Political writer barred from KERA debate

"Snarky" blog postings by Paul Burka, senior executive editor of the Texas Monthly, disqualify him as a panelist for next month's televised debate between Republican gubernatorial candidates Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Gov. Rick Perry, a spokeswoman for Dallas's KERA-TV tells the Texas Tribune. KERA, chief sponsor of the debate among several media outlets, invited the magazine to appoint a panelist, just not Burka; the magazine declined to send anyone and dropped out as a sponsor. The Tribune suggests that Hutchinson's campaign leaned on KERA to ban Burka, who has been "a fixture" in the state's political debates since the late 1980s. "We were dismayed at what they decided to do, and surprised, given Paul Burka's involvement in past debates," Texas Monthly Editor Jake Silverstein tells the Tribune. "We stand behind everything he does, and we consider his voice our voice on Texas politics."

NPR's Android app now available for download

The NPR News app for Google's Android mobile platform, announced earlier this month, has gone live. Mashable has already taken it for a test-run: "[T]he Android version of NPR News is very similar to its iPhone counterpart. Most of the menu designations are the same and most of the layout options are similar." The biggest missing feature is the live streaming function: "You can listen to archived programs, but live-streaming and tuning in to live stations won’t be available until spring 2010."