More than 400 items from the offices and studios of WNET/Thirteen in New York are being auctioned off Aug. 3. The station soon will move to new digs but doesn’t yet know where, according to Crain’s New York Business. It’s sub-leasing to Gay Men’s Health Crisis starting in October.

WVIA-FM 89.9 in Pittston, Pa., will return to the air Aug. 3 after a $2 million fire five months ago completely destroyed its transmission facilities, the station said in a statement today (July 29). The fire began while electricians who were working on the building on Penobscot Mountain accidentally set the ceiling ablaze. Many listeners have been affected, the statement says, “from difficulty with a signal that is spotty and barely satisfactory, to the complete absence of WVIA-FM in several areas that once received it.” The station has been operating out of a trailer next to the site.

For the first time, fans can watch individual episodes of Sesame Street‘s international productions via Amazon Video On Demand. Included are co-productions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Northern Ireland, India and Egypt, the Sesame Workshop said in a statement July 29. (Image: Sesame Workshop)

Indie pubcasting network MHz is partnering with IDMAonline on a new website that offers a “social learning network specifically for the digital media industry,” the two announced in a statement Monday (July 26). Site members have access to the Commons, to meet with colleagues and ask and answer questions. What makes the site unique, the two said in the statement, is the “live online” professional training in the digital media arts: multimedia, filmmaking, animation and photography. There are full certificate programs and mentorship initiatives where students can focus on a specific topic. MHz Worldview, MHz Networks’ flagship channel, brings international programs to audiences though cable, satellite and online affiliates.

CPB Ombudsman Ken Bode faults PBS NewsHour‘s Jim Lehrer for “an opportunity lost and a lesson in what can happen when an interview is constructed on the basis of pre-conceived notions.” In Bode’s latest report, he’s reacting to a viewer’s complaints that Lehrer “has increasingly lost his impartiality,” particularly in an interview with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “It seemed designed to build a narrative that President Obama has slow political reflexes and is disengaged from key decisions of his administration,” Bode said of the July 7 interview. “Mr. Emanuel convinced this viewer otherwise.”

At an all-station meeting in Los Angeles Tuesday (July 27), KCET staffers were told that 13 employees are being laid off. Cuts come from across several departments, and at least one vice president is affected. In June 2009, KCET cut 12 full-time and part-time staffers and announced furloughs and pay cuts. The station also dropped its 45-year-old program guide that month, citing financial reasons.

Two of the local journalism centers backed by CPB in April are up and running. “Changing Gears,” helmed by New York Times veteran Micheline “Micki” Maynard, has launched its website and a blog pointing readers to coverage from the three partner stations, Chicago’s WBEZ, Michigan Radio, and Cleveland’s ideastream. HealthyState.org, a collaboration of five public stations in central Florida, has hired Jennifer Molina to lead its editorial team. Launch plans for additional LJCs are still pending; Fronteras, the largest collaboration to be announced so far, is recruiting a social media editor for its project covering immigration and border issues in the Southwest.

PBS is moving ahead with its national online giving campaign, a topic of much conversation within the system (Current, June 7, 2010). The working group recently met for preliminary talks. Station reps include Tim Olson, veep of digital media and education at KQED; Kelly McCullough, g.m. at Eight/Arizona PBS; Joe Krushinsky, veep of institutional advancement at MPT; Ken Yanhs, director of WGBH Online; Michal Heiplik, director of membership at Houston PBS; Shane Guiter, KLRU’s director of development in Austin, Texas; Robert Altman, president of WMHT in Troy, N.Y., with David Preston, Twin Cities Public TV membership manager, speaking for the Development Advisory Council.

Take a look at Democracy Now’s new studio/offices in lower Manhattan, the first broadcast facility to receive LEED Platinum rating for low adverse environmental impact ­– low energy and water usage, high levels of recycled materials, and the rest, says a report in the July/August architecture mag Metropolis. Extra care in design and construction, such as using sheetrock that’s not only recycled but locally made, helped the handsome, not-too-lush renovation of a former printing plant win the top rating from the U.S. Green Building Council (study up). Co-hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez guest-star in the slideshow.

An accountability journalism project announced last week by J-Lab will back in-depth reporting and collaborations among news organizations in the Philadelphia region. The Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund is seeking proposals for enterprise, investigative, explanatory or computer-assisted reporting projects that enhance public understanding of important city or regional issues, engage in developing solutions or reveal new information. Collaboration–among news creators or between journalists and programmers, for example–is a key focus of the project. “This experimental pilot is intended to demonstrate the power and potential for increased civic accountability when strong, professional public affairs news operations are given incentives and resources to work together in the public interest,” said Shawn McCaney, program officer with the William Penn Foundation, which created the Fund.

The struggling New Jersey Network should turn into a public corporation, sell off several of its licenses and use that money to become a private community nonprofit. That would “turn it from an outdated television network into a model for multiplatform public media that fits the conditions of the twenty-first century.” So says Princeton Prof. Paul Starr in “A Future for Public Media in New Jersey: How to Create a New Basis for Public Radio, TV, and Online Media in One of American Journalism’s Worst Covered States.” The Trenton-based think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective released the paper today (July 27) as statehouse discussions over the future of NJN continue (Current, July 6, 2010).

Sesame Workshop is welcoming a new Muppet to the family at Sesame Square in Nigeria. On Monday (July 26) Zobi made his public appearance – the first Muppet to be named via a mobile phone vote, with callers from around the country. Sesame Square launches later this year in Nigeria. It will be hosted by Kami, an HIV-positive girl Muppet, and Zobi, a furry blue boy Muppet. In a statement from the Workshop, Zobi said: “I’m so excited about telling all of you all about my favorite things – and especially about my obsession with yams! Isn’t everyone obsessed with yams?”

Pubcasters on Maryland’s Delmarva Peninsula are not rolling out the welcome wagon for their newest neighbor, WRAU 88.3 in Ocean City, a station simulcasting NPR News and talk programming from WAMU in Washington, D.C. The region now has five public radio stations broadcasting NPR News shows, reports the Delmarva Daily Times, including a signal from Baltimore’s WYPR broadcasting on 106.9 FM. “If WAMU were to bring a different format, we’d welcome it with open arms,” says Gerry Weston, g.m. of Public Radio Delmarva. “Those stations [WRAU and Baltimore’s WYPO] have resources in big cities and they are deciding to come down here.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that on Nov. 3, Princeton University is ending its University Channel, which provides academic programming to schools and 121 pubTV stations. A statement from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs said the cancellation was due to financial reasons. The online audio and video service began in 2005 and supplies lectures by scholars on political affairs from 47 colleges both here and overseas. ” … We still believe that noncommercial, quality educational programming is an important part of the World Wide Web,” Wilson spokesperson Rebecca Anderson said in a statement. “Therefore, in the coming months, we will be pursuing options to ensure that many of the Woodrow Wilson School lectures and conferences are posted on our school’s Web site, and we hope that you will do the same at your institution.”

This Old House is looking for those new faces, according to the Hartford Courant. Yes, the perennial pubcasting fave is putting out a casting call for painters and electricians, particularly those in New England. Perhaps the show is bracing for the upcoming rebuilding efforts after the end of the world. Yes, tucked between stories on its home page including “How to Install a Solar Attic Fan” and “Lawn-Less Yard Solutions,” is this terrifying headline: “10 U.S. Cities That Could Disappear Tomorrow.” Egad. “We’re not talking about a couple of feet of water in your basement or a tree down in the yard,” it says.