WBAI: Some Thoughts

Here are some of my own thoughts followed by an e-mail letter TPM wrote to Gary Null's Progressive Radio Network.

The mismanagement team seems to be stirring a bit, having hitherto been in hiding or hibernation. What has put them in motion? I think that their unusual burst of energy is, more than anything else, fueled by a need to keep those salary cheques coming to the select few. If it reflected a desire to keep WBAI on the air for the sake of the remaining listener-supporters, the focus would be different and the awakening would have come much sooner. 

As long as WBAI is under the direction of people who, either purposely or through ignorance, are loath to raise the station's programing to past standards, there is no hope for recovery. What we are seeing is a coterie of opportunists who will sink to any depth in order to keep their turf at WBAI. If that means defrauding the listener-sponsors, so be it, but as more listeners  abandon the morally corrupt station, the abusers find it increasingly difficult to maintain even the flawed status quo—the jig is up and everybody loses, perhaps most notably, the listeners.

WBAI would probably not be on the air during the present Sandy crisis were it not for Gary Null, who has made his PRN online facilities available to WBAI. A generous helping hand, but—as I have stated previously, and he himself will acknowledge—Mr. Null is not totally selfless. He is a business man who reaps great benefits from the air time WBAI afford him, but he is also someone who has sound ideas and is not afraid to criticize the station's management for its ineptitude and poor taste.

I have been critical of Gary Null, whose slick presentations often seem out of place on WBAI, and I think we can attribute to his success the station's lopsided emphasis on amateur health care, but the truth is that Mr. Null has impressive knowledge of holistic medicine and practices, he know his way around business, and he is an excellent, articulate communicator.

This is a refreshing contrast to the station's current management team, which stays out of touch and treats listener-supporters as were they afflicted with leprosy.

Last Friday, Mr. Null devoted a part of his program to the present situation and offered rational, do-able suggestions for a solution. Will they listen? I doubt it, but—in terms of helping WBAI—the value of Mr. Null's business advice could easily exceed and certainly outlive the temporary benefits reaped from his successful on-the-air fund-raising efforts. The problem, of course, is that those who currently make the decisions at WBAI are shortsighted, unimaginative people. They all need to be replaced by competent management that can take good advice without giving away the store.

Finally, there is a problem called Pacifica. Over the years, it, too, has been corrupted by opportunists and obsessive radicals. Ironically, to a point where it may well prove to be the entity that ultimately sounds the death knell for Lewis Hill's extraordinary creation

—Chris Albertson

TPM's letter to The Progressive Radio Network

2 November 2012 e-mail to PRN

Dear PRN:

Recently I hooked up my computer to my Bose wave radio so I could listen to your outstanding programs without being attached to my computer and my headphones.

I have turned to PRN because of the demise of the station I used to listen to for five or six hours a day, WBAI. WBAI has succumbed to nepotism, cronyism, obscurantist programming, and governance by mob rule. It has been crippled by parasites who milk the station –which is bankrupt, for $1.5 million dollars in salaries awarded to the most corrupt and inept of the people at the station.

I am disappointed that PRN lent its support to WBAI during the recent crisis caused by the mega-storm. I would prefer to let WBAI self-destruct so that something better might emerge from its ashes.

Respectfully,
TPM