Quick Takes

Thursday roundup: Flappy Bert takes to the air, WAMU host skis to work

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• Less than a week after the maker of the wildly popular mobile game Flappy Bird announced he would pull the plug on his creation, Sesame Workshop has introduced the browser game Flappy Bert. The gameplay, where players control a bird as it navigates Sesame Street’s Bert among obstacles, draws heavily on the original. It’s one of several Flappy Bird clones on the market but the only one starring Bert in an 8-bit sheen. • Today marks the premiere of a series of web video specials co-produced by PBS NewsHour and Al-Monitor, a news site featuring reporting and analysis by journalists and experts from the Middle East. The first, posting at 7 p.m. Eastern time, focuses on Syria.

Quick Takes

Friday roundup: NewsHour launches new website; podcasting patent fight continues

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• PBS NewsHour unveiled a redesigned website Thursday, featuring responsive design, new navigation menus and an expanded digital editorial presence. The new site combines stories from the program’s weekday and weekend editions, as Current reported in July 2013. “This new site is designed to meet the demands of an expanding and more involved audience,” NewsHour Creative Director Travis Daub wrote in an introductory post, adding that the redesign is the most expansive in the website’s 18-year history. • Pittsburgh Public Media has applied to the FCC for permission to boost the wattage of WYZR-FM, the jazz station it launched in August 2013. The proposed boost to 10,000 watts still would not get WYZR into Pittsburgh from its location in Bethany, W.Va., PPM President Chuck Leavens told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

People

Latino advocacy group criticizes PBS treatment of newsman Ray Suarez

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A grass-roots organization that protested Ken Burns’s exclusion of World War II Latino soldiers’ experiences from his 2007 documentary The War is speaking out in the wake of PBS NewsHour Chief National Correspondent Ray Suarez’s resignation from the program. Defend the Honor, headed by Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, sent an Oct. 31 email to its 5,000-member database saying it is “distressed that PBS has treated veteran journalist Ray Suarez so disrespectfully.” Suarez left the show Oct. 25 after nearly 15 years and subsequently told Fox News Latino in an Oct. 28 interview that he felt his contributions to the program had been minimized during his tenure.

People

Ray Suarez resigning from PBS NewsHour

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This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Ray Suarez, chief national correspondent for PBS NewsHour, is resigning after 14 years with the program, effective Oct. 25. Executive Producer Linda Winslow told the staff in a memo late this afternoon that Suarez is leaving to “pursue several other ventures,” including writing a book. The news comes three days after NewsHour founders Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil announced they intended to transfer ownership of the program to presenting station and producing partner WETA in Arlington, Va.

Programs/Content

MacNeil, Lehrer propose to transfer ownership of PBS NewsHour to WETA

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Leaders of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, the company behind the PBS NewsHour, are negotiating to transfer ownership to co-producer WETA in Arlington, Va., according to an internal letter sent Tuesday to staffers. Program founders and original co-anchors Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil wrote that their reasons for relinquishing ownership at this time include “the probability of increasing our fundraising abilities” for the weeknightly news magazine. The New York Times reported in June that the program was in financial trouble and had received infusions of cash from PBS several times over the past year. Currently, Lehrer and MacNeil share ownership with Liberty Media, which acquired a majority interest in MacNeil/Lehrer Productions (MLP) 18 years ago. Liberty owns interests in various media, communications and entertainment businesses including SiriusXM, Barnes & Noble and the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball franchise.

Gwen Ifill

NewsHour promotes Ifill and Woodruff to helm show, as TV’s first female co-anchor team

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The PBS NewsHour  is reassigning its senior journalists to new roles by tapping Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff as co-anchors and managing editors of the weeknightly broadcasts. The change, announced today during the Television Critics Association Press Tour in Los Angeles, drops the system of rotating anchor duties among six different NewsHour journalists. It takes effect next month. Jim Lehrer, longtime anchor and co-owner of the show through MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, retains the title of executive editor, but Ifill and Woodruff will lead editorial and strategic planning of PBS’s flagship news show. “Gwen and Judy have been the heart and soul of NewsHour for years,” said Linda Winslow, executive producer, “so it’s wonderful to formalize these new roles and give them an opportunity to provide even more input on the content and direction of the show.”

Programs/Content

PBS NewsHour website redesign to integrate upcoming weekend program

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In addition to launching a weekend edition of the PBS NewsHour, New York’s WNET has secured a contract to create an integrated website for the flagship series and its new sibling. The WNET Interactive Engagement Group (IEG), a subsidiary that specializes in developing customized WordPress platforms, will complete the web development project by December, but aims to make some enhancements before the Sept. 7 launch of PBS NewsHour Weekend. That new Saturday and Sunday evening news show will originate from the New York City pubcaster, while the weekday NewsHour maintains its longtime home at WETA in Arlington, Va. The redesign will be the first major back-end overhaul in 10 years for the NewsHour’s website, which is built on a homegrown content management system (CMS), according to Vanessa Dennis, online art director.

Programs/Content

PBS expands NewsHour and Charlie Rose

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PBS is reconfiguring its lineup of weekend news programs, backing an expansion of the NewsHour and giving late-night interviewer Charlie Rose a new slot in its Friday-night public affairs block.

Programs/Content

NewsHour closing two offices, dropping 10 positions, according to internal memo

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PBS NewsHour is shutting offices in Denver and San Francisco and eliminating several positions at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., Executive Producer Linda Winslow and Bo Jones, president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, told staff in a memo Monday. In all, 10 workers are affected, in addition to several jobs that will remain unfilled, NewsHour spokesperson Anne Bell told Current. The program is also planning future changes in technical production processes, in cooperation with co-producer WETA, “in order to streamline and further digitize operations,” the memo said. NewsHour’s fiscal year begins July 1, and all changes will roll out over the next six months, Bell said. “We believe the staff restructuring and production changes, along with continuing web investment, will make us stronger and enable us to be more effective and nimble,” the memo said.

Programs/Content

PBS NewsHour report yields unexpected results

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A PBS NewsHour report on population growth and food scarcity in the Philippines prompted an increase in donations to the PATH Foundation Philippines Inc., an organization with a pilot program promoting family planning in rural areas of the Southeast Asian country. The report explored the foundation’s community-based approach of making contraceptives accessible to villagers who want to limit the size of their families. The story, which aired in January 2012, was produced as part of the public media collaborative project Food for 9 Billion, and has also been used by educators to set up discussions of the links between population and the environment. During a Jan. 28 panel discussion on environmental reporting hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Sam Eaton of Homelands Productions described the impact of his reporting for Food for 9 Billion.

Quick Takes

Ifill made “big mistake” in defending fired journalist, says PBS’s ombud

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In his latest column, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler considers a recent flap involving PBS NewsHour correspondent Gwen Ifill, who on Wednesday tweeted in support of fired journalist David Chalian. Chalian, the Washington bureau chief for Yahoo News, was fired after he said that Mitt Romney was “happy to have a party with black people drowning,” referring to the Republican National Convention starting as Hurricane Isaac approached New Orleans. Chalian was unaware that his microphone was on, and the comment was broadcast. Before joining Yahoo, Chalian had worked as the NewsHour’s political editor. “I can understand Ifill’s wanting to go to bat for a friend and colleague,” Getler wrote, “but my personal view is that this was a big mistake on her part, feeding, unnecessarily, a conviction among many critics and reflecting poorly on PBS.

People

Alvarado joins CIR, Knight fellows announced, NewsHour hires new managing editor, and more…

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Alvarado, a former APM and CPB exec, is joining the Center for Investigative Reporting
The nonprofit news organization announced on May 2 that Alvarado will serve as chief strategy officer and work to expand membership, engage diverse audiences and increase revenue for the San Francisco–based center, the nation’s oldest nonprofit investigative reporting organization. Alvarado also will take a leadership role in the center’s upcoming Knight Foundation–funded YouTube investigative channel. Alvarado departed in March from American Public Media, where he served as senior v.p. for digital innovation for two years. In 2009, he led efforts to bring more diversity and digital innovation to public media as a CPB senior v.p.

“When I joined the board of CIR last year,” Alvarado said in a statement, “I said that CIR exemplifies a truly networked newsroom with some of the most talented reporters and producers working today. It’s still true — and even more so with the merger with the Bay Citizen,” the local nonprofit online news hub.

Frontline

NewsHour picks up Bellantoni, WBEZ personnel changes, and more…

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Bellantoni to oversee all <em>NewsHour</em> political coverage
PBS NewsHour has a new political editor as of Jan. 2. Christina Bellantoni of CQ Roll Call oversees the newsroom’s political coverage on-air and online, including political analysis, elections and personalities. Her predecessor, David Chalain, departed in November to lead the Washington bureau of Yahoo News. Bellantoni has spent more than a decade covering national political and business news in Washington, D.C., and California.