Some local TV and radio stations did very well when the Edward R. Murrow Awards were announced today.

WNCN, also known as NBC-17, won the award for Best Newscast in our region for their program featuring the tracking of Hurricane Sandy and a special investigation on dangerous groundwater contamination in Wake Forest, and the failure of local officials to notify residents of the dangers. That report was by Charlotte Huffman, Penn Holderness and Dave Hattman.

WRAL won an award for Hard News reporting for their story on the recovery of Roanoke Rapids police officer John Taylor, who was shot five times during a traffic stop in 2010. The Taylor report was by Stacy Davis, who left WRAL last summer to become the public information officer for the town of Clayton. WRAL also won a Sports award for Jeff Gravley's interview with ousted UNC football coach Butch Davis.

In the radio category, WUNC-FM won four awards, including one for Overall Excellence. The other awards were a News Series award for their American Graduate series, a Sports award for a report on UNC's JV Basketball squad, and one for best Use of Sound/Video for covering a fracking hearing.

The region with North Carolina stations also includes Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky and West Virginia. Winners from each region will go on to compete for national honors. The awards have been given out by the Radio Television Digital News Association since 1971.

The Wake County school board election runoff made today's edition of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" show.

During the segment, Dave DeWitt of WUNC painted this year's election to the national audience as a d Democratic backlash to Republican businessman Art Pope. He credits Pope with the 2009 school board election results that brought in the new majority, a hotly debated charge over the past two years.

"The chief architect of the 2009 turnaround was a local businessman named Art Pope," DeWitt says. "He spends millions of dollars funding a statewide network of conservative think tanks, election advocacy groups and PACs. '

CORRECTED SPELLING OF DEWITT'S LAST NAME TO CAPITALIZE THE W

Today's "The State of Things" on WUNC radio will have some sharp minds discussing the economy and where it's headed.

Scheduled guests include Well Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner, N.C. State labor historian David Zonderman and Latino Community Credit Union executive Erika Bell.

Oh, and they're even considering letting me on, to offer some perspective of the Triangle's economy and business climate. The conversation will explore jobs, housing and other issues.

The broadcast starts at Noon on 91.5 FM, and will be available online here.

To participate, you can call 1.877.962.9862 or email comments to sot@wunc.org.

The voice of public radio's political coverage in North Carolina is going commercial.

Laura Leslie, who has covered state politics and government at WUNC for more than six years, is joining WRAL as a multimedia reporter. Her last day at WUNC is today, and she'll start at WRAL on Friday.

In her new role, Leslie will continue coverage of the legislature and state politics. Leslie said she'll focus mostly on expanding WRAL's online coverage, including webcasts and podcasts, as the General Assembly prepares to return to Raleigh.

"I'll be telling the same stories, but I'll have new ways to tell them," she said. "The news business is changing and legislative coverage needs to change with it. I see it as an immense opportunity."

Recruiting Leslie signals that WRAL, owned by Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting, is seeking to beef up its legislative coverage as Republicans control the General Assembly for the first time since 1898.

Speaking of upcoming outdoor shows, Durham's American Tobacco Amphitheatre has put out a 10-show schedule for this year's Music on the Lawn series. Sponsored by WUNC-FM's Back Porch Music, the lineup draws from the roots and Americana end of the spectrum:

April 30 -- Chatham County Line

May 21 -- Mike Cross

June 4 -- Uncle Earl

June 18 -- Kickin' Grass

July 30 -- Laura Boosinger & Josh Goforth

Aug. 13 -- Stillhouse Bottom Band

Aug. 20 -- Thad Cockrell

Sept. 10 -- Gravy Boys

Sept. 17 -- Paul Brown and the Mostly Mountain Boys

Oct. 8 -- Music Maker Relief Foundation showcase with Cool John Ferguson, Captain Luke, John Dee Holeman, others

Yes, I've been gone this week, and I'm just positive you've missed me. But you can hear me babble a bit about local music on WUNC-FM's "The State of Things" today, as part of the program's local-music week. That should be on the air between 12:20 and 12:40 p.m. on WUNC, 91.5-FM. Grayson Currin from The Independent Weekly will also be there for further punditry.

ADDENDUM: And here that is.

Toward the end of her interview on WUNC's "The State of Things" last week, Triangle expatriate Alina Simone mentioned that she's writing a book about her "strange adventures in Russian indie-rock." Plenty of raw material there, given that Simone has spent the past few years reclaiming her Russian heritage. Curiously, however, she's devoting a chapter in the book to Britney Spears, an object of fascination for Simone ever since she discovered that Spears' 2003 hit "Toxic" was inescapable even in deepest Siberia.

Simone says she's also going to record an EP of Spears covers, including "Toxic," "...Baby One More Time" -- and, of course, "Oops!...I Did It Again," a jailbait anthem that might be the skeeviest song in Spears' catalog. Saturday night at the Carrboro ArtsCenter, Simone closed her show with a jagged guitar version of "Oops!," to general confusion and amusement. Simone transposed the titillation of Spears' original to something like anguished paranoia, and it took most of the first verse for everyone to recognize the song. There were audible snickers the first time Simone got to the money-shot line: I'm not. That. Innocent.

It was a great shock-value moment, even if Richard Thompson beat her to it by a couple of years. How much you want to bet Thompson covers that one, too, when he plays the ArtsCenter in March?

ADDENDUM (1/26/09): Here's what was happening right next door to the ArtsCenter Saturday night.

SECOND ADDENDUM (7/21/09): More strange Britney covers.

This week, N&O cartoonist Dwane Powell participated in a panel discussion at Duke on the art and craft of poking fun at
power. Beforehand, he chatted with NPR host Frank Stasio and Kevin Bleyer and Adam Chodikoff of "The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart." You can listen to the interview here.