An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
I guess I just listen out of habit now! Anyway some of the stuff this evening really underlined the problems at the station. Tonight, while the Mandela documentary was being hawked (a seems to be a good documentary by the way)the hawker, several times, refereed to Mandela as a Zulu. The hawker was old enough to have been fully aware of the struggle in SA before, during and after the transition and thus if he was halfway educated on the subject - or even halfway conscious, he should have known better. Like I said he stated this several times and nobody else present corrected him about this. The evening just went down hill from there. Besides the hawking of some DVDs by some meditation jackass there was a long pitch by Blasdale (is that the name?) of a documentary pushing the WTC conspiracy lunacy. Although the host stated that this documentary presented "all sides" it became clear fro the segments broadcast that it was pushing the controlled demolition line, and it was likewise clear that the host was also pushing this line. The problem with this is that it allows everything on BAI to be dismissed as nonsense, even stuff that really is true. Crap like this conspiracy stuff, the quacks and the mystics allow the really good information to be dismissed. Oh well I guess this is what things have come to - so sad!
ReplyDeleteI agree, it is truly appalling that WBAI is commandeered by such unprincipled people. Christine Blosdale is, I am told, known as the "Queen of Truthers" at KPFK, where she was hatched. KPFK is also home base for the meditation "Jackass," as you so appropriately name him. 90% of his pitch consists of name-dropping, so he fits right in with Reimers, the inert GM who lists lobbying well-known artists, politicians and socialites as part of his mandate.
DeleteYour observation regarding the overall negative effect this kind of unethical crap has on people's general impression of WBAI is right on the money. In many listener's mind, it lessens the credibility of producers and hosts whose work is noteworthy for the right reasons.
Of course, these vendors don't spend hours plugging their wares in phone calls to WBAI because the love the station. They live a couple of thousand miles away and this is just a part of their business. Philanthropy and concern for a WBAI listener's health are also thin veils when it comes to the likes of "Dr." Gwen Scott and Gary Null—these people know free advertising when it is offered to them.
In addition to Null (what an appropriate name!), Gwen Scott, "the meditation jackass" and the even-more-loathsome (if such a thing is possible) Blahsdale, Kathy Davis and Esther Amrah, I've heard some guy--DeMartino, I think his name is--hawking his investment advice.
ReplyDeleteThat, on a "commercial-free" station?
Aside the empty-, muddle- or wrong-headedness of some producer-hosts, some on WBAI are just plain unscrupulous or simply narcissistic. As the anonymous commenter observed, all of the quacks, knaves and knaves, and all of the self-absorbed, we hear on the station devalues those who are doing work that is valuable (e.g., Michio Kaku, Amy Goodman, Andrea Sears, Robert Knight and, often, Rebecca Myles--at least she can do a good interview ) or simply entertaining or engaging (James Irsay, Bob Fass, David Rothenberg, among others).
Another problem I see at WBAI is that too much of what's presented on shows that are (at least ostensibly) about health or politics is readily available on the Internet and in other media. Back in the old days, of course, that wasn't the case. But now so much of what's presented seems redundant and is, frankly, done better in other places.
If WBAI has any chance to survive, it needs to focus on ideas, information and creative expression that aren't found in other places--or make those things accessible in ways that the mainstream media and our education systems don't. (The latter is one of the services that Michio Kaku, as one example, performs.) Who the heck wants to listen to--much less pay for--stuff that sounds like less-informed, less-literate or simply less-listenable NPR--or, worse, is little more than loopy babbling or ignorant belligerence?
You left out Z. Starman, the numerologists, who hawks his private reading, and Jeannie Hopper, who promotes record labels, and....
DeleteYes, "commercial-free" is another lie.
The alternate availability of these "premiums," at no or drastically lower prices is something I often point out—with money-saving links. They not only keep such information from the listener, they often claim WBAI as the only source. Also secret is the amount of money actually realized by WBAI from each sale. "Loopy babbling" describes well what the babblers themselves—and the audience they have dumbed down—believe to be profound.
Thanks for another comment, Justine.
http://wamc.org/post/when-radio-things-go-wrong
ReplyDeleteThank you for that link. I have placed a clickable one under my main text, above.
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