Gary Knell, president of Sesame Workshop, will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday at a hearing examining the Children’s TV Act, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The 1990 Act established a three-hour weekly minimum of educational and information children’s programming, and addressed advertising limits in the shows. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will head the proceedings in his first appearance on the Hill in his new post.

Young@Heart, the award-winning 2007 documentary about a spunky chorus of hip senior citizens, will have its television premiere during the fall/winter 2009 season of Independent Lens on PBS. The critically acclaimed film takes viewers inside seven weeks of rehearsals with the members of the Young@Heart Chorus of retirees as they prepare for a concert in their hometown of Northampton, Mass.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard professor and longtime PBS doc producer, was arrested last Thursday trying to force open the locked front door of his home, according to The Associated Press. Cambridge, Mass., police were called that afternoon after a woman reported seeing a man trying to pry the door open. The police report states an officer asked Gates to identify himself and Gates refused, called the officer a racist and said repeatedly, “This is what happens to black men in America.” According to the police report, the 58-year-old professor told officers, “You don’t know who you’re messing with.” An Associated Press followup, which includes Gates’ booking mugshot, added details of allegations that the arrest is part of a pattern of racial profiling in the city.

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler’s column today focuses on journalistic credibility, citing both the Washington Post’s recent lapse on “pay for access” salons, as well as a recent Bill Moyers Journal episode on health care. One guest on that show was Wendell Potter, senior fellow with the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which had funded CMD as recently as 2006. The column includes two lengthy replies from Moyers.

From 2001 to 2005, newsman Walter Cronkite, who died last week, contributed occasional essays to NPR. Now listeners can hear those once again on an NPR tribute page featuring the pieces.

American Public Media’s Marketplace should dump Monsanto sponsorship, writes blogger Delores M. Bernal on News Junkie Post. Bernal contends the firm produces and sells “dangerous poisonous chemicals” and allowing Monsanto to underwrite the popular news show “is irresponsible and it goes totally against what the purpose of listener-supported radio is all about!” She’s calling on listeners to contact APM to demand it “put the interest of readers first.”

With backing from CPB, Radio Bilingüe is beginning to develop and test programming for a new multiplatform public media outlet to launch in Los Angeles next year, though the project still has not nailed down a radio frequency.

WHRO, a dual-licensee in Norfolk, Va., covering the Hampton Roads area, is opening a satellite studio in Williamsburg. The studio, in operation on Aug. 3, will cost more than $1 million for equipment, licensing fees and repeaters. The two-story building has a small studio, a conference room for community groups, and office space.

Austin City Limits is a hot commodity based on a cool brand built over 33 years on PBS. In two years it moves its entire production site downtown in the Texas capital city to a cornerstone 2,500-seat theater in a $300 million redevelopment.

NPR is working on three or four web audio players for different brands of smartphones. And the company behind the Public Radio Bookmark gadget is positioning its new iPhone player as the one that puts stations first.

Jim Lehrer will interview President Barack Obama Monday afternoon at the White House, according to NewsHour. Their conversation, touching on healthcare reform, the economy and the war in Afghanistan, will be seen on that evening’s show.

KUNC in Greeley, Colo., is dealing with “an unauthorized, local signal that has been sending out brief, spurious signals” and disrupting the NPR member’s Denver transmission, according to a letter to annoyed listeners from g.m. Neil Best. Station engineers continue to search for the source; meanwhile, the station is switching to satellite delivery service.

Former NPR science editor David Malakoff, who pleaded guilty in March to a felony child pornography possession charge, will not go to prison, a U.S. District Court judge decided Thursday. Instead, Judge Ellen Huvelle sentenced him to five years’ probation, 600 hours of community service and registration as a sex offender for 25 years. Evidence was found that he had illicit materials on his NPR computer between April and June of 2008; he resigned from NPR that June. Malakoff said he was raped as a boy and was attempting to relive the experience. Huvelle also ordered Malakoff to write a letter to the subject of one of the pornographic videos that showed a young girl being raped by her father.

Public broadcasters scored 26 nods in primetime Emmys announced today, including American Masters and American Experience competing for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. New theme music by John Williams for Great Performances, which debuted March 25, also is on the list for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music. Entire list is here (PDF).

A report to WTTW’s board of trustees and staff in Chicago revealed that the three pledge drives during the fiscal year ending June 30 were 11 percent below what had been budgeted, according to Chicago Sun-Times media and marketing columnist Lewis Lazare.