LA Times pop music critic going to NPR Music

Ann Powers, the Los Angeles Times pop music critic since 2006, is joining NPR Music and will switch to contributor status at the newspaper, LA Observed is reporting. Powers opined on the recent Grammy Awards on the NPR Music website. "There is no more articulate authority on pop music in the country than Ann," wrote Sally Hofmeister, Times assistant managing editor, in a memo to staff.

Minority, indie filmmaking will suffer in wake of federal cuts: Consortium board member

Eric Easter, a board member of the National Black Programming Consortium, has a column on the Root website pointing out if CPB funding is indeed axed, "As usual, the hardest-hit victims won't be PBS or NPR; they'll be the people on the ground – minority and independent filmmakers and digital storytellers for whom public grants are often their sole source of funding. We can't allow this to happen."