Berkeley- Troubles continue at Pacifica’s archives following the announcement of long-time director Brian De Shazor’s resignation. Boston PBS station WGBH wrote to say they were withdrawing the American Archive of Public Broadcasting National Digital Stewardship Residency from Pacifica and would be removing their resident from the archives.
Pacifica’s five stations, in addition to being delinquent on paying their shared service fees to the archive, which range from $1,500 to $4,900 a month, have declined to use the archive’s products as premium gifts and have pulled CD/DVD duplication services away. Archive premium purchases dropped by 300% in 2016 from 2015 numbers. Several stations, including KPFA and WBAI, have purchased their own duplication machines. These decisions have resulted in Pacifica staffers de-funding the archives and endangering the survival of valuable historical records.
Three national board members from LA (Grace Aaron, Jonathan Alexander and Jan Goodman) plan to introduce a resolution at the KPFK local station board and then to the Pacifica National Board in support of the archives. The resolution can be read here.
Pacifica’s national office released May 2016 income statements last week. You can see them here. The month of May is the last one in Pacifica’s fiscal year when all five stations run full-length on-air fund drives. All 5 stations posted operating deficits except Los Angeles’ KPFK. Per GM Radford, KPFK owes $249,000 to Pacifica’s national office since May of 2015, making it a prime mover in the network’s inability to pay for the 2014 audit or upcoming board elections.
Year to date operating deficits are KPFA (-$64,000), WPFW ($-244,000), WBAI (-$374,000), KPFT ($-21,000) and KPFK at (+$106,000). In addition to the piling up debt for WBAI’s tower rental, a significant trouble spot is DC’s WPFW where the May fund drive effort netted less than a single month of payroll expense. WPFW is experiencing a trench in listener support revenues in 2016 similar to that at WBAI in 2015, with listener support numbers dropping by 30% in a single year.
PNB member Bill Crosier called for an emergency national board meeting to address the financial crisis for Sunday June 26th at 7pm EST. It is not known if board majority members will choose to attend. Crosier commented in his meeting call:
Pacifica’s financial situation is looking worse and worse, with no apparent plans (at least, no effective ones) to stop or reverse our financial crisis. Motions to deal with our finances were tabled by the PNB at the last meeting, before we even had discussion on the motions. We need a special Pacifica National Board meeting to deal with this. I, and two other Directors (Grace Aaron and Jan Goodman) are hereby calling for such a special Board meeting to deal with Pacifica’s financial crisis, on Sunday, June 26 at 7 pm EDT, and hope all of you can participate. Per the Pacifica Bylaws (Article 6, Section 2), any three Directors may call for a special PNB meeting, and we are doing so. Sam Agarwal, our CFO, has been telling us for months that things cannot continue as they have been, with the cash flow situation becoming increasingly critical. Also remember that Mr. Agarwal told us that WBAI and/or WPFW may not be able to make payroll by the end of June. We can’t wait until our July 7 PNB meeting to deal with this.
Despite CFO Agarwal’s statement that 2016 board elections are on hold due to the lack of funds to pay for them, Pacifica continues to act “as if”, hiring a six-person election team, soliciting candidate nominations and even setting up “waiver hotlines” at New York’s WBAI to issue free memberships to individuals not able or willing to donate $25 or volunteer for three hours. The waiver program appears to be administered by the Siegel/Brazonites who are directing applications to a mysterious email address at [email protected]. The current state of things is that candidate nomination packages are due June 30th and members need to renew their memberships for 2016 by the same date in order to be able to vote. Whether these dates will remain in place or the election will occur at all is a matter of speculation. To quote national board member Jose Luis Fuentes, “I’m not sure what Kool-aid we’re all drinking”.
KPFK general manager Leslie Radford released a payable report confirming the $249,000 debt to the Pacifica National Office and another $100,000+ in debts as well, including $25,000 in backed-up premiums, and $25,000 owed to a funder for a restricted fund taken by then-ED Margy Wilkinson in 2014. Radford prepared a budgetary Powerpoint presentation for the board in which she notes the budget for the next fiscal year is $550,000 in the red. You can see it here. Radford also informed her local board that her choice for KPFK’s long-vacant business manager position had failed to submit info for a background check and then disappeared. The phone number for the prospective hire is now disconnected.
KPFK’s security guard cum volunteer coordinator Adam Rice, sent out another folio on the eve of KPFK’s latest fund drive which kicks off on June 21st. (The last one ended on May 20). The folio announces schedule changes in overnight profanity-thon Safe Harbor. Rice’s own Music To Resist By bites the dust after less than six months, a week after an announcement that Nana Gyamfi would take over hosting duties, and the In Session on-air therapy show will retire. In Session will be replaced by Geek Radio, which promises to cover conventions and comic books. Music To Resist By will be replaced by a one hour interview show hosted by former congressperson Cynthia McKinney. The folio contained a link to the KPFK website program schedule, which listed neither new program and continued to aggravate former Melting Pot producer Michael Barnes by listing his program in the Fridays 8-10pm slot. Barnes left the station and removed his show in November of 2015, saying he was “done with the place and how badly it was managed”. Barnes threatened legal action against KPFK in May of 2016 if they did not cease listing his program as a KPFK broadcast.
At KPFA’s local board meeting on June 11th, Siegel/Brazonite Jose Luis Fuentes, whose anxiety about Pacifica’s financial distress has been palpable, confronted general manager Quincy McCoy about announced plans to add two new union producing positions and two part-time hosts to the station’s 7am Upfront public affairs program. McCoy had confirmed moments earlier that KPFA had issued layoff notices to union employees and run out of money between fund drives and had to take out a loan of an undisclosed amount from an undisclosed source to make the payroll, now $1.95 million dollars a year. McCoy responded with the assertion that the Upfront program had raised $246,000 in the station’s just completed May fund drive. The actual figure was $69,690. Neither the board treasurer nor the PNB treasurer corrected the general manager. The real-time pledge reports from the May 2016 fund drive can be seen here.
The 4 new part-time positions which will be offset by one reduction, will add approximately $100K to annual personnel costs, pushing the Berkeley station above the $2 million dollar a year mark. McCoy noted contract negotiations with Local 9415 of the CWA will begin shortly and that he hoped to reduce personnel costs by an amount of $200,000, presumably to offset the new hires. Sister station KPFK in Los Angeles recently lost a union arbitration proceeding with SAG-AFTRA in Los Angeles with the arbitrator finding the LA station had violated the union contract by implementing involuntary pay cuts and laying off two employees from the bargaining unit last fall.
The KPFA general manager’s soft-core podcast rolled on with a new episode, “The Green Chair”. It begins: “I love doing it in the chair, Lexie said, smiling as she gently pushed my body backwards into the faded green wingback. I like the sound it makes when we get a rhythm going Jesse, she said, as she slowly stepped out of her skirt and climbed on my lap, legs straddling my thighs, sinking deeply into a caress, kissing me deeply on my neck and mouth”. 75% of the podcasts on the KPFA website, which was described as opening space for new voices, are produced by existing KPFA staff.
This publication’s home on the Internet (www.pacificainexile.org) is starting a Resources page to provide easy one-click access to frequently searched-for and downloaded documents and files. It’s still in the beginning phases, but about two dozen documents are now available, with more to come. If you have any requests for materials you’d like to see there or for posting, send to [email protected] so we can develop the most useful page possible for those “looking for that thing” moments. Much thanks to John Whiting for writing in to provide links to some of his writings about Pacifica. Soon to be added.
If you would like to support either or both of the legal complaints filed by Pacifica members, you can visit the Clean Up Pacifica Project for more information.
However “organizational darwinism” works out, it is looking like one ugly process. To remind you to keep laughing and keep fighting for a Pacifica Radio that can not only heal itself but also help to heal the world, take 30 minutes to enjoy this Twit Wit radio satire from way back in March of 2014 when Pacifica’s national office was occupied in an effort to keep the network from being dismantled.
A timeline of the now two year old coup by the Siegel/Brazon faction can be seen here.
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Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio.
Pacifica is like an unloved child, an un-watered flower, a neglected bunch of veggies in your ice-box — wilting away, drying up and soon to be forgotten. Except for the folks who bore that child, and planted the flower and picked and brought the veggies to the store.
And don’t forget the folks who took the photographs of the child, who planted the flowers, and who captured the harvest.
Yes it’s a bit too early to eulogize, but not by much.
I fairly want to scream out loud. To the PNB most loudly, and to the stations and their managers. To the programmers and wannabe programmers. To the folks who let their listeners down.
And i’m gonna go a head and say this– the demise and takedown of Pacifica — especially the Archives — is not unlike the destruction of Timbuktu or Palmrya. Once it’s gone, all you can say is Good Bye.
Forever yours,
Jim
This is a time of contention, not coughing up the keys to all the many vandals and proliferating wannabes, not to mention speedy eulogists. Anyone who does that so “handily,” may be handing us a line. Eh?
Though quite a line! That line is of the same brand that *almost* always forms to the right. “Volunteer” eulogists abound right now almost as plentifully as agents provocateurs, and we know how many of those swarm the network, on any given day. (Of course, THEY’RE paid. Though “technically” volunteering.)
It’s somewhat less gallant than the line I heard long ago in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” but one that still hits me in all the funniest parts where I live unmentionably: “But I think I’ll pull through, Sir!”
That same line ~ if coming from Roy and others on the roster among the still vibrant ~ would be very inconvenient for some, but more helpful to *actual* fans.
Just sayin’, eulogist. The only ones that your above ditty gives comfort to …. are the enemies of the stations. I can see them pulling out several hankies, all the whilst drooling for the goods.
Hmmmmm.
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“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” ~O.G. Mahatma
How? Haven’t people been trying for years. I remember the change at kpfa in 94. Now those newer programmers that endured are considered old guard? I prefer insightful analysis over tired political agendas, but its just not happenning .
The kids don ‘t listen much to pacifica beyond a few narrow topical shows.
I want to listen, but to what? I already know the issues, the talking points, programmers will use, and I come away bored, except for good Jazz, Poetry, and Art.
I dont want to give up on kpfaktwbaipfw, but they are not getting my money anymore, nor my “eartime”.
Good Luck, and may Great Radio prevail.
PS. Radio/TV is hurting across the board. The spectrum is definately being eyed by telecom/wirelessindustry for new uses. Pacifica is irreplacable and I commend everyone who loves radio for fighting the good fight. We need strategy, unity, clarity.
That’s just crazy! I am SO impressed. You “already know the issues”?? Man, I wish I had such mental access, and to such a cornucopia, such a smorgasbord, of informational storage. Really. (I mean, I’m taking you at your word, here.)
I say that, just bcuz I can not remember a single time I’ve turned on the dial to Pacifica and have left without hearing a thing or two that rocked my world, mostly bcuz those were biggie things that were never spoken of on NON listener-sponsored radio.
Not a single time. In 30 years. But, maybe they need to force feed me gingko, if I can’t remember any time, maybe it’s just my brain.
Hats off to you! You must have a brain Einsteinian in capacity, if you know all of them talking points, y’know. And I don’t mean just DN, but all the other shows too. I can think of a few shows that dragged here and there, but I’m always being updated on big stories. I have intentionally SKIPPED a couple new shows, having been warned to stay away. I stick to the old ones, tried and true.
But, even geniuses mess up now and then, and when you say “the kids don’t listen much to Pacifica” I have to correct that much: I know some kids at my local health food store, all in their twenties, and they are Pacifica addicts. One guy, Gordon, can give you every “talking point” that Gary Null ever has mentioned, so there’s that much.
Maybe I’m in an advanced neck of the ‘hoods, dunno?? Or maybe we don’t know all the demographics.
Anyway I’m just jiving: I actually think you’re way off base here. Pacifica, even with its warts, is an incomparable American gig, and that’s why so many are sidling up to it, to do it in. Nothing new about that. And all the disingenuous whining that’s going on is pretty much “variations on a theme” of many decades, of how the money bags, and tea bags, long to get the Pacifica thorn out of their sides, so they can make more room at the media pig trough!
And I “come away bored.” From that.
I just meant to say How do “we” save Pacifica kpfak? The block programming that was instituted during the 90’s did away with so much of the eclecticism that turned me on.
I mean there was klezmer music on kpfa. That was fun. Sure it probably didn’t have much usefulness but I really enjoyed it.
The Morning concert/World Music.
What has happened here? I personally need Music in the daytime, not just night and weekends. 14 hours straight of talk and I’m not talking Larry Bensky or Mama O’Shea.
Yes, there are great programmers still on the air but the environment is toxic.
Some say join, vote, participate. Ive been homeless for many years. When I had xtra I would give. I’ve worked organic produce also, largely due to kpfka But I cant afford to buy much organic.
As for intelligence, I’m not very. Just Jaded, and more interested in whats coming down the road.
Again. What is the strategy going to be to get ROY back on full. AND stop these top down power trippers?
I hear you. My sympathies, and I’m down with much of your preferences. Still, I think Pacifica’s core contribution is in the talk, simply because our native soil is so parched of anti-fascist perspectives! And ALWAYS has been, throughout Pacifica’s entire watch, but never more than these days.
But I am glad I “called you out,” since I get the idea it helps readers get the positive tone of your criticism, which I didn’t get in your first post. Thanks for the clarification.
(Not that I wouldn’t defend your right to post negative comments, I’m only on the prowl for those with a paid agenda, corporate, etc. because that is not cricket, and I don’t believe in tolerating bullies and grifters. But your points are not of that ilk and are valid, and supported.)
many of us want…to agree…to fight and strain and stay loyal ….on and on and… yet… many also see their efforts, time and money going to waste, if ever even appreciated or acknowledged….
sooooo just ‘let it all go’ to the theives, manipulators, observing the changes, the maligiouc playors, and ‘de times’ a changin more …now …
plus – because of the forever dis-unity, and in-fighting that repeatedly emerges, also wears many out and away. Good for you if you are WORKING further than putting words in comments, as we are too here…. and also finding allies so rich and dedicated too.
We understand those who release what has become a morass, a strain, a untransparency proclaiming truth & honesty.
maybe we are the 90% now-not-before pessimists, givers- uppers and realizers that what seems necessary to do to Maybe, Possible, Might be, or not happen…- and having those need $/professioinal resources too – are being hoarded by the few still ‘in power’ [ within revolving doors too] .
How to not be cynical, after learning more and continually about the serious mean-greedy-bad-games being played to take away orgs – that may not be rebuildable to long ago prior sandards, and past-era-times…. so this looks that BAD. yuk!
there are other media now…while before radio was a more special and unique informer. Radio is helpful, but no longer essential ….info is netted globally and thus more findable.
A good place to start would be understanding more about covert operations, which means knowing something about the “CIA and its allies” who run the show, like The Great and Powerful Oz, from behind a curtain. Nothing happens at Pacifica without them tuning in!
Even Ron Paul gave a significant speech 5 years ago, saying “…the CIA runs everything in this country.” Funny how that one was almost completely ignored by deadstream media.
Until we have an electorate and an “intelligentsia” (actively bright folks?) that have the mindfulness to realize this is a core study and that there is no need to be discouraged by them, in reading up on it, we’ll just be patsies.
I have a long long way to go in study of the subject, of these agencies, but I’ll tell you this much: every factoid I learn about them pays big dividends in understanding what’s really happening.
Things here are never what they seem to be, that’s a given.
Roy of Hollywood, aka our friend Maestro Tuckman, has been touting on his show for years -decades- the book by an important CIA personality, and pilot, deceased for some years, but played by Donald Sutherland in the film JFK, as “X”, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty in real life: “THE SECRET TEAM: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World”. That’s an eyeful.
Harping on that may seem tangential to these discussions but -(as Indiana Jones would say)- “Trust me” when I say nothing could be more relevant or timely, than such a study. Just gaining more insight on how they operate, as our secret government.
Finding out about it all brings great clarity, in terms of history and the present, and just that alone goes far in delivering us from being purely fish in a barrel, all our best “humanities” projects being chewed up by their incessant infiltrations.
Certainly, there is a great fog that comes with the study, “a wilderness of mirrors” as counter-intelligence boss Jim Angleton called their strategy — but also more and more clarity in the tracings of a path out of those mirrors.
I believe it to the depths. In any case, I learn a lot, by watching the watchers.
And what we need is a Global Neighborhood Watch, to protect us from those rogues.
The fundamental options of history tell me it’s coming. And it had better come. Technology of surveillance is leading them to lock down this society, this world. But things can’t be predicted always to their liking.
Reading them, and reading these comments, reminds me of the brilliant soliloquy opening to the Coen Bros. 1st film “Blood Simple,”
“The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. Now, I don’t care if you’re the Pope of Rome, President of the United States, or Man ? of the Year. Something can all go wrong. Now, go ahead and complain, tell your neighbor your problems. Ask for help…and watch him fly. Now, in Russia they got it mapped out, so everyone pulls for everyone else. That’s the theory anyway. But what I know about is Texas. ‘N down here you’re on your own.”
My point? Whichever shoe ? fits, wear it.
“They” all think this is one big Texas. Their Texas. But like the man just said, something can all go wrong.
It is short-sighted, very much so, to think terrestrial radio is no longer essential. And I’ll leave you to ponder why.
I note that so many of the activities that are driving the network down, while also really running up its tab, are mostly coming from the same people, coincidentally folks who got enough of a Power Jones that they are still raising hell long after their terms expired and their time is up.
With such a repeated show of bad faith, it seems like just about every court around would be sympathetic to ELECTED management changing all the locks at all the stations, issuing codes and passes to those who are there legit, and then having anyone who tries to enter illicitly, arrested for trespassing.
Especially anyone who is engaging in what most courts would construe as sadly repetitious Bad Faith actions as the Siegel/Brazonites and their clowning commandos, it would be fairly common sense to make a citizen’s arrest of people using the board rooms and premises for their private agendas -ESPECIALLY, but not limited to, trying to stuff the ballot box of our upcoming election with non “dues” paying drones. A whole catalogue of these actions, laid end to end, should show any judge (who hasn’t been bought) that the sum of their crimes is greater than the parts, and establish a consistent pattern of intentional mayhem against the station.
With the way this gang carries on against Pacifica, just a litany of their acts up to now, it shouldn’t be hard to show just cause at their arraignment for criminal trespass, and get a restraining order?
And then prosecute them in federal court for the palpably RICO-violating federal charges of “collusion to destroy national listener-supported radio” and other federal violations of 1st Amendment rights, to connect all their dots by a straight throbbing line.
–Frankly yours
(Chomsky was on Pacifica a few years ago, discussing the fallout of the GM Motorcar Conspiracy of the 1940 era to buy out trolley cars in nearly 40 large urban areas, trash the trolleys and replace them with buses. The Feds took GM and their gas and tire company co-conspirators to federal court and prosecuted them on the charge of “collusion to destroy public transportation.” Seems like a strikingly similar “modus operandi” here, with a preponderance of evidence against certain current scoundrels who resemble those past ones.