Development

APTS restructures to support strategic goals for state-level advocacy, public service

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The Association of Public Television Stations has restructured its staff to align with recently adopted strategic goals, including efforts to promote best practices, increase state and federal funding and support advocacy for the system at large. Two key staffers are stepping up to manage the expanding workload. Kate Riley, director of government relations, has been promoted to v.p., government and public affairs; she will focus on advocacy and state and federal funding. Emil Mara, v.p. for finance and administration, will direct member services. The reorganization follows through on a strategic plan adopted by the APTS board of trustees in November, according to Pat Butler, president.

People

SABEW honors biz news, Michiganers land MAB awards, and more recognition for pubcasters

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SOCIETY OF AMERICAN BUSINESS EDITORS AND WRITERS
Pubcasters honored with SABEW Best in Business awards. NPR’s coverage of the “Health Care Website Launch” was named best radio/TV segment or interview, citing reporter Elise Hu and editors Uri Berliner and Neal Carruth. NPR’s Planet Money won in the innovation category for its episode “Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt.” WAMU 88.5 News’s Patrick Madden, Julie Patel and Meymo Lyons won for best radio/TV or investigative report for “Deals for Developers.” “Lots of ground covered, great interviews with lots of players and lots of tough questions asked,” said SABEW. “This is local accountability journalism at its best.”

ProPublica received three awards in the digital arena. ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger won for digital commentary for “The Trade,” which addressed the banking and financial industries; T. Christian Miller and Jeff Gerth were cited in the digital explanatory division for “Overdose,” a series investigating the dangers of acetaminophen; and A.C. Thompson and Jonathan Jones won for the digital feature “Assisted Living.”

The digital investigative prize went to Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity for “Breathless and Burdened: Dying from Black Lung, Buried by Law and Medicine.” (“Breathless and Burdened” also won the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting presented by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government for CPI’s Hamby, Ronnie Greene, Jim Morris and Chris Zubak-Skees plus Matthew Mosk, Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz of ABC News; it was presented March 5 in Boston.)

The 19th annual BiB awards will be presented March 29 at the SABEW conference in Phoenix.

Quick Takes

APTS chief rebuts FCC chairman on technical limits of channel-sharing

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In an exchange with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, public television’s top lobbyist sought to dial back expectations for channel-sharing pilot tests involving KLCS-TV in Los Angeles. Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, responded to a blog post in which Wheeler enthusiastically described the experiment as mapping a “future” of broadcasting in which TV stations use “50 percent less bandwidth to produce a picture with increased quality of up to 300 percent.” “We appreciate Chairman Wheeler’s enthusiasm about the channel-sharing pilot in Los Angeles, and we were honored to have him visit public television station KLCS, where the pilot is being conducted,” Butler wrote in a Feb. 12 statement issued by APTS. “But we should be clear that this pilot is not intended to prove that all broadcasters can get by with half the spectrum they’re currently using.

System/Policy

APTS chief sees renewed battle over CPB aid

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APTS President Patrick Butler is warning public broadcasters of continued threats to their federal funding this summer as Congress takes up work on appropriations for the next federal budget. During an appearance at the Public Media Business Association conference this morning, Butler recalled a private meeting with a key House Republican from Georgia who opposes federal aid to CPB. Rep. Jack Kingston, chair of the House appropriations subcommittee with oversight over CPB, told Butler that he plans to zero-out CPB funding. “He told me point blank, in January, that he was going to do everything he could to eliminate our funding,” Butler said during a PMBA breakfast meeting at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. Public TV’s top lobbyist expects Kingston to introduce the bill in June. “I’m sure there will be a big zero in his bill for public broadcasting,” he said.

Programs/Content

New talking point on Capitol Hill: PubTV’s role in education

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Public television’s strongest case for preserving tax-based support for stations and CPB centers on informing political leaders about the full range of public-service work that stations deliver to local communities, particularly in the field of education, according to the field’s lead advocates in Washington, D.C.

People

West Virginia’s Bob Wise receives Thought Leader Award

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Former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise was honored for his work supporting public media’s educational service. Wise is president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a partner in CPB’s ongoing American Graduate project to reduce the drop-out rate among high school students. He also chairs the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Gov. Wise spent 10 years in the U.S. House before serving as West Virginia’s governor from 2001 to 2005. The CPB Thought Leader Award honors U.S. leaders who help pubcasters serve the public in the areas of education, journalism and the arts.

People

APTS recognizes Barbara Mikulksi and Greg Walden, gives innovation and advocacy awards

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The Association of Public Television Stations handed out Champions of Public Broadcasting awards during its Public Media Summit in Washington, D.C., Feb 24–26, recognizing Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) and Oregon Rep. Greg Walden (R). APTS also gave EDGE Awards to Twin Cities Public Television and New Jersey’s NJTV and recognized individuals with Advocacy Awards. Mikulski, who replaced recently deceased Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has been an ardent defender of public broadcasting in the Senate and was a vocal defender of the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program before it was eliminated in 2011. As chair of the House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and the Internet, Walden has helped secure federal aid for public broadcasters to help defer costs related to spectrum legislation. As he accepted his award, he told summit attendees that increased competition from cable and digital channels has made public TV less relevant to television viewers, and he suggested that public broadcasters support cuts to government-entitlement programs in order to salvage their own funding.

System/Policy

APTS congressional champion delivers ‘tough love’ to pubTV leaders

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A radio broadcaster-turned lawmaker who chairs a key House subcommittee with oversight of CPB delivered a pointed critique to public TV station execs about their prospects for preserving federal aid in the 113th Congress. During a Feb. 26 breakfast hosted by the Association of Public Television Stations at the Library of Congress, Oregon Rep. Greg Walden (R) warned a roomful of station executives that they face an uphill battle in rebuilding bipartisan support for the field. Republican views of public broadcasting are colored by negative baggage carried over from the 2010-11 political scandals over NPR, and the notion that increased competition from cable and digital channels has made public TV less relevant to television viewers, Walden said. The event, part of APTS’s annual Public Media Summit, celebrated Walden as a “Champion of Public Broadcasting,” and the lawmaker used the occasion to deliver what APTS President Patrick Butler later called “tough love.”

Walden referred to recommendations of a 2007 Government Accountability Office report on public TV’s financing to make his point.

Programs/Content

Putting more public service into public media at 2013 APTS Summit

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Representatives from four sectors of the public service community made a case for more partnerships with public television during the opening session of the Association of Public Television Stations’ 2013 Public Media Summit Feb. 24 in Arlington, Va. Jane Oates, assistant secretary of employment and training administration with the U.S. Department of Labor, was the most vocal of the panel as she urged public television to collaborate more with local and state government workforce-training programs as a way of sharing key information to the nation’s legions of unemployed workers. “Think how much better we could do if you joined with us. Everybody listens to you,” Oates said, pointing to the proven workforce-training success of Vegas PBS as an example of what other stations could accomplish.

System/Policy

Presidential sparring puts pubcasting in political bull’s-eye

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GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pledge to defund PBS, which he reiterated during the Oct. 3 televised presidential debate, set off a flurry of advocacy activity by pubcasters working at both the national and local levels. PBS had already spent several months developing its ValuePBS.org site, trumpeting the importance of public TV, and sped up its launch to the day after the debate. Stations sprung into action to alert their viewers and listeners, sending waves of them to the grassroots-advocacy 170 Million Americans website — which has since garnered 50,000 new fans. “Thousands of people are coming to our aid,” particularly on Twitter and Facebook, said Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations advocacy organization.