Alex Chadwick is keeping an online diary for Slate about the launch of Day to Day, the new NPR newsmag that is being produced in partnership with ... Slate. Revelation: Chadwick made an intern cry.

A Yankee remake of the BBC's Coupling, coming to NBC this fall, will feature rewrites of the British scripts, the New York Daily News reported. The original Britcom now airs in the States on public TV stations.

Undercut fiscally by underwriting declines, San Francisco's KQED trimmed its work week and salaries 10 percent and reduced its staff 11 percent (including nine layoffs), the Associated Press reports.

In a New York Times op-ed, Yale political scientist David Greenberg weighs the meaning of a revelation in the new PBS Watergate documentary -- Nixon aide Jeb Magruder's remark that he heard Nixon okay the Watergate break-in. As reprinted in the Charlotte Observer.

Conservative writer Rob Long writes in the L.A. Times why he donates to NPR though its programming drives him to shout back, spraying his dashboard with angry spittle.

A Venice Beach bike repairman told coworkers a recent pledge to KCRW scored him "a kick-ass tote bag," "reports" the humor mag The Onion. (Last item under "News in Brief.")

WNET's Bill Baker decries the twin disasters of FCC deregulation and diminished support for pubcasters in an op-ed for the University of Minnesota's student newspaper.

The new Broadway show Avenue Q, produced by former employees of Sesame Street, spoofs the kids' show by dragging it "into a curse-filled world of Gen-X angst, unemployment and promiscuous, drunken sex," writes Jake Tapper in The New York Times.

Public television producer John Schott has a weblog.

"We've changed our strategy from being an exporter of British programming into being a creator of global programs," says Mark Young, president of BBC Worldwide Americas, in the L.A. Times.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell is paying a hefty political price for ignoring populist concerns about big media, reports the Washington Post.

The team behind Day to Day, NPR's new midday newsmagazine, hope the show will be "looser" and "more spontaneous" than other network fare, reports The Los Angeles Times. Day to Day debuts Monday, July 28.

Marketplace host David Brancaccio is leaving the show to co-host PBS's Now with Bill Moyers. TV Barn has the PBS press release.

Religious broadcasters are among the entities bidding in the sale of Orange County public TV station KOCE, reports the Los Angeles Times.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich contemplates why liberals can't get a foothold on talk show TV.

A new genre of makeover programs flourishes in Britain, reports the New York Times. "Their proliferation has led to criticisms that British television, once known for its quality and innovation, has deteriorated into a showcase for relatively inexpensive programs that cater to viewers' lazier and meaner instincts."

A new report discusses the future of WNCW-FM in Spindale, N.C., according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. In the report, administrators at Isothermal Community College, the station's owner, tell their board that other broadcasters want to buy or manage WNCW. They also suggest changes to the station if the board decides not to sell. [Earlier coverage of WNCW in Current.]

Joe Hagan reports in the New York Observer that PBS talk host Charlie Rose rushed back to Manhattan when deposed New York Times Editor Howell Raines offered an interview. In the newsmaking interview, Raines came off about as poorly as Jayson Blair in HIS post-scandal debut.

Sept. 16 is the application deadline for rural public TV stations to apply for aid to put their digital signals on the air. The Agriculture Department is making $15 million available, according to a press release. APTS sought the aid as part of a strategy to find federal money beyond the CPB appropriation, as President John Lawson wrote in a commentary this spring.

Maria Martin, executive producer of public radio's Latino USA, is leaving the show as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. She says she's leaving to keep a CPB grant that drew objections from the University of Texas, where the show is produced.

The MITRE Corp. has released its study of whether low-power FM stations can operate on third-adjacent channels to full-power stations. The Prometheus Radio Project, a group of low-power activists, say the study proves the FCC could safely license many more LPFMs. Other stakeholders have yet to comment. [Earlier coverage in Current.]

San Francisco Chronicle critic Tim Goodman has some scathing words for PBS, which he says is "hopelessly broken." President Pat Mitchell and her programmers "can't form a declarative sentence to save their lives." (Via Romenesko.)

The Association of Independents in Radio has published an online version of its newsletter, Airspace--and this one is devoted exclusively to independent producing and the Web.

The executive director of Pacifica says the network's move back to Berkeley is "symbolic of Pacifica returning to its roots, returning to its mission," reports the Los Angeles Times.

Execs at San Francisco's KQED are looking for ways to reduce expenses and may cut up to 40 jobs, reports the Contra Costa Times. (More in the Mercury News.)

The press fails when it allows "the principle of objectivity to make us passive recipients of news, rather than aggressive analyzers and explainers of it," writes Brent Cunningham in the Columbia Journalism Review.

The BBC is embroiled in "unusually nasty and high-stakes clashes" over its news coverage with political leaders in two countries--British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the LA Times reports.

NPR's political coverage should include more than just the Democratic front-runners, even third-party candidates such as Lyndon LaRouche, argues network ombud Jeffrey Dvorkin.

Media Life ranked public radio's Marketplace among its "Best of the Best."

JJ Sutherland, creator of NPR's upcoming midday newsmag Day to Day, discusses the show's development at Transom.org.

KUSC-FM in Los Angeles has outsourced its underwriting sales to media behemoth Clear Channel, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Chicago Tribune critic Steve Johnson looks at what one year of competition from Louis Rukeyser on CNBC has done for Wall Street Week with Fortune and finds that the ex-PBS host has much to crow about (via Romenesko).