Comedian activist and sporadic office seeker Randy Credico was a call in interview on KPFA's "Flashpoints" show this evening. A couple of former co-hosts were also interviewed as Robert Knight was being remembered. The sentiment went over the top, as one might expect, but the women were relatively calm compared to Credico, who launched into a tirade against WBAI and Pacific, blaming their fostering of racism for Knight's death. Host Dennis Bernstein, made quite uncomfortable by the outburst, will hear none of this, so he stops Credico. All this is done to live piano accompaniment by ragtime player Terry Waldo, who can barely be heard due to a bad connection.
As most readers of this blog know, I have good reason not to personally mourn this departure, and I hope I don't offend anyone by being up front with it, but I wish—for the sake of Knight's family and friends—that this had been handled with some dignity. Knight had, after all, spent decades at WBAI, and they tell me that he used to do good work.
I am not posting the entire Bernstein segment, it's simply too maudlin, but here is Randy Credico:
Today Democracy Now! announced the death of Robert Knight; it was the last item of its news summary, before it devoted the rest of the hour to the death of Gabo, Gabriel García Márquez, with Juan González & Amy Goodman discussing the great man with Isabel Allende:
ReplyDelete'The radio journalist Robert Knight has died. Over the years, Knight co-founded the investigative news series "Contragate," later known as "Undercurrents," and hosted "Five O’Clock Shadow" and "Earthwatch" on New York City’s Pacifica radio station WBAI. He won the George Polk Award for his radio reporting on the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.'
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/18/headlines (from 11:39)
Jara, funny you should mention Democracy Now!
DeleteChris, I think that you have underestimated, what Randy Cretico has said. Yes, he was upset and raving, but no, Bernstein failed to interview him properly, to get at what Cretico was saying.
Here is what I got out of it: Robert Knight has put in 38 years into BAI and ended up without health care (like the rest of the laid off paid staff?). One of the interesting questions, is what Robert Knight died of, and could have better medical coverage saved his life? Forget Knight's personal qualities, here is someone, who has dedicated 38 years to BAI and Pacifica and ended up treated like a victim of Scrooge in a Dickens novel! He would have done better for himself had he enlisted in the US military and spent 20 years running a small newspaper or magazine for some obscure military unit! He would have been better off in terms of job satisfaction, and later pension and medical benefits, but he chose a PRO---GRESSIVE BAI and Pacifica, full of NPR and mainstream-hating intellectual giants, but I digress.
I am sure that Knight wasn't the only one, who dedicated his life to BAI and Pacifica and got nothing, but I digress.
First, about people choosing to make money off BAI and Pacifica. The usual suspects notwithstanding, you have a failing NOT FOR PROFIT PROGRESSIVE media foundation that lives off the money sent in by listeners, mostly retirees, and what we have is a SALARY INFLATION at the top. First, we have Engelhard awarding herself 90 Grand Per Annum salary from a failing and bankrupt Pacifica, and then, a year later, we got good ole REESE giving herself 105 Grand salary from an even poorer Pacifica. Was that for the cost of inflation? I can reasonably assert, that she has occupied the Pacifica offices, because she has never seen that kind of a salary for straight work as a paralegal. She will never get that kind of money outside Pacifica.
Secondly, there is a misinterpreted statement by Cretico about racism at BAI and Pacifica, that did Knight in. Nobody bothered to ask Cretico to elaborate, but I think that he was talking about the racism of the inner circle at Pacifica, if there was one, that didn't let Knight in. He started talking about Democracy Now!, before Bernstein cut him off. I think that Knight was closely aligned with Amy Goodman at Pacifica, so much so, that somebody lashed out at him, comparing him to a "house nigger". I think that this may have been for Knight's close association with Amy Goodman and whoever was involved in the genesis of what became the Democracy Now!. Apparently Robert Knight was not allowed in that club, and Cretico think that racism was to blame. That may very well be.
Notice, how Bernstein lost his nerve and cut off the interview, once Cretico mentioned the Democracy Now!
I totally agree with your criticism of Bernstein—he should have pursued the path Credico provided.
DeleteI do not know what kind of medical coverage was provided—if any—but Knight was not forced to stay at WBAI all those years. Were his self-promoted brilliance and accomplishments real, he should not have had much trouble finding another outlet for his :investigative journalism." I know from personal experience that Knight was morally bankrupt and that he would twist facts and/or make up new ones in order to demonstrate a journalistic talent that, in large measure, was a figment of his own psychotic imagination.
I have no sympathy for people like that. If Knight was a victim, it was of his own opportunism. He may, as some tell me, have been a good reporter at one time, but when I first heard him on the air, he was breaking every rule of journalistic ethos, disgracing that profession. He also ignored Pacifica's core principles. WBAI was a victim of Robert Knight, and not the other way around. I know now that he was not the sole offender, which tells me that the blame belongs on a higher level, but don't tell me that he "dedicated his life to WBAI and Pacifica"—the halo does not fit.
As for racism at WBAI/Pacifica, it very clearly exists, but it runs both ways and is by no means the only manifestation of bigotry within the organization. We are talking about a shamefully hypocritical, unethical organization that has many of us concerned only because it once was the manifestation of an extraordinary
concept.
As for Knight's close association with Amy Goodman, bear in mind that he was an opportunist. I cannot draw a parallel between Goodman and Reimers, but the disparity between them is not visible to the unprincipled, go with the flow pragmatist. Notice that Bernard White—whatever we think of him—did not buy into Knight's grandiloquence, and thus he was not useful.
I did not see Bernstein's stifling of Credico as action generated by his mention of Democracy Now, but you could be right about that. I saw it as a cowardly defense measure against criticism of Pacifica, the organization to which Bernstein owes his job.
BTW, I have said nothing in this response that I either didn't or wouldn't have said were Robert Knight still around.
I do agree with everything you've said , but I also agree with the post you replied to, that the Pacifica foundation is very top heavy with high salaries for people at the top. I don't feel Democracy Now is this wonderful show that deserves the salary it gets. In fact I listen to her show less and less. It sounds more and more mainstream to me. I prefer the afternoon 3 pm show, or Off the Hook , Tuc radio, Guns and Butter. I feel these shows give an alternative viewpoint in journalism that people historically tuned into pacifica for. If I want to listen to CNN or NPR , I can, I don't need shows on pacifica sounding like them.
Delete"Robert Knight has put in 38 years into BAI. . ."
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem. He shouldn't have. The station is dying because it is saddled with people who occupy it for decades and decades. They don't leave, even if they perform poorly and have no audience. This doesn't happen anywhere else. In TV and in radio, you might have a few very talented and popular personalities be on air for decades. Walter Cronkite, Ed Bradley, Johnny Carson, for example. But they are the rare exception. And their continued presence was justified by extraordinary audience demand. At WBAI, everyone stays around for 2, 3 or 4 decades even if nobody wants them to.
Knight was a terrible reporter. His reports were biased and inaccurate. He often would report on one side of a controversy without even mentioning the other side. His reports were also littered with name-calling and polemics. A left wing version of a Fox News reporter is still a bad reporter.
Some highlights of his inaccurate reporting that I remember: In 1984, he falsely reported that civilian plane shot down the previous year by the USSR was on a spy mission and was beaming intelligence to the US Space Shuttle Challenger. In 1991, one week into the very short First Gulf War, he reported that the war was going very badly for the US, and that US planes were suffering from "metal fatigue" and soon would be unable to fly bombing missions. All totally false. And let us not forget his outstanding journalism exposing the truth about the Face on Mars.
When he was fired, in or around 2006, his "brilliant journalism" was not sought after by any newspaper, magazine, radio station, or website. Bernstein let him do a few minutes of commentary on his show, but otherwise it remains a mystery what he did with himself during that time. He refused to talk about it but anyone can check whether he was a working journalist during this period and he wasn't.. Of course, even though it was demonstrably clear that there was no market in any medium for his "talent," WBAI hired him back.
Final point: Since January, Knight had access to health insurance via the ACA. If he was making no money, he would have been eligible for Medicaid, i.e., free health insurance. If he was making a little money, he could get subsidized insurance on the exchange and there would be no preexisting condition limit on his coverage. Of course it is odd that the cause of death is being kept such a mystery. But whatever it was, a lack of health insurance probably had nothing to do with it.
Thank you for affirming that the emperor had no clothes.
DeletePacifica/WBAI has been notorious for screwing people over. Valerie Van Isler, who was Robert Knight's girlfriend for many years and who was the GM of WBAI, refused to give Samori Marksman a raise and life insurance even though he had a family and three children. She was in part responsible for his early death. Say what you will about Amy, she smelled the shit about WBAI long ago and she made moves to protect herself and her health and finances
ReplyDeletenone of you have it torally right...wait for the memorial ..things will be set straight at that juncture
ReplyDelete[Extreme Irony Alert!]
DeleteNo doubt.
~ 'indigopirate'
The point is - was Robert Knight a paid staffer or a volunteer? If he was a paid staffer, then regardless of his personal qualities, what I would like to know is, how many people were paid employees at BAI, what kind of a pension beyond the social security were they able to earn and have they got any medical benefits as part of their retirement package, if there WAS any retirement package to speak of.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Amy Goodman, I don't have any problem with her show, only that she took that, which belonged to Pacifica, and made it her own. There is strong evidence, that her program accepted grants from large non-profits to get on its feet, again, I have no problem with it, being a fan of NPR, but then don't go around claiming that you are listener supported, and then, there is the unanswered question of that contract, that DN! signed with Pacifica stations, that have the effect of the most successful economic sanctions, that so far nobody has documented or shed any light on.
What surprises me, is how much Social Darwinist sentiment (it's on him, he should have known better could have moved on if he was competent etc.) is expressed here by the anonymous commenters and presumed listeners of BAI and Pacifica, supposedly a PRO--gressive set of people. Social Darwinism was the cardinal ethos of the Nazis before the WW2 started and they became famous for something else. Social Darwinism sentiment is bourne of scarcity mindset, as well as lacking empathy and altruism as a result of ignorance.
To all would be economic realists out there, I would like to point out an alternative. Tim Yohannan Bay Area 1960's left winger, not just a progressive, but a full blown Marxist. In the 1980's he and some friends of his decided to take the punk rock scene, which was essentially an apolitical fashion dominated movement, and decided to turn it into a politically progressive force. He started putting out a $2 fanzine, called Maximum Rocknroll. It covered the Hardcore music and DIY (Do It Yourself) scene, and he attracted people from various parts of the scene to write columns. It was a 'zine mostly for teens and twenty-somethings, written by thirty something arty grad types, started by a forty-something. It was a part time volunteer effort, At the end of each year, Yohannan printed a tally of how many copies were sold, how much money was made and where all of the money went. In the Mid 1990's, when I was reading it, they made 900 grand per year, all ploughed back into the magazine. Yohannan took nothing for himself, actually ran at a surplus, and donated the extra money to the local area shelters, soup kitchens and DIY music collectives. Unfortunately Yohannan died early from lymphatic cancer. Looking at the sordid mess, that is BAI and Pacifica, and at the so-called economic realists, who defend turning BAI into a premium marketing outlet, Tim Yohannan is both a stunning and a shining example of what one man accomplished, taking nothing for himself, and having supported himself financially with blue collar work.
Social Darwinism? What on Earth are you babbling about? Was anyone suggesting that RK be euthanized for being unsuccessful? No, I don't think so. It isn't Social Darwinism to suggest that a radio show personality who is unsuccessful over a long period of time be asked to move on to another venture. This should have happened with RK decades ago.
DeleteIf it had, it might have made him a better journalist, as he would have focused on what went wrong at WBAI and honed his craft. Instead, he was allowed to languish for 38 years, with no incentive to change or improve. Moreover, if he had been shown the door back in the 80s or 90s, it would have opened up WBAI's schedule to new people. Did it ever occur to you that there is a multitude of talented people in NYC and that some of this ocean of talent might be given an opportunity to shine? That maybe we would have a vibrant, impactful radio station if that station gave a voice to more and different people? Are you seriously suggesting that everyone who is employed by WBAI has a right to employment for life and further that they have a right to be on the air for life? If that's really the deal at WBAI, then the listeners should be told that. I don't think anyone is interested in donating $2 million/year to keep a few dozen people ensconced in a personal playpen for 4 decades.
You bring up a vital point that seems to escape many defenders of WBAI's years of cliquishness: the inherent stagnancy of tenure based upon time rather than talent. In the case of Pacifica stations, it is a mission-thwarting approach that stunts creative growth, fosters false proprietary feelings and encourages favoritism.
DeleteThose who possessed genuine talent did not spend it all at 99.5, they moved on to pursue evolving careers. As I understand it, Knight showed real potential in his early years at the station. but he began to take himself seriously and allowed his considerable ego to get in the way. I learned very early on that one should always take one's work seriously, but not oneself. Knight was not open to critique of his work, which is why he stagnated and (with his shill, Pamela Somers) immediately went on the attack after reading my assessment. It was astonishing, inappropriately personal, and relentless.
We should not blame RK's decline as a broadcaster or loss of journalistic integrity on a moribund Pacifica Foundation or local mismanagement. To be sure, they provided an unhealthy atmosphere, butI others have overcome that, and some still do. Unable to recognize his own shortcomings, Knight had to justify his career having reached a dead end. Somers fanned the flames of his perceived self-importance with every outrageous hype she could come up with, and he bought into it all. Or so it seemed, but there was an insecurity in place, one that manifested itself in his constant self-identification on the air, and the illusions he spun by giving listeners the impression that he was a network "anchor" working out of New York City. It was pathetic and telling, and it fooled himself more than anyone else.
As the years went by, the likelihood of Knight moving his career to higher ground faded, so he resorted to unbecoming attention-getting approaches. His "reporting" became increasingly dishonest and theatrical. eventually morphing into a routine of downloading speeches from Youtube and presenting them as unique material. He had become a faint shadow of what he once imagined himself as.
All this time, Knight and others blocked access to WBAI's microphones. New York is a hub for established as well as budding talent in every field, and WBAI used to be a remarkable proving ground as well as a classroom.
It is no longer that, nor do I see any real chance of a reversion.
bai gets what it deserves
ReplyDeleteBut, as conceived by its founders, it did not deserve much of what it got.
DeleteAnonymous, you missed the point. It's not whether RK was a good or a bad journalist, it is that he put in a lot of years at a station and didn't get much of a retirement package. The question, that nobody has bothered to answer is, was RK a paid employee, and if so, what is the retirement package for a BAI employee. Or, are the low wages, lack of employee benefits, and lack of pensions something not worth discussing?
ReplyDeleteAgain, you have this narrow, blinkered view that BAI can only be supported by remittances from its listeners, a view, that justifies premium pitching. Premium pitching is NOT how the arts an culture was supported historically, and the current experiment shows that it is not viable in the present day either. You also seem to confuse Social Darwinism with Euthanasia. That might makes right, everyone should sink or swim based on their merits, are also Social Darwinist sentiments, just as the notion, that it is okay for individuals to make money off the premiums sold at BAI, which is also illegal. Your knee-jerk reaction that Social Darwinism is somehow socialism and that I am advocating life-long employment for BAI workers is revealing. What you fail to grasp, is the fact that the employer is responsible for bearing the social costs of his or her business enterprise, and that cost includes the social net for its employees. Let me give you an example. Let's say that a restaurant employs an undocumented dish-washer. Paying him or her off the books, and with the migrant supporting the family overseas, it is seems like a mutually beneficial arrangement - the small business owner does not carry the payroll costs of the taxes, health benefits or disability insurance, and the migrant gets the bigger bang for the untaxed dollar spent in country where the dollar buys more. However, lets say that the self same dishwasher gets scalded by the dishwasher or hurt in some other way, the small business entrepreneur takes the injured worker to the emergency room, the hospital can not turn away the patient, the migrant worker gets treated, and the tax-payers end, by way of the hospital, the city of New York, and the federal subsidies to the hospitals, ends up footing the bill. What I like to see is the small business owner sentenced to prison, when they pass on the social cost of their business to the taxpayers. It doesn't happen to the restaurant owners yet, but it will. However, I am aware of a small business contractor, who got 8 years in prison for not paying workmen's comp insurance for his employees. Ooops... he didn't know... I am all for free enterprise, so long as it is genuinely free of cost to the taxpayer. Having said all that, I know people, who put in 20 years as security guards and all they got was their social security, and it is within the bounds of the US law, so I wasn't addressing if RK was good or bad journalist, or whether he should have been fired, my main sentiment was a lamentation for anyone having worked for 30 or so years and having nothing to show for it. I hope that when you turn 65, you won't have to face the karmic justice and end up with an inadequate pension, having to go to work until the day you die.
I hope anonymous gives you a response. I will just inject that—whether he was salaried, or not—Knight's decision to spend all those years at WBAI was his own. We know that he received a salary after Bates and Reimers gave him the 5 PM strip. We also know that he soon began soldiering, i.e. pretending to perform work while only making a minimum effort. Basically, that is theft. He knew that he had nothing to offer that other stations might want, so he was stuck at WBAI and could only blame himself for that. So, whether he was or was not a paid employee prior to them letting him in again is actually irrelevant. He was a user, as were they—one cancels out the other.
DeleteIt's me, anonymous, the person you were responding to.
DeleteMy comments above were dealing with a mentality prevalent at WBAI that producers own "their" air time and that their longevity is proof of their great value. I was reacting to that, which I read in your initial post. I was also reacting to the suggestion that RK's termination and his health benefits situation were responsible for his death. I was trying to make the point - and maybe I didn't do it well enough - that, while loss of employment and loss of health insurance can be the indirect cause of worker deaths, in this case such an allegation is unfair. The difference is that RK died in 2014 in New York State. And in 2014 in New York State, if you have little or no income, you can access comprehensive health insurance either 100% free of charge or, at worst, heavily subsidized to the point where the cost would be less than a phone bill. RK was not like a worker fired by Bain Capital pre-ACA, forced to choose between dying or paying thousands of dollars in premiums on the private market. That would be Social Darwinism. RK's situation in NY in 2014 was simply not.
An entirely separate question is whether RK got everything he was entitled to under his employment contract. Even if a lack of health insurance can't be blamed for RK's death, that really has nothing to do with whether he was treated fairly or whether he was denied contractual benefits like continuation coverage, pension payouts, etc. On that score, I have no information and thus no opinion. It is entirely possible that he was shafted, and it is entirely possible that he wasn't. I just don't know. If he was shafted, then of course that is wrong. Even though I don't think he should have been working at WBAI, the fact is that he was, and as such, he should have gotten whatever his contract provided.
One last point: At no point did I ever endorse the insane model at WBAI of deriving revenue from listeners. This model can and does work - if the listenership is sizable, engaged, appreciative. It fails utterly when the listenership is tiny, disengaged, and disenchanted. And it is a vicious cycle, since the more you pitch, the more resentful and disengaged the listeners become. I didn't listen to WBAI in Feb and March. And when April came around and the pledging finally stopped, I was in no hurry to tune back in. I doubt I am the only one. And now they are going to start up again in May for another 4, 6 or 8 weeks.
So here's a question for Albertson: Has WBAI ever considered allowing sponsorship or advertising from small, local businesses or non-profits? I can't fathom why this hasn't been discussed. Such sponsorships would help local businesses, embed WBAI in the community, provide steady revenue, and not compromise its "mission" or "integrity. I get that if you take advertising from Exxon or from Lockheed Martin, it might prevent WBAI from independently reporting on oil spills or on the defense budget. So of course, that is off the table. But in all the years I have listened to WBAI, I have never heard any news report or expose on Gino's Pizzeria in Chelsea or on Mom 'n Pop Hardware store in Brooklyn or on the small yoga school in the Village. Why is it better to destroy the station pitching for month after month rather than allow small businesses and organizations to sponsor? And why isn't it more dangerous to journalistic integrity to pitch premiums that make broad claims about war, terrorism, health and politics? Why doesn't the use of these books and videos as premiums impinge on WBAI's ability to report critically on the topics covered in those books and videos? It seems far less problematic to allow Gino's Pizzeria and similar small businesses to each do small sponsorships than it is to spend 2 months pushing some book about the Illuminati or about the miracle healing powers of this or that nutrient.
Having exceeded the allotted word count, I have to make this a two-part response. This is PART I of II
DeleteTo answer your direct question to me, I would be surprised if forms of corporate underwriting had not been discussed at WBAI. We never did so when I was there, not even when the situation reached a critical point. Our solution, a desperation move, was to invent the fundraising marathon. We had no model to go by, so we just described the situation, announced as our goal the minimum amount we needed, and made it clear that WBAI might not survive (i.e. would probably "go commercial") unless we received this money ($25,000) from the only sponsors we knew: our listeners. That worked beyond our imagination—when the goal was reached in pledges, we resumed regular programming, and ended up receiving about $10,000 more than expected. Sustained sponsorship never occurred to us, because—as far as I know—the concept did not yet exist. Besides, we took the "non-commercial" tag seriously.
That said, I am not totally against such sponsorship if it is done selectively and kept to a minimum. Lou Schweitzer's WBAI was, of course, a commercial station, but he limited sponsorship to companies whose products he respected—I remember Steinway being one. A NYC newspaper strike brought the station relatively heavy commercial traffic, which Lou hated—it was what made him call Pacifica with his generous offer.
The current WBAI's occupants are quick to condemn commercial sponsorship. They will cite WNYC's use of it as proof of WBAI's purity, and point out that taking money from commercial interests can inhibit on-air freedom of speech. That danger is real and I think we see it evidenced in NPR's news coverage. However,as you point out, corporate underwriting need not be a compromising factor—that danger exists only if station management allows it to.
So, I say that it is a possible partial solution, but only if the station is operated responsibly and principle is placed before money interest. Looking back at WBAI's "leadership" in the past two decades and considering the current Pacifica mindset, I think it will work as well as a rooftop homing pig message system.
Finally, we have the inherent hypocrisy exemplified by a knee-jerk righteous condemnation of commercial sponsorship by a station that allows its producers and hosts to conduct their private business on the station's air, in the name of "community"-oriented programming.
You will not get an argument from me—or, I can say with certitude, anybody else—when it comes to the absolute need to stop the repetitive, dishonest and purely commercial month-long hawking of bogus, overpriced products. It is extraordinary that Reimers and his crew have spent the past years escalating this practice rather than adopting a solution that will attract rather than deter listenership. I say "adopting" and not "looking for," because a key to any radio station's success is its programming. WBAI needs to hire skilled, dedicated people who possess the necessary experience, integrity, and vision. Personally, I repeat what I have been saying ad nausea. namely that I believe it is too late to save Pacifica from itself and restore the qualities that once made WBAI worth supporting.
PART II of this response follows:
Here is PART II of my response:
DeleteI don't know if it was you who said it, but someone noted earlier in this thread that Knight was a bad, biased reporter. Well, he was, and even if it is right that he started off with integrity, he should have been told to move over the minute stagnation and narcissism took over. WBAI is a precious platform from which people with talent and intelligence can perform—There is no dearth of such people in New York, ergo no excuse for WBAI to broadcast 75% of its regular fare.
If Robert Knight's embarrassing performance were attributable to his poor health, he should have stepped aside and freed up the microphone. We have yet to be told what "illness" he was being treated for last week when he died—surely, there is a reason for that. The WBAI crew is known for dodging the truth.
As to whether or not he was treated "fairly" or "shafted," bear in mind that he continued to do his midnight show, "Earthwatch," after the layoffs went into effect. He was not driven to do so by any sense of serving WBAI or the "community,"because the show was either an unlabeled rerun or thrown together with minimum input from him. There was no substance, no fresh reporting, no analysis, just that hateful agenda that now characterized his work. Had he felt the victim of unjust treatment by WBAI, there was always the door—the problem was that there were no other jobs beyond that door, no contracts awaiting his signature, not even fans wanting autographs.
Knight had based his "career" on an old trophy, an artificially extended vocabulary, and delusional selfies. That is not much of a foundation.
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful reply. I appreciate it. Of course, my thoughts about sponsorships were only academic at this point. WBAI is in a death spiral and there would be no reason for local businesses to sponsor anything on the station.
DeleteIt really is amazing that in a city which offers numerous potential funding sources and which is awash in talent in every field of human endeavor, WBAI can't raise enough money to pay its phone bill and can't find anyone more talented than 3 dozen hacks who hang around for 3-4 decades, mumbling opinions on the air.
Chris, my concern is not Knight, my question is, how well have the long term salaried employees at BAI been provided for in their retirement? Did BAI offer benefits? Did they have a 401K or some other pension plan. I agree, that Knight's decision to stay at BAI all these years was his own and he bears responsibility, but what about other paid staff, surely some of them earned their retirement from BAI/Pacifica? There is a caveat, if the employment at BAI was a secondary and/or part time, and the BAI paid staff had other, primary employment.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Knight's shortcomings, forget BAI specifically. and let's consider the media industry for a second: I have a buddy of mine, who got a job in commercial television as a producer. Mind you, dude has a college degree, but not media related. He tells me what he does, my jaw drops. How long did it take you to get the job? I ask. A couple of seconds, he shrugs, I knew somebody at the station.... So, considering the ego-driven and patronage staffed nature of the mainstream media employment, and the personalities involved in the running of the BAI, is it any wonder that Reimers runs BAI like a marketing organization, and Robert Knight (and I am sure that there were other producers), was acting like he was part of the inner circle and that his job was sinecure, which his spot was for him, until he got laid off?
I'm afraid that I don't have an answer for you, because health insurance was not a reality back in the day. When I was GM, we did not have a union. I believe KPFA (or K, or both) signed up with NABET, so we had a staff meeting and took a vote, following a discussion, The vote against joining was unanimous and I don't recall why that was, except that the staff attitude was very different at WBAI then.We were all quite dedicated to the success of the station (hard to believe, I know) so I think we feared that unions might somehow introduce that dreaded, commercial outside world to our little idealistic spot. Our salaries were not high (mine was $12,000 annually) but adequate.
DeleteCome to think of it, I don't recall having any health insuanc on my previous jobs, Philadelphia Bulletin, CBS, WNEW, etc.
Perhaps someone who is more up to date on these things will post an answer.
Robert Knight was a great reporter at one time. It makes sense now that I know he was ill for a long time. Illness takes the energy from you that you would have used for something else. His undercurrents program in the early days was AMAZING. That's when I first found WBAI and from there listened to everything else. My feeling about him not having health benefits is that Pacifica does NOT practice what it preaches. Always preaching fairness in labor etc.. etc. yet one employee Amy Goodman gets a contract for almost a million and others get NO pay, not even bus fare, and others get no health benefits like Robert. That formula is flawed. Often when I would mention that dynamic to people they would ask how can that be. ?? That is a good question/ And this I believe is one of the reasons Pacifica IS SINKING. IT must start to develop an integrity where those kind of inequities no longer exist. . If you are preaching one way of being to everyone else but doing something quite different, eventually the preaching sounds false and we the listeners can hear it.
ReplyDeleteIllness did not keep him from distorting facts, whether by omission or vindictiveness. I have heard that he was a good reporter, and it has always puzzled me, because he was anything but that a few years back when I first heard him. I really don't think illness robs people of their integrity, morals, or ability to speak the truth—unless, of course, it is mentally based. That and a rumored addiction were made plausible by some of his extraordinary, embarrassing on-air behaviors and a series of infantile posts leveled at me on his shill's list-serv one night.
DeleteThen there is his alleged "investigative" reporting. Much of it came from Youtube downloads, and some came from his sick imagination. A simple Google proves the former and I have proof of the latter in the wild lies he posted and aired about me being a secret agent for the U.S. military who was rewarded with an immigration visa. When he took his fantasy further and claimed that I had been fired from WBAI for practicing censorship and, in general, being inept, I posted a letter from Pacifica's President, Hallock Hoffman, offering me a position on the Foundation level. I turned down that offer and went to work for the BBC in London. Ignoring such incontestable proof of their having lied, Knight and his shill, Pamela Somers (they were like satanic Siamese twins), ignored the letter and came up with a new accusation: I had, they posted, betrayed Pacifica by taking a job elsewhere!
To me, this kind of random inconsistency was further evidence that I was dealing with amazingly immature minds. Think about it—all I had done to trigger this avalanche of pure hatred was to write an unfavorable (not vindictive) review of Knight's radio performance. Also consider this: great broadcasters do not get stuck for decades at a Pacifica station with rapidly declining listenership, nor should they need to absurdly hype their imagined importance, family ties, and career history,
People tend to get shocked when we criticize the deceased, but we reap what we sow. Knight is gone and what he left behind is full of smoke and mirrors—he was his own worst victim. Is it wrong to point that out amid all the hypocrisy? I don't think so. I was highly critical of him and his partner when he was still around, and I never hid my identity, because everything I said could be substantiated. She is still around, of course, but so was I when she aimed her poisoned pixels at me.
If he really was "great" at one time, the saga of Robert Knight becomes all the more tragic.
Knight always had substance issues. He wasn't unique in that respect, but the fact is that he always had them. I'd guess they may have become worse or done more damage over time – but that's only surmise on my part.
DeleteThere is, though, no objective question that he always had them, and that they were non-trivial.
~ 'indigopirate'
I had heard about this from several people on the inside. His bizarre behavior seemed to confirm it, and having Somers around didn't help him. I suspect that she put together the lengthy "bio" that Kathy Davis is distributing—it is typical of the sort of stuff she made up. I can't wait to see his clandestine work with John Stewart—for a man who felt a need to puff up his past, he certainly showed restraint in this case. Frank LeFever obviously also had some doubt, his link to IMDb turned up Robert Knight as one of three writers on a 7-minute film, "Special Korean Sauce," which is as poorly written as it is produced and acted. His attempts at "comedy" have made me cringe, but I think this effort is sub-standard, even for him.
DeleteThe shill needs to chill, as it were.
I looked into this. The morons over at the R Paul Martin board have confused WBAI's Robert Knight, who has never appeared on The Daily Show, with a veteran Religious Right activist by the same name, who appeared on 4 episodes over the course of several years. It is true that IMDB seems to have lumped the 2 Knights together and compounded that error by listing the conservative Christian Robert Knight as having been a "correspondent" on the show. In fact, the conservative Knight appeared as himself as he was interviewed in various fake news spots. I know this because all Daily Show eps are online, something that the geniuses over at RPM's plantation haven't figured out.
DeleteEven without viewing the shows online, it should have been pretty obvious that "our" Robert Knight would not have appeared on the show as a correspondent, i.e., in front of the camera, inasmuch as he 1) is not a professional comedian 2) has no experience in television. Moreover, correspondents on TDS are hired as regulars, and wouldn't appear in 4 episodes appearing sporadically over a 4 year period.
Yes, and minimum ability to draw logical conclusions should have sent up a humongous red flag: Would Knight, with that super-sized ego, not have made a big thing out of having appeared several times on a show as popular as TDS?
DeleteYou bet he would. I mentioned a long time ago that I had seen this m.o. before. John Hammond was a record producer of considerable actual accomplishment, but he never corrected the many talent "discoveries" that were erroneously attributed to him.
Knight's cheerleader-shill, Pamela Somers used to invent "facts". I wonder if this was misinformation generated by her? It could be and, if so, Knight was right there, free to deny it.
Robert Knight's best friends were the gullible.
Since WBAI shows like Contragate and Flashpoints often exposed the way mainstream media news/propaganda organizations like the UK's BBC failed to accurately report the news, a commentator who apparently "went to work for BBC in London" would not be likely to appreciate the great, cutting-edge, anti-establishment journalism work that Contragate and Flashpoints producers/reporters provided 'BAI listeners for many years. But for most WBAI listeners, not getting hired by a mainstream media new/propaganda organization like BBC, PBS, CBS after being employed by WBAI is usually seen as evidence that the alternative journalist has refused to sell-out and retained his or her journalistic integrity and independence.
ReplyDeleteYour post—riddled with uninformed assumptions and gross exaggerations—has all the hallmarks of having been written by a zealous PR hack.
DeleteI hope "b.f." doesn't stand for Bob Fass, because he knows the truth. :)
Quite absurd. Ever hear of a fella by the name of Paul Fischer?
DeleteHave you *any* idea what you're talking about?
~ 'indigopirate'
Absurd, indeed, I wonder how she feels about the "new/propaganda organizations" used to enhance Knight's circulating bio.
DeleteIronically, his cheerleaders are continuing the mockery he himself started.
Did you ever see the Andy Griffin movie, "A Face in the Crowd"?
Lol! "Refused to sell out" implies that he ever received an offer from any other media outlet. But no one was wooing RK. No one wanted him. And not only corporate media, but independent media, alternative newspapers, and progressive news websites too. It was a universal lack of interest. You can't refuse to sell out when no one is trying to buy you.
DeleteAs for your examples of great WBAI journalism, both were opinion shows. They were people in a studio spewing opinions, not journalists spending thousands of dollars to trek to the jungles of Nicaragua or the mountains of Afghanistan to cover all sides of the conflicts. In short, they were not news programs and are in no way a replacement for BBC News or similar broadcasts. Also, they are decades old. "Contragate" of course, refers to the Iran-Contra scandal - of 1986-87. You know that WBAI has reached a state of abject failure when even its supporters have to reach back multiple decades for an example of a good show.
I had never seen A Face in the Crowd, but knew of its reputation. Caught a few brief clips on Youtube, and it looks absolutely incredible. I'm downloading it now.
Delete~ 'indigo'
PART 1
ReplyDeleteI didn't want to chime in and trample on the recently departed but I will say this in the spirit of keeping the record straight.
In November 1986 when Eugene Hasenfus was shot down in NIcaragua, Dennis Bernstein reported it along with other "found reports" gleaned from other sources in what became the Iran Contra Affair. At the time I was a volunteer producer at WBAI. John Scagliotti was program director, John Simon GM and Will K. Wilkins was doing mornings. At the time I did a late night show called "Investigations" and invited Bernstein on to talk about the Hasenfus shoot-down. It was a great story and I suggested the story had real legs and should be made available to a larger audience. I approached Scagliotti the next day suggesting that Bernstein should be invited onto the morning show and that I would help produce and engineer the show. I told Scagliotti that the report should run at 8am, what I call "the G spot" of radio. The story was hot and Scagliotti could no deny the power and potential draw of the information and so the next day Bernstein and I were on the air together and did a 29 minute show. It was adrenalin infused radio and I told Scagliotti we wanted to do it again the next day - and the next - and the next - and suddenly WBAI had a hot 8AM show called Contragate. I asked Peter Bochan to do the theme music and we used a Philip Glass piece though later a new theme was established. Berntein and I became the Contragate team and soon other producer came on board - the late Judith Kallas, Ron Harbin, Victoria Schultz among them. Bernstein was the reporter gleaning information from various sources though never venturing to Central America himself. He was and has for most of his career, been studio based using the phone and other peoples actual first hand reporting. I co-hosted Contragate and produced pieces, did commentaries and designed the format of the show. To me it was like a tabloid newspaper - short, sharp, incendiary. This went on for about a month until I was asked to attend a conference in Australia. By now the five-day-a-week Contragate show was hot and hitting its stride. Robert Knight hovered around the edges but was not involved. Bernstein was able to spend time on the program because he was subsidized by his then partner Connie Blitt who came from a wealthy family. He/they offered to pay me a little money if I stayed on board and not leave the program for my Australian lecture commitment. But by then I was somewhat leery of Bernstein's style of advocacy reporting and certainly did not want to be controlled by his paying me. My background was with Australian Broadcasting where standards of journalism applied which was not the case at Contragate though I understood Bernstein's advocacy approach. I decided to drop out of the show though with some reluctance as I knew Contragate had the potential to build careers as it did for Bernstein. It was at this point that Robert Knight came into the picture, replacing me as engineer and co-host and of course the rest is history. This is probably the first time I've revealed this history and I hold no grudge for not getting my own name in lights regarding the true roots of Contragate. Just as I've never crowed about starting Amy Goodman on her path in journalism when I introduced her to WBAI and she was my assistant. But I include this for the record.
PART 2
ReplyDeleteAnd the remarks by Anonymous regarding the reporting by RK and Bernstein for that matter, are accurate so far as I know. Both are/were capable of hyping their own work which in many instances was actually other people's work. Neither traveled much or had access to primary sources. Most so called reporting was aggregated from other reporter's work in the way a Charley Rose "reports". Not that this is necessary bad but it is not real "in the field" reporting as both RK and Bernstein would like to think. In the case of RK, his Panama and Korea reports were actually junkets paid for by the people they were reporting on. At the time I was very surprised that people took the "reporting seriously". But obviously they did to the degree Robert actually received prestigious awards. But regardless of Robert's foibles (and we all have them) he was a unique and talented broadcaster and his "Earthwatch" program was sometimes brilliant. I'd suggest the same applies to Bernstein and his "Flashpoints" program. But compared with the work and career of Amy Goodman who also started at WBAI and who is a real reporter, has traveled widely, risked her life and really stood on the front lines of history, both Robert Knight and Dennis Bernstein become pale shadows in comparison.
Thank you, Andrew, for confirming my long-held instinct.
DeleteDid RK and/or Bernstein inform the audience that their trips and thus their coverage were paid for, or did they conceal it?
Delete~ 'indigopirate'
I don't know how Robert and Dennis got their info, but I would firmly disagree that Amy trumps them as journalists.Amy continues to sound like CNN and National Pentagon Radio, NPR. Please listen to who she chooses to put on the air to cover the Ukraine,or Syria. She plays speechs by McCain and Kerry like they are the holy grail when they are just war hawks, munching at the chops to start another war. I have much respect for Andrew Phillips but I disagree that Amy is a fantastic journalist. She covers certain subjects brilliantly , but I believe she is a paid shrill for the war hawks 'cause she most likely takes some of their money from foundations that come indirectly from that ruling class that has never seen a war they don't like.
DeleteYour view appears to be extreme leftist/progressive, and your definition of journalism appears to be your preferred ‘truth’ – which, in turn, appears to be simply the left-wing equivalent of, eg, Sean Hannity.
DeleteI’m anything but a fan of Democracy Now!, but please explain how a journalist can have any credibility and not present the ‘war hawks’?
Are they to be, in 1984-fashion to be magically vanished from existence?
The sad truth is that people like McCain and Kerry do indeed exist, and they do indeed wield very considerable power and influence – that has to be covered, and if it’s to have any credibility the coverage mustn’t take an editorial stance (which it seems you’d prefer). Let them speak for themselves. Let people draw their own conclusions. Let them hang themselves.
Propaganda, whether of the left, the right, or or the Martian Alien Overlords and Interdimensional Shapeshifters, is not news – it’s propaganda (which some people, of course, see as ‘truth’).
WBAI and Pacifica had influence in shifting the national conversation when it covered the news credibly – it hasn’t had any such influence in a very very long time.
… and you feel it isn’t sufficiently ‘true’ because it doesn’t present even more extreme and unlistenable ‘news’?
If only it took a clearer line as to its propaganda it would have more listeners, change minds, drive the national and international conversation.
Yup, that’s the problem…
~ ‘indigopirate’
I think that one of the reasons that BAI and Pacifica stays away from any kinds of grants and sponsorships, is because taking that money entails accepting certain standards regarding journalistic standards and accuracy in reporting. For instance, Fox or MS NBC or BBC, can not report that AIDS does not exist or that the World Trade Center was destroyed by energy beams from outer space, and not face any repercussions as a news organization. By avoiding any and all grant money, BAI and Pacifica can get away with fringe broadcasting.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds plausible, BB. but I tend to think that such thinking—which would require them to look ahead—is beyond these bozos. They are too disorganized and the mutual resentment is too high for them to unite long enough to make such rationalization. I think it is difficult for them to put the same energy into acquiring grants and sponsorships as they put into direct pitching. The lack of integrity is already there and the WBAI people—not having any of their own—are pros when it comes to breaking standards.
DeleteJust look at the recent attempt to boost "buddy" membership by incorporating raffles. They dangled desirable Apple products and announced weekly drawings to buddy biters. Apart from the highly disorganized way in which they made these announcements, it turned out that they didn't even have the prizes! There wasn't enough money to buy them, said Reimers. Buy them from an Apple store? I have produced programs on commercial stations that included giving away daily prices to a studio audience, ranging from modest kitchen appliances to a New Year's Eve for two in Paris. Every prize was acquired by me from a prize house at a substantially reduced cost, there being a promotional value for the manufacturer. It isn't complicated, just professional.
I just watched the funeral on YouTube—it contained more bs than any SNL writer could have come up with. What could have been an occasion for honest reflection ended up sounding like a Pamela Somers propaganda piece. She, however, does not seem to have been among the dozen people who showed up. Credico was there but he did not set things "straight" as promises in his comment here.
ReplyDeleteDennis Bernstein also spoke, but he seemed to have a nose problem, he kept wiping it. Kathy Davis did her thing, as expected—it was embarrassing. The girlfriend, Spencer, read that lengthy fantasy-laden bio that was so widely distributed, and RK's youngest brother (whose last name is Johnson) spoke briefly—his words were the only ones that rang true.
Most of the ranting came from a lady who said she had never known Robert Knight. I think she may have been the reverend, and she went on and on and on, mostly reading her words as she painted a picture of a man to whom truth and love were what life is all about.
It was a day when not just two, but three new saints were declared.
Sorry to be so cynical, death is always somebody's tragedy, but let's call this what it was.
I must confess that I was deeply moved by the NRA ad at the bottom of the screen.
Delete~ 'indigopirate'
Yes, a nice touch. What struck me was the humbleness symbolized by a mere dozen people assembling to bid a final farewell to the greatest investigative reporter of our day, a man whose courageous reportage changed history, a man likened to Bach, Mozart, and—on this day—almost Jesus himself. How did they manage to keep away people like Harry Belafonte and other major figures who (according to Somers) had worshipped the ground (water?) he walked on?
DeleteTo compare thoughts:
ReplyDeletePersonally, Chris, I don’t know what context is appropriate here. This is a YouTube of a small service for a man in fact little known in the wide world. In that sense it’s a purely personal, emotional thing for these folks, and they’re coming from the usual emotional place in such things, attempting to reassure themselves that their friend’s life mattered, that he’s looking down from some loving emotional afterlife, etc. In that sense it’s touching, though I don’t share their belief in a magical afterlife.
Certainly Paulette’s evident love and loss are touching, I think.
So in some ways it’s an intimate moment, a small group, like many small groups, attempting to reassure themselves that their lives matter as whispers against the darkness and the deep silence of the void.
In this instance there’s the ‘legend’ he attempted to spin of himself, for himself, in the wide world, and which ‘legend’ was and is still a significant part of his friends understanding of him and of themselves.
As most such legends, offered in innumerable comparable ceremonial celebrations and commemorations of billions of other lives its congruence, its correspondence with ‘reality’ is open to question.
Those, too, I suppose, whispers agains the darkness and the deep silence of the void.
So I think I’m inclined, personally, to treat this particular video, despite its claims of earthly significance, as a sad reminder of the limitations of all human existence, all human striving, all human folly.
‘Vanity of vanities…’ and all that.
~ ‘indigo’
Yes, Paulette and his younger brother are the two who get my sympathy. The rest of them are pure hypocrites and that lengthy spiel by the presumably paid preacher really made a mockery of it all. Of course, the seeds for all this were planted by the deceased, weren't they.
DeleteSorry, but there are times when PC becomes too much of a challenge for me.
As I said, I only mean to compare reactions and perceptions.
ReplyDeleteI share your contempt for PC – a cowardly attempt to impose and enforce groupthink – no more, no less.
Knight did indeed plant those seeds as to his ‘legend’.
Still, he is no more, and the delusional follies of ‘preachers’ aside, has no way of hearing critique or criticism.
So, from my perspective, I was – as you were – touched by Paulette and his younger brother, and their love, their loss, their pain…
As I say, simply to compare reactions.
The scum that are WBAI and Pacifica will continue to paint themselves as the scum they are, of that we have no reason to doubt.
No doubt at all.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Amen—as it were.
Delete