Frontline, Tehran Bureau site partner up for coverage

Frontline has entered into an "editorial partnership" with Tehran Bureau, an online news site connecting journalists, experts, readers--and sometimes anonymous contributors. The site launched today. The joint effort fits into what Frontline e.p. David Fanning refers to as "converged" journalism. The show's senior editor Ken Dornstein tells The New York Times that means “investing in the best reporting possible, then using all platforms to incubate and publish stories.” Segments of the upcoming Frontline episode on Iran, “A Death in Tehran,” will be shown on the site before the November television broadcast.

More from ombud of PBS, that "strange beast within the world of media"

A new column from PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler is now online. Subjects include KBDI's Sept. 11 conspiracy theory pledge programming, and Tavis Smiley's former affiliation with Wells Fargo wealth-building seminars.

Pubcaster develops teaching tool tackling post-incarceration issues

WFYI Public Broadcasting in Indiana is announcing a new board game it helped create that provides insights into the challenges former inmates face. The project was developed with Volunteers of America-Indiana and John P. Craine House, an alternative sentencing program for nonviolent women. "Checkpoints and Challenges" provides role-playing situations that newly free inmates face. It's designed for use by re-entry programs, correctional systems, congregations with prison ministries and secondary and higher educational programs. It'll be sold starting Sept. 30 on the volunteer group's web site for $32.

PBS Video Portal offers entire National Parks series

By now you know, unless you've been holed up in a Yosemite cave, that Ken Burns' latest doc, National Parks: America's Best Idea, kicks off Sunday night. The PBS Video Portal will have the entire series, all six parts, available for viewing starting that day. The portal already offers an extended preview and a peek behind the scenes.

Unions accuse TPT of layoffs targeting members

The local president and vice president of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) have been laid off from Twin Cities Public Television, reports the online news site The Twin Cities Daily Planet. A NABET statement said that in August, after union contracts were renegotiated, TPT announced layoffs of four of 11 NABET employees and at least three IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) members. The NABET workers were on the production crew for Almanac, the station's weekly pubaffairs program. TPT President Jim Pagliarini said the station was "absolutely not" trying to quash the unions. "We need to free up resources," Pagliarini said. The station recently made three senior hires, two for existing positions and one the new position of chief revenue officer. The CRO will help "bring more money into the station," Pagliarini told the Planet.

KQED, U.C.-Berkeley J-School to create local nonprofit news service for Bay Area

With $5 million in backing from San Francisco businessman and investor F. Warren Hellman, KQED and the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism will launch a local nonprofit Web-based news service for San Francisco. "The Bay Area has a voracious appetite for news and is one of the most engaged and community-minded regions in the nation," Hellman said, when announcing the Bay Area News Project yesterday. "We are confident that this is an ideal place to create a new economic model that will sustain original, local quality journalism, and we believe the Bay Area will step up to support these efforts." Online and mobile platforms will be the primary channels for the service, with public radio and TV distribution via KQED. The New York Times, which recently announced plans to publish a Bay Area edition, may also join the partnership. U.C. Berkeley's journalism school already publishes "hyper-local" neighborhood news sites. It plans to partner with the university's schools of business, engineering and information services to support more innovations in news technology. News coverage from yesterday's announcement is posted here.