In this action-packed snip from the 2-23 Pacifica national finance committee, WPFW’s general manager announces that his station is “on the precipice of major underwriting” and that WPFW has changed its motto from “listener-supported radio” to accommodate support from business organizations.
The upshot of the meeting appears to be a straw man confrontation engineered by the Siegel/Brazon board majority for either Pacifica to accept business underwriting after 67 years of eschewing it, or be driven into bankruptcy court with the assets parceled out to various board members.
In other news, CFO Agarwal says that he and volunteer ED Lydia Brazon have developed proposals in secret for alternate sources of funding besides listener support that have “legal ramifications”.
Agarwal also stated that the 2014 audit (after 17 months) was both “on-track” and “backlogged”, that there was no immediate prospect of CPB funding, and that Pacifica’s monthly income statements are neither reliable nor accurate.
In a funny exchange with nominal board chair Tony Norman, Agarwal complained that Norman’s station WPFW is not transparent with their financial info and refuses to allow him access to their bank account. Norman promised to get right on it if Agarwal would just cc: him the correspondence and Agarwal says that he has been cc:ing Norman all along and Norman is fully apprised.
Yes, they are now considering taking ads from “friendly” businesses (which there are quite a few, at least in L.A.) but this opens up a can of worms to abandon the listener supported model. For the latest on the Pacifica “whistleblower” who just filed charges with the California Attorney General against KPFK for fraud, see http://www.SouthlandNewsBureau.com
looking at this station’s website, it is not one of the 5 Pacifica stations — so is it an ‘affiliate” and does that make a difference? in Washington DC =
Their “about us” says:
“Programming on WPFW will principally be a mix of jazz, Third World music, news and public affairs….
“The airwaves at 89.3 will be an accessible media outlet for Blacks, Hispanics, cultural groups, women, seniors, youth and other ethnic and non-traditional groups. WPFW programming will make the concept of community radio real by providing the local majority population with important and relevant education, information and entertainment. Through its programming the station will act as a networking agent for the community at large.
“WPFW’s air will be commercial free and in conformance with Pacifica Foundation resolutions prohibiting commercial under- writing of programming.
“Programming will lend itself to an on-air listener participation, will strive to exemplify journalistic integrity, and will work toward being engaging and intellectually stimulating.” and more there….
http://www.wpfwfm.org/radio/about-us/our-mission
does being an affliate make it different than the major 5 Pacifica stations ? dunno
WPFW is one of the 5 Pacifica owned station. The other 4 are WBAI in NY, KPFT in Houston, KPFK in LA and KPFA in Berkeley/SF.
Pacifica is falling apart faster than I ever thought possible!!
That should say “I don’t get it.” Sorry, this doesn’t seem to let me edit.
I don’t het oy. Why would underwriting automatically mean the assets would be parceled out to individual board members? NPR isn’t owned by individual board members and they take corporate undrrwriting all the time.
My point Camilla, is that many Pacificans, including the majority of the current board of directors as of June of 2015, are opposed to corporate underwriting. They may be being set up to “choose” between taking underwriting from businesses or a trip to bankruptcy court. It’s a straw man kind of choice as it avoids the straightforward issues of improving programming so people like it more, doing adult promotion and marketing and eliminating internal fraud and lousy management.