South Dakota tribe contacts FCC regarding towers on sacred butte

A Native Tribe in Reliance, S.D., has asked the FCC to examine the location of a commercial broadcasting tower on Medicine Butte — where South Dakota Public Broadcasting also has an tower, reports the Daily Republic in Mitchell. Michael Jandreau, chairman of the Lower Brule Sioux, said he sent a letter to the FCC after a storm brought down the tower last month, requesting an opportunity to discuss the the situation because his tribe regards Medicine Butte as a sacred site. Fritz Miller at SDPB said the station does not anticipate moving its tower. He told Current that laws on tribal boundaries were changed last year, giving tribes the opportunity to buy back land. According to SeVern Ashes, SDPB director of engineering, "The butte is part of the tribe's creation history and is still used today for vision quest and prayers." The station checked its land deed and guy wire easements a few years back and is satisfied it is legally covered if the Lower Brule Sioux decide to buy back the butte.

FTC news workshop includes "On the Media's" Bob Garfield

The second round of two-day workshops convened by the Federal Trade Commission on the future of journalism are scheduled for March 9 and 10, the agency said in an announcement today. Speakers at "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" include FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz; and Bob Garfield, co-host of NPR's On the Media, addressing "The State of Advertising." Agenda is here (PDF).

New KCRW g.m. discusses future of station

In case you missed it yesterday: You can now download or stream the interview with Jennifer Ferro, new g.m. of KCRW-FM in Los Angeles, from the station's own The Politics of Culture program. Ferro's promotion from assistant g.m. to lead the station was announced Saturday.

North Carolina city ventures into spectrum white spaces

Wilmington, N.C., was the first community in America to discontinue analog broadcasting. Now it's the first to test a municipal WiFi network using white spaces between DTV channels, reports Broadcasting & Cable. So far the city has been using white-space wireless cameras for traffic and surveillance in a park and highway; soon cameras will also check water levels. And there'll be public WiFi in a park and school. The city is being assisted by Spectrum Bridge, a real-time online marketplace for radio spectrum. That firm is supplying a spectrum database to prevent interference with local TV stations.

This American Life tops list of best journalism in 2009

Writer Conor Friedersdorf of True/Slant compiled a list of the best journalism he encountered in 2009. This American Life, the only public radio program to appear in on it, turns up 10 times. TAL's reportage is cited in several categories--exceptional storytelling, investigative journalism, and media criticism, among others, and more often than any other publication. Friedersdorf acknowledges that there's a lot of great work that he misses every year. "[T]his isn’t an infallible account of journalism’s best, but I aim to make it the best roundup that any one person can offer, one of these years I intend to do better than the committees who pick the Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards. . . and if nothing else my effort encompasses writing that is well worth your time." Friedersdorf produces a twitter stream of exceptional reporting as JournoCurator.