At 61, KCRW's Diana Nyad preparing for record-breaking swim

Marathon swimmer and KCRW commentator Diana Nyad, 61 years old, is getting ready to swim for 60 hours over 103 miles across the shark-infested Straits of Florida from Cuba to Key West. Nyad attempted this swim once before, unsuccessfully, in 1978 at the age of 28. “Physically, I am much stronger than I was before, although I was faster in my 20s,” Nyad tells the New York Times. "I feel strong, powerful, and endurance-wise, I’m fit.” Her plans to swim last summer were postponed due to visa difficulties.

Lights. Camera. Help. festival in Austin spotlights cause films

Here's a Q&A from KUT in Austin, Texas, with two of the creators of Lights. Camera. Help., who discuss the only festival for nonprofit and cause-driven films. "It’s just like a great day out watching any film at your local movie theater. Except all our films make you want to get up and kick some butt!," said co-founder David J. Neff. "All of our films have great call-to-actions that cause you to get up and do something about the issue you just watched. We like to call them light switches." Proceeds go to the three winning movies as well as Lights. Camera. Help.'s film classes. The third annual event hits Austin July 28-30.

Daily Show's Jon Stewart: Here's a real news media pile-on

In a retort to media critics who question news competitors' motives in devoting so much coverage to the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show takes a look at how Fox News pundits are downplaying the troubles of their parent corporation as a great big news media pile-on.

"Maybe your competitors are taking an unseemly amount of pleasure but perhaps...they don't have the ability to spot stories of real criminality of, let's say, NPR," Stewart says in introducing a clip reel of Fox News punditry on NPR's dismissal of news analyst Juan Williams.

NPR's Dana Davis Rehm recently responded to questions about NPR's motives in covering the scandal: “We’re making decisions about the coverage of the News Corp. story, as we do with all stories, based on its importance and news value,” Rehm told the Washington Post's Paul Farhi. “This is very big news with global impact, and we’re really proud of our coverage."

V-me Kids now available on former PBS member station WIPR in Puerto Rico

V-me Kids, V-me’s cable channel for Latino preschoolers, is now running on WIPR in Puerto Rico, which just dropped its membership to PBS in part over lack of Spanish-language children's shows (Current, July 12). V-me Kids, which targets children ages 2 to 6, is the exclusive carrier for Spanish versions of shows including Barney, Bob the Builder, Angelina Ballerina, and Thomas & Friends. "WIPR will add newly created interstitial programming in English to continue to introduce this young audience to learning in both languages; a key element of WIPR’s success," a V-me statement today (July 19) said.