Consultant Robert Paterson has been working with NPR on its series of systemwide meetings, New Realities. On his blog, he shares conversations with WBEZ's Torey Malatia, KCRW's Ruth Seymour and Bill Buzenberg of Minnesota Public Radio.

A new commercial AM/FM news-talk station in Washington, D.C., hopes to attract a chunk of public radio's audience by combining a livelier sound with meatier coverage, reports the Washington Post's Marc Fisher. The Post is partnering on the station with Bonneville International, owner of the city's successful WTOP-AM.

NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin says a recent NPR story took a condescending attitude toward small-town media.

Arbitron will begin rolling out its Portable People Meter, a new audience-measurement technology, in July, reports Radio Magazine. Consultant John Sutton warns that the PPM's introduction could bring new limitations on some of the most useful data that pubradio gets from Arbitron.

Michael Coleman tells the Detroit Free Press that he did not embezzle from Michigan Public Media in Ann Arbor, his former employer. Coleman is now g.m. of WDET-FM in Detroit. A Detroit News columnist compares news of the embezzlement charges to "hearing that your mother has been brought up on shoplifting charges."

If pediatricians agree that media screen time is not appropriate for children under age two, why are Sesame Workshop and a leading child advocacy organization co-producing a DVD series for babies? "Essentially it is a betrayal of babies and families," one critic of the new brand of infant media and toy products tells the Washington Post. Child development experts have asked Zero to Three, the advocacy group that's co-producing the Sesame Beginnings DVD series, to end its association with the Workshop. "We believe that your partnership . . . is exploitative of both babies and parents and severely damages your credibility as an advocate for the health and well-being of young children," write the leaders of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, in a March 17 letter.