Current (https://current.org/page/652/)
Defunding CPB would devastate smaller stations, particularly those reliant on critical systems like the Public Radio Satellite System, the Emergency Alert System and SoundExchange agreements.
You can donate to support public media colleagues who are recovering from the devastation of L.A.’s wildfires.
The longtime NPR announcer and current co-host/judge for NPR’s Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! is a native of Goldsboro, N.C., who began his radio career in Goldsboro. As a student, he helped found WUNC at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Association of Independents in Radio will launch a metasite April 22 that combines its 10 Localore multimedia projects on a single interactive platform, showcasing the results of a yearlong production to develop broadcast and web content in cities across the United States. The website uses a map of the country to direct users to content that public media audiences first discovered on local stations. Designer Drew Schorno chose the map “as a way of representing the U.S. experience” of Localore, he said. A half-hour documentary, This Is Localore, will accompany the launch of the metasite, which will be unveiled during an April 22 event at the Brattle Theater in Boston. Producers from each of the Localore projects will join Sue Schardt, AIR executive director, and Noland Walker, Localore executive editor, in a Q&A session moderated by PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan.
President Obama released his fiscal 2014 federal budget proposal April 10, and recommended $445 million in two-year advance funding for CPB. This is a level amount compared to previous federal funding levels for CPB.
Howard “Howie” Klein, a volunteer for 29 years at Vermont Public Radio, died March 6 from natural causes. He was 85.
Upstart television streamer Aereo “quite possibly” could bring down broadcast television, according to Fortune magazine. The service, which sells subscription access to broadcast signals via the Internet, has prompted Fox and Spanish-language Univision to actually consider going to an all-cable format. So far the other networks, including PBS, continue their legal fight to put Aereo out of business. And complicating all this is the emergence of a similar service, Aereokiller, which is waging its own legal battle — and that could end up before the Supreme Court.
The mass shootings last year in Colorado, Wisconsin and Connecticut reawakened Americans to recurring tragedies of gun violence and rekindled a national debate about gun control — one that public radio and television have chronicled and analyzed through ongoing programs and the package of special broadcasts that aired on PBS last month.
CPB is granting nearly $2 million to WGBH in Boston to expand middle-school math content available through PBS LearningMedia, pubcasting’s free online resource for educators. WGBH, with producing partners WNET in New York City, KET in Lexington, Ky., and KQED in San Francisco, will oversee development of more than 400 new digital resources. Contributing assets will be pubTV stations KUEN in Ogden, Utah; Maryland Public Television in Owings Mills; Alabama Public Television in Birmingham; KAET in Phoenix, Ariz.; KCPT in Kansas City, Mo.; and the National Minority Consortia. Resources will focus on addressing diversity and equity issues from multiple angles, CPB said in the announcement today, noting that many educators feel that digital approaches to teaching math are more effective than traditional techniques, particularly among students from diverse or minority backgrounds.
Public radio’s American Routes is celebrating its 15th anniversary on the air with a dance and concert in New Orleans and a discount for stations adding the show. The April 19 concert at the New Orleans Rock ‘n’ Bowl will feature the Treme Brass Band, the Lost Bayou Ramblers, Irma Thomas, Ivan Neville and other luminaries of the Louisiana and New Orleans music scenes. Sponsored by WWNO-FM in New Orleans, the fundraiser for the music program will be recorded and distributed to stations for broadcast during the week of July 4. Hosted by folklorist and anthropology professor Nick Spitzer, American Routes airs on 260 stations. It has faced challenges to maintain steady carriage as more stations adopt news/talk formats and has “won and lost” some battles in that effort, Spitzer told Current in an email.
Veteran pubcaster Mary Pruess, who resigned her position as president and general manager of WNIT-TV in South Bend, Ind., in October 2012, takes over April 22 as director of WQPT-Quad Cities Public Television in Moline, Ill. “Mary’s expertise in public broadcasting and community outreach will further enhance WQPT’s outstanding level of service to the region,” said Joe Rives, vice president for Quad Cities and planning at Western Illinois University. Pruess spent a decade at WNIT, from 2002-2012. Previously, she served in several managerial positions at WHRO-TV in Norfolk, Va.; was deputy director of TRAC Media Services in Tucson; c.e.o. of the Public Television Programmers Association; program manager at KHUT-TV in Houston; and held various posts at KAET-TV in Phoenix. She replaces Rick Best, who retired in June 2012.
ImageMakers, the indie film showcase curated by San Francisco’s KQED TV, will debut the Oscar-winning film Curfew, May 12. Every year, KQED Program Director Scott Dwyer makes the film festival rounds and screens over 2,000 productions to curate a new season of ImageMakers, a series featuring short independent films from around the world. He rushed to buy broadcast rights to Shawn Christensen’s Curfew in January 2012, as soon as he watched it and well before the drama started gaining recognition. “In order to compete with places like Starz, Sundance Channel and HBO, I have to buy them really fast, before they start to win awards,” said Dwyer, whose film festival circuit includes the Aspen Shortsfest and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Dwyer, series creator and producer, conceived of ImageMakers in the late 1990s, when he realized that Masterpiece Theater was the only regular drama on PBS.