Public Comment by Daniel Borgstrom at 12/13 KPFA Local Station Meeting
https://soundcloud.com/ann-garrison/daniel-borgstrom-public-comment-kpfa-lsb-december
Tag Archives: kpft
Desperation To Keep The Doors Open at KPFA
*Note: Readers are encouraged to donate to the Pacifica stations during the current set of fund drives, including KPFA. This post is provided here for two reasons
a) To document that the blizzard of Save KPFA propaganda about the Berkeley station being financially stable and in the black, always meeting its fund drive goals and an example for the rest of the network about how to be professional was always deceptive and the station has been living paycheck to paycheck for a very long time, as many UCR and PDGG board members have tried to point out for years and at various times, to ameliorate.
Berkeley Police Out Of Control … Even Broke My Phone And Assaulted Me
By Lisa Dettmer, KPFA unpaid staff member. Dettmer sent this email to her colleagues at 2:00AM on Monday, December 8, 2014 and consented to having it published here. Dettmer is a producer on KPFA Women’s Magazine.
Last night, I was covering the demonstration around midnight. In response to protestors setting garbage on fire the police got into a line and began pushing the crowd down the street. I was on the sidewalk and trying to explain to them that I was “press” and I was videotaping for KPFA, and instead of allowing me to continue videotaping from the sidewalk where I was not in their way at all, they hit the phone out of my hand and broke my phone and then shoved me and wouldn’t let me get my phone back. When I tried to approach a police car to ask to get my phone back, four armed police jumped out of the car with their guns drawn and told me to get away from their car. They seemed quite out of control generally, which is not new. I managed to get my broken phone back, but have not been able to upload my video coverage of the protest and my encounter with them from my Samsung to my Mac after they smashed the screen. If I am able to tomorrow, I will send the audio to the news department.
While this kind of behavior is not new for the Berkeley Police who have no better record than Oakland or anywhere else, I feel very strongly KPFA should be covering this – and not just from our desks. If Al-Jazeera can cover this from thousands of miles away, surely we can from one mile away.
I really hope others were out there this weekend and have tape and also will be covering this for the fund drive tomorrow. I think this is what is of interest to our audience, and selling premiums on an un-related topic feels quite uncomfortable, given what is happening.
Is KPFA Now Irrelevant?
Posted by Thomas Payne on the Bay Area Independent Media Independent Center on December 8, 2014
https://www.
As riots erupt across the nation and in Berkeley – the home of KPFA – and is covered by every news outlet including MSNBC, CNN and the rest of the web but not on KPFA, we need to ask is KPFA irrelevant?
KPFA seems unable to cover breaking news or be a station that truly represents our community, and instead seems more interested in creating the illusion of being a community radio station by hiring a new marketing service to sell the concepts of community and authenticity.
Where was KPFA when riots were erupting in Ferguson, NYC, Oakland and Berkeley? Nowhere to be seen.
Not Again! Why Can’t Pacifica Stop Trying To Censor Its Staff?
Originally posted December 6, 2014
Berkeley-Pacifica unelected board chair Wilkinson did hire a national election supervisor on December 1st. She went all the way down memory lane and hired L. Joy Williams, the very first local election supervisor at WBAI back in 2003. The only problem being that in Ms. William’s first go-round at Pacifica, she required the appointment of a co-election supervisor and vacated the position in the middle of the vote count, leading to the appointment of Phil Botwinick as the supervisor so the election could be finished. Botwinick filed this election report at the completion of his term. In his report he states: Continue reading Not Again! Why Can’t Pacifica Stop Trying To Censor Its Staff?
No Indictment for Darren Wilson? Why Not Preempt and Throw Open the Phones?
By Ann Garrison, KPFA Unpaid Staff Council Member and Reporter/Producer
KPFA listeners seemed confused and disappointed when the station failed to preempt programming and broadcast live after the St. Louis District Attorney’s announcement that the Grand Jury would not indict Officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown.
Continue reading No Indictment for Darren Wilson? Why Not Preempt and Throw Open the Phones?
Slow Motion
Originally posted December 1, 2014
Berkeley-Pacifica’s audit remains on slow-mo after the auditor was pulled off field work and the audit halted due to Pacifica’s inability to produce the required schedules. CFO Salvador blamed East Coast stations WPFW and WBAI for the delay, although last year’s audit was completed months earlier in 2013. Salvador confirmed several of Pacifica’s five stations have left the system-wide Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics accounting program, saying he had no access to DC’s books and they had “traveled” to California and then Texas. If the stations were using the accounting system, general ledger and AP/AR data would be available from all 5 stations by logging in to the accounting system on a computer. Continue reading Slow Motion
Punishment
Originally posted November 15, 2014
Berkeley– More than a little late, and punctuated by an audible “oh shit” by unelected board chair and IED Margy Wilkinson, the Pacifica National Board voted by a narrow 1-vote margin to change the amount of shared service contributions. The new rule, which Wilkinson and Salvador implemented weeks ago without board permission, sets network service payments by the average of the last four years of listener support rather than real-time accounting of actual contributions received this year. As a result of the new policy, stations that experience significant drops in contributions in 2015 may face increased levies at the same time they lose Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. Fund drive tallies for the September/October fund drive cycle showed 4/5 stations experienced between 18% and 25% shortfalls from their original fund drive goals. Continue reading Punishment
$10/Hr To Work In The Media
Originally posted November 8, 2014
Berkeley-In this past election cycle, one of the few bright spots was the strong support for lifting the minimum wage. At Pacifica Radio however, things are going in the opposite direction as indicated by an ad for an early AM part-time position at KPFT in Houston – paying $10 an hour. Continue reading $10/Hr To Work In The Media
Boo It’s An Election
Originally posted November 2, 2014
Berkeley– It’s a Pacifica election for Halloween. Maybe. The national board after considering a timeline developed by their elections committee, rejected the timeline, but did issue an order to unelected chair of the board/interim executive director Margy Wilkinson to hire someone to run the election by December 1st. This is not the first time the board has so instructed, but since Wilkinson voted to tell herself to make the hire, perhaps she will. Who will be hired is a mystery since the most qualified candidates Bill Crosier and Sanchez Montebello have both been ruled out, Crosier due to factional antipathy and Montebello withdrawing in anger after Wilkinson never acknowledged receiving his application. The election has many unanswered questions including how Pacifica will transition to online voting, where the money will come from to pay for it, and what seats are up for election – as 1/2 of the delegates terms expired in December of 2013 (including Wilkinson’s term) and the other 1/2 expire in December of 2015. The rejected timeline proposed a completed election by July of 2015. If the election covers all the seats, Pacifica subscribers will have to rank 18 candidates out of the 36-50 that will run in each signal area. Pacifica’s bylaws prevent delegates and directors from extending their own terms without the permission of the full membership. Continue reading Boo It’s An Election