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. Continue reading The Kool-Aid We’re Drinking
Berkeley- Pacifica Archives Director Brian De Shazor has announced his resignation from Pacifica Radio, effective June 30th. De Shazor’s resignation provoked a strongly worded rebuke to Pacifica from Dr. Josh Sheppard, director of the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Sheppard stated De Shazor’s resignation forced him to retract a Library of Congress offer to apply for grant funding to support the archives and would amount to several hundred thousand dollars in potential lost funds. Sheppard went further, stating the Library of Congress would change Pacifica’s status to that of an endangered archive and advised Pacifica management that “abandoning maintenance of the archive and the consequent degradation of these materials will effectively erase the history of Pacifica”. Sheppard’s full letter can be read here. Pacifica had recently threatened significant cuts to archival preservation staffing. Continue reading Erasing The History of Pacifica
Berkeley – Employees at KPFK, Pacifica’s LA station currently embroiled in arbitration with the SAG-AFTRA union, were startled when general manager Leslie Radford handed out “personnel action forms” on September 9th. In the signature line for the executive director, Lydia Brazon signed her own name, without changing the title or indicating she is not Pacifica’s executive director. An example is here. It has been cleansed of any personally identifying information to protect the employee who provided it. The employee in question, as with most union employees in the SAG-AFTRA bargaining unit, refused to sign the form. Continue reading Lydia Brazon, Executive Director
