Web videos from WVPB connect careers and education for middle-schoolers

WVPB-TV is returning to its roots as the Educational Broadcasting Authority of West Virginia as it shifts production priorities from local programming to digital content for teachers. When Scott Finn took over as executive director in February 2013, the board gave him a mandate to “specifically help pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade educators, parents and students,” he said. “That was clear when I was hired.” Finn has an educational background himself, having worked as a sixth-grade social studies and English teacher. So the Charleston-based station is cutting back longtime weekly shows Doctors on Call and The Law Works to occasional productions and focusing instead on new STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) interactive videos to help middle-schoolers think about future careers. Educators specifically asked for the content, Finn said.

Finn will replace Adkins as exec director of West Virginia pubcasting

The State Educational Broadcasting Authority of West Virginia voted Jan. 10 to hire Scott Finn as the new executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, the Associated Press reports. Finn previously served as a reporter and the news director of the network, but left in 2009 to become news director at WUSF in Tampa, Fla. He will replace Dennis Adkins, who is retiring on Feb. 1 and had been fighting the board for months over financial concerns.