Nice Above Fold - Page 409

  • NPR will cancel 'Tell Me More', eliminate 28 jobs to balance budget

    An updated version of this article was posted May 28. NPR announced today that it will cancel Tell Me More, its weekday midday show with an emphasis on news and issues relating to people of color, effective Aug. 1. The network will also eliminate 28 jobs in its newsroom and library, eight of which are currently unfilled. “Today we are announcing changes in the newsroom to ensure we remain a leader in a dynamic and intensely competitive news environment, while living within NPR’s budget,” said Margaret Low Smith, NPR’s senior v.p. for news, in a memo to staff. Smith said the restructuring aims in part to meet a mandate for NPR to balance its budget by fiscal year 2015.
  • Show asking The Really Big Questions brings Dean Olsher back to radio

    Most people don’t take time to discuss what makes us human, but this public radio show wants listeners to stop and think.
  • With help from WFMT, complete archives of Studs Terkel find new life online

    The WFMT Radio Network is preparing to release the complete digitized radio archives of Pulitzer Prize–winning oral historian Studs Terkel online by early 2015.
  • Tuesday roundup: TPR volunteer invents story to meet Greene; NPR compiles commencement speeches

    Plus: The New York Times profiles Sandra Tsing Loh, and public media still matter to the director of the Peabody Awards.
  • Milwaukee pubcasters go deep on problem of imprisonment of black males

    A community forum in Milwaukee Tuesday will cap a seven-month reporting project by two of the city's public broadcasters on their county’s astronomically high rate of incarceration among black males.
  • PBS's live-action Odd Squad aims to ‘make math relevant’ for kids

    PBS Kids will expand the footprint of its math-focused programs with Odd Squad, a live-action TV series for school-aged children. The new show, which follows the fall 2013 debut of Peg + Cat, a preschool series presenting math concepts, will debut Nov. 26. Creators Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman, who previously collaborated as television writers on another PBS Kids series for school-aged children, The Electric Company, are producing Odd Squad through Toronto-based Sinking Ship Entertainment and the Fred Rogers Company (which also produces Peg + Cat and Daniel Tigers Neighborhood for PBS). Odd Squad stars sleuths Olive and Otto, members of a detective agency who use math concepts to solve unusual mysteries around their town.
  • To follow paths charted by Localore, consider these ‘new realities’

    The second of two commentaries adapted from the Association of Independents in Radio’s recent report on Localore.
  • Monday roundup: Idaho PTV's strange debate, overstated "emergency" in CPBN fundraising email

    Plus: The University of Missouri's j-school welcomes "institutional fellows," and Bill Buzenberg steps down from the Center for Public Integrity.
  • Damaged transmitter delays license renewal for Houston's KPFT

    Houston Pacifica station KPFT-FM is preparing to ask the FCC for a third extension on its license renewal, a delay resulting from transmitter damage caused by a lightning strike two years ago. The station, part of the financially troubled Pacifica network, has been struggling to raise funds to replace the transmitter. It has operated at half power since March 2012 and is pursuing its third Special Temporary Authority from the FCC. By failing to operate at full power for so long, the station puts itself at risk of  FCC fines. KPFT General Manager Duane Bradley said the internal divisions plaguing Pacifica aren’t helping.