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Mar 12, 2011

Knight funding development of open-source platform for nonprofit news sites

The Texas Tribune in Austin and the Bay Citizen in San Francisco, nonprofit online regional news organizations, will share a $975,000 Knight Foundation grant to create a free, open-source publishing platform for other online news groups, the foundation announced Friday (March 11) from SXSW in Austin.

The new platform will manage an integrated library of text, video and audio files; improve the way articles are linked, aggregated and tagged for increased search-engine hits; integrate sites with social networks and bloggers; and offer membership tools and integration with advertising networks to cultivate new revenue streams.

Northwest pubcasting network hires former CBS News bureau chief as news director

Former CBS News London Bureau Chief John Paxson has joined Murrow Public Media/Northwest Public Radio and Northwest Public Television, in the new position of news director. While at CBS News he supervised staff in London, Paris, Bonn, Tel Aviv, Moscow and Johannesburg. He oversaw the network’s coverage of conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. He also spent 10 years as a Voice of America correspondent based in Chicago, as well as a CBS News producer in Dallas, Los Angeles and New York.

In his new position he will direct increased regional news coverage for the 15 radio and two TV stations licensed to Washington State University in Pullman. His wife, former ABC News correspondent Lucrezia Cuen, is a native of the area.

Pubcasting station KBEM wins jazz educator award

The Jane Matteson Outstanding Jazz Educator Award, presented annually by the Dakota Foundation for Jazz Education in Minneapolis, Minn., generally honors an individual. But the 2011 recipient is a public broadcasting station: KBEM/Jazz 88 radio, one of the few outlets in America playing 24-hour jazz — and which operates out of studios in Minneapolis North High School. “After 40 years of introducing jazz to new listeners, encouraging young musicians, providing the public with access to the best jazz has to offer — and teaching countless individual students about radio broadcasting and jazz — we could think of no more appropriate recipient for our ‘Jane Award’ than KBEM-FM,” said foundation President Tom Trow. The school district has been involved in radio programming since 1938; KBEM went on the air in 1970, and began receiving CPB funding in 1994. Jane Matteson was a local jazz benefactor and co-founder of the foundation.

President defends pubcasting, says proposed CPB cuts are "political statements"

President Obama defended public broadcasting in a press conference on Friday (March 11), reports The Hill.

"I think it's going to be important for us to have a conversation after we get the short-term budget done, about how do we really tackle the problem in a comprehensive way," Obama said. "And that means not just going after Head Start or Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That's not where the money is."

"These aren't really budget items; these are political statements," Obama said.