Blogger bonkers over PubRadio Tuner

The Public Radio Tuner has a big fan in blogger Wade Roush, chief correspondent at Xconomy. "Since my commute to work is a disappointingly short 12 minutes—and I often bike or walk—I only hear infrequent, short snippets of [NPR] shows," he writes. He says he was "ecstatic" when he recently found the app. Now, "I just turn on the Public Radio Tuner, pull up my favorite local station [WBUR] and listen to my heart’s content over my phone’s 3G data connection."

Williams' First Lady comments prompt critical e-mails to NPR

NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard examines the roles Juan Williams plays on both her network and Fox News, where he recently said Michelle Obama “has this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going” (YouTube video). His comments prompted several dozen angry e-mails to NPR. Such criticism of Williams may arise because the “news analyst” (his title at NPR) “tends to speak one way on NPR and another on Fox,” Shepard writes. Managers in NPR’s newsroom spoke with Williams after his comments on the First Lady, Shepard says, and network news veep Ellen Weiss asked the commentator to request that Fox no longer identify him as an “NPR News Political Analyst.”

Rural listeners to Maine net won't lose service

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network has backed down from its plan to save money by cutting off three broadcast towers in rural areas, reports the Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel. Listeners had complained, and a state legislator is sponsoring a bill that would cut state funding for MPBN if the network reduces its reach. MPBN President Jim Dowe said he does not yet know how the network will offset the expense.