNGH, Georgia Public TV, in Chattanooga, Tenn.

It’s summertime, and that means the popular PBS broadcast of A Capitol Fourth is just around the corner. Word comes that longtime pop star Barry Manilow will open and close the show this year. Also appearing is Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin. Actor Jimmy Smits hosts.

Random House is releasing details of its partnership with PBS to develop The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, which premieres in fall of 2010. The project is just entering development, according to the Animation Insider website. PBS announced at Showcase last month that comedian Martin Short has signed on. The show will center on Sally and Nick, 6-year-old neighbors, and their adventures with the Cat in the Hat — and, yes, Thing One and Thing Two.

WSEC in Springfield, Ill., could not secure a $460,000 grant from CPB. Its CEO, Jerold Gruebel, said the station has lost $1 million due to the recession. He said the station needs $400,000 to make it through June and July. He added that WSEC could end up carrying only the national PBS program feed.

WQED Multimedia said today it has sold one of its creations that made it multi — the area’s biggest regional magazine, Pittsburgh magazine and its offspring City Guide, Home and Garden Magazine and Pittsburgh Weddings. The station will retain an eight-page “On Air” segment in the magazine, and it will still go to station members who donate $40 or more. WiesnerMedia, of Greenwood Village, Colo., is the buyer; it also publishes ColoradoBiz, Trucking Times and other titles, and plans to develop a regional media specialty. Terms of the deal were confidential. Publisher Betsy Benson will stay with the magazine.

Doing more than her share for public TV’s $6 million outreach project surrounding Ken Burns’ National Parks series, Shanda Roberts lost her shoe in the muck of the Everglades. Reaching to retrieve it, she bent down and hit her head on a tree. A public TV crew captured the disconcerting moment — which was lighthearted compared to the time they got her into a canoe. The Roberts family’s camping trip was a South Floridian element in the varied nationwide extravaganza surrounding the six-part Burns series, which debuts on PBS Sept. 27. The effort is one of public TV’s largest ever, even more extensive than for Burns’ World War II series two years ago.

Cars burn in downtown Nashville. Police patrol Boise after massive power outages, widespread looting and near-riots. Our intrepid video correspondent, Kal, rides through San Francisco, taping a team of out-of-work deliverymen who steal as many bicycles as they can fit in their van. “Some might say these guys are taking the easy way out,” Kal gravely tells viewers. “But I’ve got a feeling that if this crisis continues, we’re going to see a lot more of this kind of crime.” Scenes from the latest apocalyptic sci-fi flick? Not quite. The crisis in question, the source of all this mayhem, is a global oil shortage.

WXPN in Philadelphia will broadcast live from two music showcases during day two of nonCOMMvention, the annual conference for pubradio’s Triple A music stations. XPN Free at Noon, a weekly live concert series that is open to the general public, is a double-header of Guy Sebastian featuring Steve Cropper, followed by the Derek Trucks Band. Four acts are on the bill of tonight’s showcase: Rhett Miller, The Avett Brothers, Pete Yorn and Delta Spirit. Tune your browser to the live webcasts here.