NewsHour gets CPB grant for Student Reporting Lab

CPB has given the PBS NewsHour a $300,000 grant for a Student Reporting Lab project in six schools nationwide, reports Television Broadcast. From last month through January 2011, NewsHour journalists are providing footage, sources and mentors to the students, who will report on three topics. Their work will run on the NewsHour website and YouTube. A statement from NewsHour said the project will "examine how broadband connectivity, open-source platforms, and public media can help to produce an informed and engaged public."

South Dakota pubcasting faces 2 percent state funding cut

South Dakota is the latest state threatening cutbacks to pubcasting as part of overall budget tightening. A 2 percent cut to South Dakota Public Broadcasting might mean the loss of matching federal funds next year, according to the Argus Leader. The state budget is expected to run $36 million to $40 million; the Republican-led legislature has proposed $52.6 million in cuts and new revenues. The budget is scheduled to be finished today for consideration by the full Senate and House on Thursday or Friday. Pubcasters nationwide are facing similar cuts in state funding (Current, Jan. 25).

Wednesday webinar to explore Google broadband experiment

Pubcasters can learn more about Google’s Fiber for Communities during a webinar Wednesday sponsored by American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio and the National Center for Media Engagement. The project aims to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more locations across the country. Intrigued? Log on at 2 p.m. Eastern to learn how to nominate your community with advice from Minnie Ingersoll, product manager of Google's Access team; Joanne Hovis, president of Columbia Telecommunications Corporation; Marnie Webb, co-CEO of TechSoup Global; Bernadine Joselyn, Director of Public Policy and Engagement for rural Minnesota's Blandin Foundation; and Joaquín Alvarado, veep for Digital Innovation for American Public Media. Register here.

In the Loop, a NextGen show from MPR, ends run

Minnesota Public Radio has canceled production of In the Loop, a show that migrated from the broadcast airwaves to engage its audience of young adults where they lived--in the realm of on-demand media and social networking web platforms. Hosted by the earnest and talented Jeff Horwich, ITL was smart, off-beat and entertaining. "I always appreciated ITL as a Skunk Works for the sub-Boomer set, full of sparky 'story slams,' interactivity and Horwich's funky but not frivolous news sense," writes MinnPost media critic David Brauer. Horwich explains as much as he can on this FAQ. Both Horwich and producer Sanden Totten have been reassigned to work on MPR's Public Insight Network.

Minnesota pubcasters, Georgia's WUGA targeted in state budget battles

“I don’t want to overstate the case, but this could lead to signals going dark,” Allen Harmon, g.m. of WSDE-TV in Duluth, says in this MinnPost report on Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposal to zero-out funding for public broadcasters in the fiscal year beginning July 1. The governor's spending plan would cut more than $2 million in general appropriations support for public broadcasting in fiscal 2011 and beyond. It hits Minnesota's six public TV stations the hardest, eliminating $1.361 million in general-fund appropriations. Community radio stations would lose $387,000; Minnesota Public Radio, $250,000; and, Twin Cities regional cable, $17,000. Pubcasters tell MinnPost media critic David Brauer that the Legacy Amendment funds they're receiving for arts and cultural programming won't make up the difference in lost general support. Meanwhile, the University of Georgia recently threatened to shut down WUGA-FM, a Georgia Public Broadcasting station located on its Athens campus, in a draconian budget-cutting plan unveiled last week. The station is part of the GPB Radio network but cuts away for local classical music and other programming. "It’s one of the signature stations in our network," said Nancy Zintak, GPB spokeswoman. The proposed WUGA shut-off is part of a controversial plan by the University of Georgia's financial planners to cut $600 million in spending. “This is like a death knell for public education, and we’re not going to stand for it,” a student leader tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "There's a little bit of saber-rattling and posturing and people are saying some dramatic things," Zintak told Current. "We have no idea how the legislature is going to come down on this." Zintak referred questions on WUGA funding to the university's press office, which did not respond to a call seeking comment.

Knight Foundation, FCC broadband summit brings together policymakers

Today the Knight Foundation and the FCC are sponsoring "America's Digital Inclusion Summit" at the Newseum in Washington, and satellite locations in Akron, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Philadelphia. Reps from an array of agencies and organizations advocating for universal broadband access are taking questions from the public at NewMedia(at)fcc.gov, or follow along at #BBPlan on Twitter. The summit is also streaming live and runs to 12:30 p.m. Eastern. Speakers include FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. (Photo: Robertson Adams, Knight Foundation) UPDATE: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has announced the agency's effort to create a Digital Literacy Media Corps, a nationwide outreach of computer training for persons in communities including low-income housing, rural towns, tribal lands and areas with many racial and ethnic residents. "Basic literacy must be supplementetd by digital literacy," Clyburn told the crowd. The Knight Foundation also announced a partnership with the FCC on an "Apps for Inclusion" Challenge, an offer of $100,000 from Knight to software developers who can provide easier online access to civic affairs information such as tracking Congressional voting records.

Broadcasters battle performance royalties while investment bankers court Pandora

The dispute over music performance royalties for radio airplay is heating up again, the New York Times reports. The MusicFirst Coalition, which represents record companies and artists, and the National Association of Broadcasters are duking it out via ad campaigns and old-fashioned lobbying. Talks between supporters and opponents, initiated last fall at the request of lawmakers, appear to have stalled. Meanwhile, the Times reports in a separate article, investment bankers are aggressively courting Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. The Internet radio service reported its first profitable quarter last year, and usage among its 48 million listeners now averages 11.6 hours a month, according to the Times. "That could increase as Pandora strikes deals with the makers of cars, televisions and stereos that could one day, Pandora hopes, make it as ubiquitous as AM/FM radio."

Worldfocus to leave the air next month

WNET.org will discontinue Worldfocus [Word doc], its weeknight international news report as of April 2. The producing station was “a few million dollars short” of what it needed to keep Worldfocus on the air, President Neal Shapiro said in a release today. “We demonstrated that there is a demand for international news, but we had the misfortune of launching a brand new program into the teeth of the recession,” Shapiro said, adding, “… we were in the right place at the wrong time.” The station will put resources in its new weekly current affairs series Need to Know, which starts in early May, when Bill Moyers retires from his weekly show and Now on PBS ends its run. The station announced last week that Shelley Lewis, a former CNN and ABC executive producer, has that role for Need To Know. Lewis comes from Howdini.com, a how-to video website for women that she co-created; she also co-created Air America Radio and was its senior v.p. of programming. She was previously e.p. of CNN’s American Morning with Paula Zahn and Greenfield at Large, and before that was e.p. for ABC News Productions.

KUED sister agency receives broadband grant

Utah Education Network, a sister agency with KUED at the University of Utah, has received a $13.4 million federal Recovery Act grant to bring fast Internet service to 130 schools, libraries and other community institutions in the state, and it has been a partner with PBS in developing the Digital Learning Library. The state is putting in $3.5 million to match. UEN already serves 300 schools (its map). With the Utah grant announced last week, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration had awarded grants totaling $610 million out of $7.2 billion allotted for NTIA- and Ag Department-funded broadband projects by the Recovery Act (this week's quarterly report to the House Commerce Committee). NTIA is accepting a second round of applications through March 15.

CJR delivers progress report on Vivian Schiller's agenda for NPR

“I’m not a command-and-control person,” Vivian Schiller tells the Columbia Journalism Review in a feature on her first year as NPR president. "I lead by building consensus." Schiller is addicted to her Blackberry, conducts lots of business via email and "has succeeded somewhat in piercing NPR's infamous bureaucracy," at least in the case of creating new business and reporting arrangements for Planet Money, the radio/online economics reporting collaboration with This American Life. CJR reporter Jill Drew also finds points of tension. Kevin Beesley, president of NPR's AFTRA unit, questions a "larding of the management ranks" with recent hires Keith Woods, v.p. of diversity, and Susanne Reber, deputy managing editor for investigations. "Beesley’s concern is that too much money is being spent on managers, leaving little to improve the lot of the people who create NPR’s content," CJR reports. And, among station leaders, not everyone has bought into Schiller's push for local-national collaboration in online news and fundraising. American Public Media President Bill Kling, for one, questions the campaign for mega-gifts that Ron Schiller, NPR senior v.p. of development, is planning. “If I found a $10-million donor and Ron Schiller came to town and said, ‘Let’s split that,’ I’d say no,” Kling tells CJR. “Here the most important thing to do next is to get Minnesota Public Radio up to its full potential in professional news collection and dissemination.”