Monday, April 6, 2015

What's ahead?


Here is the chosen one, John Proffitt, speaking briefly at a KPFT Roast for Ray Hill, April 4, 2015. He isn't talking about his new job, but this clip (courtesy of KPFT's Bill Crosier) will leave you with a vague impression of this man. He has followers and detractors on both sides of the PNB table, I think, so let's see what he does when he takes over. At least he's not one of Murillo's Marauders.



And here is Madame Rosenberg's latest sobriety message re Pacifica's own audit.

Berkeley-Pacifica's much-delayed FY 2013 financial audit, after 11 months in the making, $80,000 spent, and close to 300 hours of auditing services, has been exposed as faulty with double-accrued expenses. The entry of the same bills twice was caused by the tumult instigated by the 2014 rogue board which has been utterly resistant to competent financial staffing and has not even seen a list of how much money Pacifica owes. The late audited financial statements, delivered 9 months after the 6-30-2014 State of California deadline, don't hold up under scrutiny. Simple questions like the Audit Committee's request for a list of accued legal expenses, revealed six-figure disrepancies with the general ledger and failures to reduce accounts payable after paying bills, a pretty basic bookkeeping requirement.

The board of directors has sniffed at documentation the audit is inaccurate, clinging to desperate protestations of  "at least its done" and expressing disinterest in whether the figures are accurate. This audio snippet from the Audit committee on 3-10 illustrates the majority faction's attitude (the speaker is William Heerwagon, a long time Justice and Unity member from NY and staunch ally of the majority faction). He admits he is approving something he doesn't understand and refers to requests for supporting documentation as "details, details". 
After finding and reporting a $75,000 double-accrual of a legal expense inserted during the FY 2013 audit,  former Treasurer Tracy Rosenberg commented" "If I was able to identify that in just two hours of looking at the general ledger, it is astonishing CFO Salvador after nine months and auditor Armanino after billing for 300 hours could not do the same".
Pacifica has not signed a letter of engagement with an auditing firm for the fiscal year 2014, which ended over six months ago and will not meet the Corporation for Public Broadcasting April 17th deadline, forfeiting another million dollars in public media funding.  It also appears unlikely Pacifica will meet the 6-30-2014 deadline for state filing of the 2014 audit, placing their nonprofit status in jeopardy with serial violations of the Nonprofit Integrity Act. Pacifica is currently under investigation by the CA Attorney General Charitable Trusts Division.
The loss of Pacifica's CPB-eligibility, in addition to the forfeiture of CSG and NPPAG annual grant funding, would also remove the Pacifica stations from the Soundexchange group agreement for online streaming costs for copyrighted music. The Pacifica stations, once booted from CPB, can only be covered via membership in the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) trade association. But financial statements delivered to the National Finance Committee by CFO Raul Salvador indicate only two of the five Pacifica stations have made membership dues payments to NFCB.  Neither KPFK, WBAI or WPFW seems to have paid NFCB membership dues, which may leave them liable for direct copyright payments to Sound Exchange for every streamed broadcast.

Pacifica's programming is created in one of two ways. Some hosts/producers are volunteers who receive broadcast time in response to uncompensated labor. Others are paid staffers who receive union-level salaries for their hosting/production work and whose work product belongs to their employer. KPFK's Uprising, which is also simulcast on the Berkeley station, KPFA, belongs to the latter category, with two full-time host/producer salaries paid by Pacifica station KPFK. The program recently received video broadcast rights on Free Speech TV, and Uprising host Sonali Kolhatkar crowd-sourced funds on the Indiegogo platform to purchase video equipment and pay production staff to shoot the video version of the radio show for FSTV.



Unfortunately, as detailed in previous editions of Pacifica In Exile, 50% of the funds raised on Indiegogo were removed from the restricted account in September and October of 2014, used to pay KPFK's health benefits and telephone bills, and not replaced. Kolhatkar has responded to that theft with her own initiative, privately selling Pacifica's show via a Youtube channel for a monthly subscription fee, while continuing to draw a full-time salary from KPFK for hosting/producing the program.
Pacifica finally has a new executive director, after a year with none. The choice is former KUHF CEO John Proffitt, an NPR veteran who led the University of Houston's radio station for 26 years. Proffitt was not the first choice of the board's majority faction who did not support his candidacy and instead offered the job to labor writer Bill Fletcher Jr, who declined. When the board majority was told to offer the position to the 2nd most highly ranked candidate, Proffiitt in January, they balked and refused, instead insisting that the entire board redo its selection process, in hopes of securing majority support for another candidate. After a two month delay, they proved unable to do that and have reluctantly gone ahead and offered the job to Proffitt, who accepted.
While it remains to be seen if the NPR veteran can adjust to Pacifica's quite-different culture and overcome the lack of support from the board majority, the end of the hobbyist ED is a good development for Pacifica. Hopefully the board will let the new executive director make some much-needed changes in the troubled organization. For those interested, here is a brief audio clip of Proffitt speaking at a Houston fundraising event.
In Los Angeles, KPFK, the network's fundraising leader for the last few years, has dropped into an impromptu week-long fund drive this week, barely 6 weeks after the last lengthy fund drive concluded and less than 4 weeks after the next lengthy fund drive is supposed to begin.  —Tracy Rosenberg 
Pacifica in Exile readers may write to the board at pnb@pacifica.org.

11 comments:

  1. Proffitt is going to get his ass handed to him in no time. Wait until he tries to make any changes and the PNB blocks him. I wonder if he will even make a quick trip and drop in on each Pastcifica station, as he should. He's just sounding like a simpleton in need of a paycheck to me.

    Well, at least these idiots are saving the CPB some money that can be sent to better run stations. After all, WBAI always says that they are 100% listener supported and can now finally be honest about the claim.

    Anyway, Pastcifica truly defines the old saying "it's so corrupt, it's honest."

    SDL

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  2. (JustAListener)
    They let millions of dollars slip through their fingers because they won't perform the basic functions of their jobs, then they'll go begging to the listeners to bail them out of the financial hole.
    But of course Ms Rosenberg didn't talk to Reimers. I'm sure he would have told her everything is fine - why look how smoothly the studio move went - so smoothly he's the only one who knows it happened!
    Only way Proffitt has a chance is if he acts like this guy:

    http://moviehole.net/img/rambo1.jpg

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You mean talking out of the side of his mouth?

      Delete
    2. One aspect of the Pacfica story is that it demonstrates the potential dark side of non-commercial radio, with people having discovered the loopholes that allow for abuse. As long as a station can run to the listeners and ask for money by making threats of impending doom there is no motivation to file some simple paperwork for CPB funds. LSBs, meant to protect supporters, have been turned into political blocks that load stations with friends and fellow ideologues, regardless of their abilities.

      Democracy is for governments, not broadcasting. Over democratization in broadcasting leads to disaster. How anyone can be lazy enough not to do a little paperwork for one million Dollars from the CPB is mind boggling. Obviously these people have no motivation to do their jobs.

      Add no penalties for poor job performance with just enough financial supporters to keep you in business and you have people abusing the system. The problem is the abusers decide on the system and won't change it.

      Drop the LSBs, have only one representative from each station on the PNB, have an annual review of each GM and PD at each station to see if they are doing a decent job, suspend salaries for GMs and PDs if their stations don't, at least, break even financially, etc.

      SDL

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    3. This morning at ten, Murillo's latest Marauder took over the Tuesday "Talk Back" slot. She is Gloria Brown Marshall, an erstwhile guest of Hugh Hamilton, whom she vows to bring back as her guest. We know the rest, before long, Hamilton will again have his own show and with each such addition, WBAI distances itself more from the listeners who once gave their support.

      It doesn't matter how professional, reasoned or devoted Mr. Proffitt might be to the Pacifica principles, the black and brown wall of apartheid is up and idiots like Michael Haskins and Pamela Brown will continue to tear the station down.

      Did you hear them this morning? I don't think a decent, campus-limited school station would subject people to their shallow blather. If anyone hasn't heard Pamel Brown yet, I am about to post a sample. It includes Linda Perry's reading of what passes for WBAI news these days and a trite fragment of Cornell West doing his current act.

      I hope you all listen to the not-so-dynamic duo and tell the rest of us what you think could be going on in Mario Murillo's single occupancy mind. I know he inherited the bus driver, but he could have given him a different, long-distance route,and where does he dig up such airheads as Pamela Brown?

      Delete
  3. I didn't listen to the crap. No point, since it is all repetative, and I had to finish my tax crap. It's just constant reinforcement like the Christians who watch religious shows, listen to Christian music, etc. all day. It's just a big protective cocoon.

    Mierda Murillo is an ideologue with no touch with the real world. He has shown that with his programming decisions for eight or nine months. Keep digging, but the hole gets narrower and you go deeper. He'll just keep hiring his sociopathic buddies and driving away anyone with a modicum of intelligence and/or sanity.

    Seriously, Chris. What do you expect from idiots too lazy and corrupt to even grab a one million Dollar hand-out?

    SDL

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  4. You find yourself among
    blind artists and deaf musicians
    where the landscape is colorless
    and music has only one note like a moan.

    Singers without voices
    are practicing the scales of silence
    sculptors without hands
    are licking the stone.

    (Laura Gilpin)


    Guess what radio station Ms. Gilpin was listening to.


    TPM

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    Replies
    1. Umm... Oh! I know! Madam Blavatsky broadcasting from the ethereal plain with the 3rd gunman in the JFK transition.

      Anyone who wants to hear the insanity of Douglas Dietrich, check out this aircheck. This guy is insane or a total put on. The Douglas Dietrich on WWII and Roswell - April 4, 2015 puts anything Geoff Brady ever did to shame.

      http://www.wheredidtheroadgo.com/show-archive

      SDL

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  5. kenya believe what's going on at bai these days . They are talking reparations ad nauseam now .Well it say give them "REPARATION H ", Cause these bozo's are like human hemorrhoids . We might as well call every black hosted show (and some white as well ). talkblack . like the morning show talkblack , talkblack with ron daniels .talkblack with Margaret Prescott , Howard Jordan , Gary Byrd , Gloria Brown Marshall , etc etc .... Like listening to a slow motion train wreck , if that's possible .

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    Replies
    1. It is rather difficult to believe that educated adults unwittingly engage in such buffoonery, so I assume that some of the principal players are deliberately taking advantage of the widespread ignorance such unabashed nonsense attracts.

      This crap has no legs, so we needn't worry about the scam succeeding, but it is sad that the likes of Reimers and Murillio have been allowed to drag WBAI into it. Had thinking New Yorkers not already lost all respect for WBAI, this would have done it.

      The concept of reparations certainly has its place, but these are charlatans who are victimizing their own people, not the evil whiteys who are all living off the fat of slavery. Their top priority is what they see in their selfies.

      Disgusting!

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