Should preserving noncommercial television licenses be the top priority for public broadcasters, or should financially unstable public TV stations be sold, become unstaffed repeaters or allowed to die off to right-size an extensive system of stations? Independent Public Media says: … Continue reading
Ellen Weiss, the NPR News chief who took the network’s blame for the Juan Williams affair, has joined the Center for Public Integrity as its executive editor as of Oct. 3, the watchdog newsroom announced. The center is headed by … Continue reading
WYSO-FM in Yellow Springs, Ohio, will move to renovated studios and increase its signal strength from 37,000 watts to 50,000 watts before year’s end, thanks to a $1 million grant from its licensee, Antioch University, approved by the school’s board … Continue reading
Native Public Media and the National Congress of American Indians are warning the FCC that many tribal licensees may be unable to meet deadlines for station construction permits granted since 2007. For one week that October, the FCC accepted applications … Continue reading
The new report to the FCC about the state of the media and the future of American journalism estimates that filling gaps in local reporting would cost from $265 million to $1.6 billion a year. It also suggests various ways … Continue reading
Comic recreation of a gripping behind-the-scenes drama playing itself out at the Federal Communications Commission, animated using Xtranormal technology.
July 3, 1978 FCC v. Pacifica Foundation: The Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s right to ban indecent speech when children could be expected to be in the audience. Pacifica’s WBAI in New York had aired George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue … Continue reading
Attorney and former FCC chairman Reed Hundt , a co-chair of the PBS-appointed Digital Future Initiative, previewed his thinking in a Current commentary seven months before the panel issued its recommendations at the end of 2005. See also Co-chair James … Continue reading
There’s hope for public broadcasting in the upwelling of citizen opposition to FCC deregulation of commercial TV, broadcast historian Robert McChesney said in a keynote address at the PBS Annual Meeting June 7. “It’s this movement of an aroused and … Continue reading