Berkeley-After receiving a couple of inquiries from Pacifica members who are somewhat overwhelmed by the recent phenomenon of multiple blasts from closely intertwined groups using different names, we decided the confusion they expressed is probably fairly widespread and deserves an answer. Here is one such inquiry (among many):
Happy Holidays! I do have a question though. Who is KPFA Protectors? I get so much email from all kinds of people claiming to be in the best interests of Pacifica, that it is confusing. I will not support any group that has tried to sell off KPFA or any part of Pacifica in the past because the network is “bankrupt”, when a combination of a recession, people losing their jobs, COVID pandemic and just plain bad mismanagement has put the network in danger. I also oppose those people who insist upon maintaining salaried employees (although I feel bad over people losing their jobs) when it isn’t sustainable for the network. Thanks, and thanks for all of your hard work.
The answer, as diagnosed using email headers and links, appears to be surprisingly simple. The differing names are simply red herrings. By using multiple names, it is easier to evade accountability and claim plausible deniability for ventures that do not go well, such as the initial bylaws misadventure that was defeated by a 2-1 margin or the recent request to the court to place Pacifica assets into a receivership trust account held by a Rancho Cucamonga lawyer, which was denied by the court.
Red herring campaigns are designed to confuse the audience, but they generally leave a trail of bread crumbs behind them.
The Pacifica Restructuring Project with a website at rethinkingpacifica.org was the sponsor of bylaws revision #1 that was overwhelmingly voted down earlier this year. It assembled a mailing list by asking people to sign a Jotform petition that specifically promised that by signing on, people agreed only to endorse a membership vote on that specific proposal. Here are the exact words:
By providing your name, station, and contact information below, you are signing the following: We, the undersigned Pacifica members, petition the Pacifica National Board of Directors to hold a membership vote to approve new Bylaws for the Pacifica Foundation. The full text of the proposed Amended and Restated Bylaws is here. Within the proposed Bylaws is a transitional provision appointing as At-Large Directors the six individuals named here.
Nonetheless, folks who sighed that petition found themselves placed on an Action Network email list owned by the Pacifica Restructuring Project, despite never being notified or consenting to such a thing.
That email list, was wholesale transferred to a group with a different name called New Day Pacifica (newdaypacifica.org) which is proposing a second and different bylaws revision proposal (which has not yet been voted on), but they somehow gained control of PRP’s mailing list of petition signers and used it to attempt to intervene in personnel matters at the Los Angeles station by sending emails purportedly written by members of the paid staff at KPFK and linking to the Pacifica Restructuring Project at Action Network.
This introduces the question of whether the signatures for bylaws revision proposal #1 were ad hoc added to the petition for bylaws revision proposal #2, since the New Day group is using the PRP’s mailing list and referring to it as “their list” on their website. (From website at newdaypacifica.org).
RECENT NDP NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS
- E-mails Sent to Save Jobs of Anyel, Sonali, Ian2020-12-18New Day Pacifica sent out an e-mail to its list today, asking people to contact the KPFK LSB about saving the jobs of three critical KPFK staff.
To make this even more confusing (or duplicitous), two named members of the Pacifica Restructuring Project, Donald Goldmacher and Sherry Gendelman, have been sending out emails under the name KPFA/Pacifica Protectors, a name they started using in the fall of 2019 to support the attempted shutdown of WBAI-FM in New York, which KPFA subsidized with $80,000 in member donations. Goldmacher and Gendelman set up a new not for profit organization called Pacifica Safety Net under their control with the corporate purpose of “educating the public via radio” (which is impossible to fulfill without a radio station), and then started raising money for it on Go Fund Me and asking a court to place Pacifica’s radio licenses under the control of their hand-picked receiver, an attorney named Matthew Taylor in San Bernardino County. The website for that group pacificasafetynet.org is all over the place, sometimes pretending to be a friends-of-the-library type outfit, while announcing the failed receivership lawsuit and purporting to be saving Pacifica from a violent communist takeover.
So which is it? Bylaws revision #1, Bylaws revision #2, WBAI shutdown, permanent paid staffing levels, purging the reds, receivership. What does the New Day Protectors Safety Net Restructuring Project actually want? Why can’t they say it using one name, not four?
In an organization with probably the most open governance structure of any nonprofit on the planet, anyone is able to run for seats on boards and attempt to advance their ideas to better Pacifica. In fact, most of these folks are or have been on Pacifica governance boards. But their ideas have not prevailed, so they have resorted to trying to burn it all down with a series of interlinked groups. We get it. Democracy is frustrating. You can’t always get what you want. But if what you really want is a healthy democratic national radio network, then you have to have a coherent plan, engage with those who disagree with you, make your case and guide the organization on the merits of your planned course of action. Alterna-nonprofits, self-selected boards, station cannibalism, job guarantees for some individuals, and purges are not a substitute for a real plan carried out by a board of directors. No matter how many emails you send and how many names you use.
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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 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-sponsored radio.