NPR Digital and KPLU discover Facebook geotagging "a powerful journalism tool"

Here's a look from the Nieman Journalism Lab at what geotagging on NPR's Facebook page did for KPLU in Seattle. In October 2011, NPR Digital Services and Digital Media launched an experiment with the member station, sharing certain KPLU.org content on NPR’s 2.3-million fan Facebook page, but making it visible only to Facebook users in the Seattle region. "Four months into this experiment, we’ve made some unexpected discoveries around Facebook communities and the power of localization on a national platform," write Eric Athas and Keith Hopper of NPR Digital. The test drove KPLU's site to record traffic for a single day (January 19), second-highest traffic for a single month (October 2011) and the highest traffic for a single month (January). And Seattle stories had a higher engagement rate (likes, shares and comments) too. "We’re curious if this can be replicated in other markets and are exploring options for scaling it to more member stations," the two write. "Some questions about this test will be answered when the experiment grows — something we’re looking to pursue. Although we’re still analyzing the results, we’re confident about the potential of this as a powerful journalism tool."

NPR's Richard Harris back on the air, after vocal fold paralysis

NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris is suffering from unilateral vocal fold paralysis, probably due to a virus, he reveals in a post on Shots, NPR's health blog. "It turns out this disorder is common enough that there's a line of medical products to address it," he writes. His specialist at Johns Hopkins used an injection of water, gelatin and sodium carboxymethylcellulose — "yes, cellulose as in the indigestible fiber that tree trunks and paper are made of" — to help align Harris's paralyzed vocal cord with his functioning one. "Over the next six to 10 weeks, the carboxymethylcellulose will degrade in my gullet," Harris writes. "That will buy time for the nerve to heal, which it often does. And in the meantime, I'm back on the air."

He's a fan, by George

Who loves NPR? George Clooney, reveals this photo posted by Tanya Ballard Brown, an editor at NPR.org, currently ricocheting around the Internets.

UPDATE: Fishbowl LA reports that Clooney was at NPR West — surrounded by female staffers — to record a segment on All Things Considered.

Coeur d'Alene Tribe's KWIS-FM now on the air

KWIS-FM, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's radio station, is now on the air from Plummer, Idaho, one of more than two dozen Native stations that received FCC construction permits in 2008. KWIS, pronounced "kwee-ss," means "to be called" in the Coeur d'Alene language, according to the Coeur d'Alene Press.

Kansas House committee turns down $800,000 extra for pubcasting

The Republican Kansas House Appropriations Committee chairman broke a 10-10 vote deadlock to reject a request for an additional $800,000 for public broadcasting, the Lawrence Journal-World reported Thursday (Feb. 9). Gov. Sam Brownback's budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 included $600,000 for public broadcasting, down from $2 million; a House budget subcommittee added $800,000, bringing the total to $1.2 million. Rep. Marc Rhoades (R-Newton) cast the deciding vote.

CPB to present Community Lifeline Awards for station response during disasters

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has established a Community Lifeline Award (PDF) to recognize pubcasting stations "that have provided exceptionally exemplary service to their communities" during "local emergencies, natural disasters, and other urgent situations." Any station that receives a Community Service Grant may apply. The station must have provided information and updates in close coordination with government agencies and first responders, presented extensive coverage of the situation, and station staff "demonstrated strong personal commitment" during the crisis through long hours or "calmness under pressure." The number of recipients of the award will vary; CPB estimates presenting two to three annually.

Knight "evolves" its News Challenge grants program

The Knight Foundation is revamping its Knight News Challenge for 2012, "evolving the challenge to be more nimble and more focused," it announced Thursday (Feb. 9), with three distinct application rounds. The first concentrates on networks, and ways entities might use existing platforms to drive innovation in media and journalism; applications open Feb. 27 and close March 17. Subsequent rounds will be an open competition, "looking for new ideas broadly," the foundation said, and a third on a specific topic. First-round winners will be announced in June. The Knight News Challenge is part of  the Foundation’s $100 million Media Innovation Initiative, working to identify new ways to meet community information needs in the digital age. Over its first five years, the foundation reviewed more than 12,000 applications and funded 76 projects, including in pubmedia, for $27 million.

Contributions, grants to KCET fall 41 percent in first year away from PBS, paper reports

Contributions and grants to KCET have plunged 41 percent since its departure from PBS membership in January 2011, according to the Los Angeles Times, including corporate as well as individual giving. But the station also received $28.8 million from the sale of its historic studio to the Church of Scientology; the newspaper noted that while the purchase price was $45 million, the station temporarily leased back the property). KCET also "sharply trimmed its spending on programming and production," the paper said, down 37 percent to $21 million. "We saw an uptick in the fourth quarter 2011," Al Jerome, the station's president and chief executive, told the Times in an email. "We're hopeful this trend continues through 2012."

CPB ombudsman criticizes redactions in IG audit of WQED

Joel Kaplan, ombudsman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, writes in a column Wednesday (Feb. 8) that information redacted from a recent CPB Inspector General's report on Pittsburgh's WQED, "is inconsistent with CPB's pledge of transparency."

Kenneth Konz, the inspector general, conducted an audit of WQED Multimedia, released in December 2011, that determined that because WQED did not comply with certain CPB guidelines for reporting nonfederal financial support, CPB made improper Community Service Grants to the station in excess of $798,000.

"If you read the audit report," Kaplan writes, "you will find that it is filled with redactions about specific monetary expenditures at the heart of the audit report." Kaplan said a reporter contacted him asking why the redactions were allowed, especially because CPB noted in its latest business plan that it has "engaged in a continuous process of improving its own transparency."

The redacted figures concerned WQED's sale several years ago of Pittsburgh Magazine, a for-profit publication. George Hazimanolis, WQED spokesman, told Kaplan that the CPB inspector general's office "offered WQED the opportunity to redact anything that was proprietary and harmful to WQED's business, which we understood to be normal procedure. WQED responded very broadly to that offer." Konz told Kaplan that the removal of proprietary information from reports is mandated by federal and state laws.

"I continue to believe that it was wrong for most of this information to be redacted and it is inconsistent with CPB's pledge of transparency," Kaplan writes. "It becomes even more problematic when the names of donors are redacted since it does not allow the public to make an independent determination about whether any undue or improper influence is being used in determining what types of materials are run over the public broadcasting airwaves."

"Given that the Community Service Grants are provided to public broadcasting stations by CPB," he concludes, "I am hopeful that the CPB Board of Directors will in the future make such funding contingent on a recipient station's willingness to be transparent in all of its operations."

Attention RSSers: Public Media Futures stories now online

Current has posted a package of articles on Public Media Futures, in conjunction with a two-year series of quarterly forums beginning this month. The forums are co-sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy and American University’s School of Communication, which publishes Current. Both the articles and the accompanying forums are planned to amplify and contribute to conversations already under way in the field about serious issues facing public service media organizations in the 21st century.