Here we go again!

There are several Mario Murillos, I hope I have the right video. More on Murillo later, but please comment on this appointment, especially if you have information not likely to make its way into Wikipedia.

I wonder if he listened to Off the Hook this week?


or Haskins making apologies in a preamble to taking phone calls. Haskins is guilty of making and participating in unethical pitches, but this one is on Berthold Reimers, the station's top bozo.

We don't yet know who is included in Mr. Murillo's "WBAI Community," but let us hope that he paints that picture with a broader brush than do the single-minded Ebonistas who currently dominate the station's air. In fact, that term, when applied to WBAI's listeners and broadcasters ought to be a measure of intellect and a quest to feed it rather than of complexion and ancestry.

If Mr. Murillo does not grasp that, if he does not step in and thoroughly clean house to create a schedule of substantive quality radio, he might as well not bother.

Having read his introductory message, dated August 20, 2014, I get the uncomfortable feeling that nothing much will change, beyond the name on the door. However, in all fairness, he sounds like an intelligent man, so the question becomes, how strong is his spine? Will he stand up to Berthold Reimers, his uninformed nonsense and the cronies who must be gotten rid of if the station is to have any chance of survival.

Another very important factor is whether a source of real money can be found, because any restoration of WBAI is doomed to fail unless there is a substantial operating fund to sustain operation for the many months a meaningful transition will absorb. Mr. Murillo must have weighed all that before making his decision, or is he another dreamer?

We'll soon see. As we know, an iPD's tenure at WBAI can take less time than it does to count the number of listeners left.

  

Greetings to the WBAI Community

I send you warm regards and positive thoughts on these waning days of summer, pleased to once again be a part of the WBAI family after a five-year absence. It seems like only yesterday that I did my last broadcast over the airwaves of Pacifica Radio’s flagship station in July 2009, yet now I’m very much looking forward to the next few months of collaboration, camaraderie, and struggle.

iPD du jour, Mario A. Murillo

As some of you may have heard by now, I am taking on the role of interim Program Director after discussing the current situation at the station with many people associated with WBAI over the last few weeks. The question I continued to ponder was how and if I could factor into any of the potential, constructive solutions for making the station viable once again. I spoke with the station manager, several members of the local board, a number of veteran local and national on-air programmers, and many members of the communities that WBAI serves, including both current and former listeners who remain steadfast in their support of our unique institution, not to mention my own close circle of friends and family. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, knowing the many urgent challenges facing WBAI at the current juncture and how difficult it will be to have a long-term positive impact on the station. But in recognizing the extraordinary efforts made by dozens if not hundreds of people in recent years that have tried to sustain the station as it went through one of its most tumultuous periods in its legendary history, I finally decided to give it a try.

I come to this role with considerable humility, but also a strong conviction that WBAI still has an important role to play in the New York, national and global independent media landscape. I have some ideas and proposals as to what we can do to begin to turn things around, but I am a firm believer that it’s only through deliberation, participation, and collaboration that the station can move in the direction of a sustainable future that will serve as broad and diverse an audience as possible.

So I am eager to meet with many of you in the coming weeks and months to begin constructing a new WBAI, in person, on-line, individually and collectively. After reading the many proposals put forward by a wide variety of WBAI constituents related to rescuing and saving WBAI, I am convinced that we can do this, heartened by the interesting, indeed creative initiatives coming forward about programming, production, training, recruitment, social media engagement, new technology, and perhaps most importantly, fundraising and development. But I think it’s pretty clear that fundraising can only be successful if it is carried out in conjunction with a serious, comprehensive approach to all the other aforementioned items, all necessary prerequisites to rebuild the confidence of our listeners, and the entire community. This process includes finding a permanent home where the studios and offices are joined together once again, and addressing the issue of the exorbitant cost of our transmitter lease fees, which clearly has been a severe hindrance to any movement forward.

I have no false illusions that this is going to be easy, and already, I’ve heard from plenty of naysayers assuring me that this is an effort doomed to failure. I am not naïve, and certainly not new to this radio station. I am aware of the precarious nature of its possibilities for survival. For those of you who don’t know who I am (and I’m operating under the assumption that most of you don’t), I came to WBAI in 1989, as director of public affairs programming at a time of growth and expansion of the station’s membership base and fundraising capacity. I come from the world of radio journalism, with a track record of producing news and public affairs that attempts to shine the light on issues usually relegated to the margins when it comes to the major corporate media (sound familiar?). I’ve worked in commercial news radio, mainstream public radio, university-based radio, and grassroots community radio, always embracing the special responsibility of the broadcaster to serve as a vehicle of communication that can lead to constructive social change.

During my years as public affairs director (1989-1998), we as a staff implemented a comprehensive training and recruitment program, where many of today’s unpaid producers began their creative broadcasting trajectories over our and other airwaves. We streamlined daily programming in the key slots of morning and afternoon drives, creating successful shows out of Wake Up Call and Talkback, while making sense of where many of the other community-oriented specialty programs found themselves on the radio clock. We organized the first successful million-dollar on-air pledge drives, which continued to be the norm for several years as we solidified the membership base and emerged as the financial backbone of the Pacifica Foundation.

During this period, we were out in the community regularly, holding teach-ins and forums, and broadcasting live from all sorts of venues and events. We confronted the racism of the NYPD during episodes like the Central Park Five prosecutions and Amadou Diallo assassination; we challenged the illegality of the build-up to the first Gulf War in 1991, only to see it repeated 12 years later after 9/11; we celebrated Mandela’s release and triumphant visit to Harlem, as well as the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, and of Woodstock. We chronicled the struggle to stop the U.S. Navy’s bombardment of the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, and provided a forum to the valiant activists fighting for just solutions to the unfolding AIDS crisis. The station and its producers won countless broadcasting prizes, from the prestigious Polk Award to NFCB and CPB recognitions in public affairs and arts and cultural programming.

In my brief recollection here, I am only skimming the surface. It was indeed a golden era for WBAI, despite media historians’ consistent tendency to focus on the 1960s as the only relevant time in WBAI’s long history.

By no means do I point to this time frame to tout my own horn, as if this was the result of one person’s work or vision. Quite the contrary. It was the fruit of the labor of a solid team of collaborators that made this period special: from the management and full-time staff to the many unpaid community programmers, from listener supporters and volunteers to members of the local advisory board, many creative, talented, committed people had a hand in the success of WBAI. This is how it needs to be if we are going to build a truly alternative community radio outlet today and into the future.

Now naturally, things are much different today than they were then, and even as recently as five years ago, when I last hosted the morning show on WBAI on Friday mornings. Today we have many other technological tools at our disposal to get our voices heard, but at the same time, listeners now have many more options to receive these same messages. This objective reality provides us both with challenges and opportunities that we must confront and embrace.

So in the spirit of the many talented broadcasters, artists, activists, journalists, documentarians, musicians and technicians that have roamed the halls of WBAI, those still with us and those who have left us, I welcome the opportunity to work with each and every one of you - staff, volunteers and listeners - in the interest of strengthening an institution that in many ways formed me as a journalist, media activist, broadcaster and educator.

Starting this week, I will be away for a few weeks for a long-planned trip out of the country, but upon returning to New York City in early September, I plan to hit the ground running.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me at marioradio@wbai.org with questions, comments, suggestions, or even a friendly greeting.

Looking forward, always,

Mario A. Murillo