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Project Core: A vision for scale and growth

Over the past three years, CentralCast has been hard at work implementing critical upgrades that lay the foundation for a more resilient and advanced future. And now, the culmination of these efforts is taking shape in our most ambitious initiative yet: Project Core.

People

Seidel, Malesky and Carvin taking NPR buyouts, will exit by year’s end

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NPR news executive Stu Seidel and librarian Kee Malesky have accepted buyout offers from NPR, and social media strategist Andy Carvin has told Current that he plans to take the buyout as well. The employees will leave NPR at the end of the year. Seidel is the network’s managing editor for standards and practices. He worked for NPR as a freelance editor from 1996-98, then joined in December 1999 as senior editor of Weekend Edition Sunday after a year with Marketplace, where he was senior editor. He later worked as deputy managing editor for news.

Programs/Content

Revised CPB policy could lead to ‘significant’ penalties for noncompliance

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As more local pubcasters fall out of compliance with CPB’s rules for transparency and open meetings, they put themselves at risk of new financial penalties from the corporation’s Inspector General. Under a policy that took effect early this year, the IG has more flexibility to recommend fines for station grantees that don’t meet CPB’s standards for releasing financial records, for example, or for providing adequate notice of board meetings. One station — Lakeshore Public Media of northwest Indiana — has already been fined $5,000 because it failed to document announcements of public meetings. Many other stations are vulnerable to such penalties, according to CPB officials, who have been advising local pubcasters about problems with compliance during appearances at public media conferences. According to data compiled by CPB, more than half of its radio and television grantees didn’t provide timely notices of public meetings in 2013 and 43 percent did not release their financial records.

Programs/Content

Historic folk-song collection inspires film, live broadcast on Mountain Lake PBS

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Mountain Lake PBS will air a special live broadcast Dec. 6 to introduce the public to a rare collection of folk songs from the Adirondacks. The Plattsburgh, N.Y., pubcaster and TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) are partnering on the presentation, Songs to Keep: Treasures of an Adirondack Folk Collector, inspired by the Marjorie L. Porter Collection of North Country Folklore at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Porter, a local historian and newspaper columnist, dedicated her life to preserving the tunes. Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, she traveled the state interviewing and recording musicians and singers and collecting songs, transcripts and writings.

Quick Takes

More than $1 million in grants goes to KET for early-childhood online learning resources

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Kentucky Educational Television’s Everyday Learning Collaborative today received more than $1.14 million in grants from the Louisville-based James Graham Brown Foundation and the national PNC Foundation. The new partnership among KET, the National Center for Families Learning and Metro United Way will provide resources for early childhood educators and families throughout the state, with a special focus on low-income children. The Brown Foundation’s grant of $818,775 is the second-largest private gift in KET’s history. As part of its Grow Up Great initiative, the PNC Foundation invested an additional $325,000. PNC had provided $150,000 in 2010 that helped launch KET’s Everyday Science for Preschoolers prototype.

Programs/Content

Film revisits Freedom Summer for a new generation

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Freedom Summer, a documentary directed by Stanley Nelson, recounts the turbulent 10-week period, focusing on efforts by the Council of Federated Organizations and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to enfranchise the segregated state’s black population.

People

OETA Foundation selects WPBT’s Jackson as next president

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Daphne Dowdy Jackson, v.p. of development and marketing at WPBT in Miami, moves in January to assume leadership of the OETA Foundation, the fundraising arm of OETA-The Oklahoma Network in Oklahoma City. The appointment was announced today by James Cook, chair of the OETA Foundation Board. Jackson will replace President Robert Allen, who retires at the end of December. At WPBT, Jackson oversees renewals, direct mail, additional gifts, telemarketing, sustainers, viewer services, on-air fundraising, major gifts, planned giving, grants and marketing. Jackson’s department raises about $9 million annually.

Quick Takes

Brendsel, PBS product development v.p., following Seiken to Telegraph Media

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PBS just lost another executive to Telegraph Media Group. Jon Brendsel, currently v.p. of product development, will join former PBS digital head Jason Seiken at the London-based TMG in January. Brendsel will be group chief information officer, reports The Drum, a British-based marketing and media website. Brendsel has been at PBS since 2008. His past experience includes six years as senior technical director for America Online.