Wal-Mart is salving its public-relations wounds by buying underwriting credits on KCET (The Tavis Smiley Show) in addition to NPR, which has been running blurbs for the big retailer since February, reports the New York Times (as reprinted in the Wilmington, N.C., Star-News).

A Minneapolis Star-Tribune writer questions whether Minnesota Public Radio needed to buy WCAL: "[I]t's hard to understand how a virtual MPR monopoly in the state is a positive."