Newsletter July 2, 2016
Berkeley-The emergency PNB meeting on finances with the CFO went off as planned on June 26th, despite attempts to block it. You can listen to the full 90 minute audio here. CFO Sam Agarwal's written report prepared for the meeting can be read here.A shorter (28 mins) audio segment with selections from the meeting can be heard here.
One of the three directors who called the meeting implored his colleagues not to boycott it, saying: "This is the time for more transparency, not less, and it's not the time to be blindly following those who are about to make us jump off the cliff. I again urge you all to participate in today's special meeting on Pacifica's financial crisis so we can have a proper discussion about this. It's urgent and important. We need it NOW". The rest of Bill Crosier's email can be read here.
KPFK staff rep Jonathan Alexander added: ""No long speeches people, it is obvious if you take your fiduciary responsibilities seriously you will give up your Sunday afternoon and deal with this serious financial crisis as our one and only paid executive thinks we should. If you don't take your responsibilities seriously, watch Game of Thrones and resign from the board. This is business people and we need to take care of it. As an employee of Pacifica, I cannot believe how little some people care about the needs of the foundation. Either you care or you don't. See you at 4 o'clock".
Crosier later stated: "One thing I forgot to mention on the stream - this date was selected because several PNB members did not want to meet when other Pacifica meetings were scheduled, and I gave the PNB plenty of time and asked for suggestions on when to meet. Finally, I gave them three possible days for the meeting when we could avoid conflicts with any scheduled Pacifica meeting, and absolutely NO ONE objected to meeting today. So that's why we scheduled the meeting for today".
Pacifica's coordinating committee met a few days later and mandated a secret closed session to discipline members who participated in the June 26th emergency meeting on finances, including Pacifica's CFO. Board members angry at the unsupervised talking outside their control included volunteer executive director Lydia Brazon, disputed PNB member Cerene Roberts, PNB secretary Janet Kobren, and the board chair and vice chair, Tony Norman and Adriana Casenave. The group called the emergency meeting a "breach of process" and the planned discipline "a very important matter".You can hear a brief selection from that meeting here.
A few days later, the personnel committee met and discussed for over an hour how to evaluate the chief financial officer (who has only been on the job for 6 months) without mentioning once filling the vacant executive director position, which has been occupied on a part-time volunteer basis by Lydia Brazon for over 9 months. Pacifica has been without an executive director for 20 of the last 27 months.
There are many punishment and exclusion exercises going on with disciplinary proceedings scheduled for the July 7th national board meeting (Aaron, Goodman, Alexander, Crosier and CFO Agarwal), and the KPFT local station board on July 13 (Allen, Reiter, Lamb, White and Crosier again). Pacifica is awaiting a court decision from NY Superior Court on the exclusion of NY's elected national board delegation (Rhodes, LeFever, Steinberg, Young). The NY court decision will be issued on or before July 20th.
Pacifica's NY station has been without telephone service since at least June 23. You can see the memo to the station's staff here. Hank Kee and others have reported the telephones are to remain disconnected "indefinitely", pending payment of a bill to Verizon said to total $28,000. FCC regulations and federal law require all FM outlets to have a local or toll-free telephone number at the main studio location. (Title 47 C.F.R. 73.1125 Section e). If the amount of the unpaid bill to Verizon is $28,000, it indicates some problems with the veracity of reported financial data, as the WBAI telephone expense accruals reported as of May 31, 2016 totaled $15,000 since the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1, 2015. Either WBAI has not made payments on its telephone bill for more than a year, or the station has more expenses than it is reporting to Pacifica's National Office.
KPFK listeners were grieving after LA Observed printed a leaked memo to staff from GM Radford where she explained she was wiping the station's 8pm-9pm public affairs and arts strip which includes Indymedia On The Air, Deadline LA, Poets Cafe and LA Theaterworks, effective July 11th. The programs are to be replaced with 5 hours of unknown programs in Spanish. Radford did not provide the names or the subject matter of the new programs or who would be hosting and producing them. KPFK will now broadcast exclusively in Spanish from 8pm to midnight on Mondays through Thursdays.
The LA Observed article was illustrated with a paper "on-air" sign described as "makeshift" by author/photographer Kevin Roderick in a dig at the station's deterioration. Pacifica's Berkeley station KPFA, New York's WBAI, and Houston's KPFT are ignoring the national board's June 2015 proclamation that each station must add five hours of weekday spanish language programming. Radford is insisting she is being forced to implement it. KPFA unpaid staffer Richard Wolinsky, who is a management confidante, posted on a Facebook page that "his understanding is that the spanish language mandate is not going to be enforced" (at Berkeley's KPFA). GM Radford has received instructions from the LA board to restore Sonali Kolhatkar's program Rising Up to five day a week broadcast and restore Something's Happening to its full length from midnight to 6am, but has insisted that boards do not have any authority over programming.
Ongoing problems with KPFK's website after the webmaster was laid off last September, took a comic turn during the launch of the station's June/July on-air fund drive. The station's online "web store", where donors can select premium gifts online, began the fund drive describing KPFK as a family run furniture store and the categories of products available as beer, wine, soda, mixers, and spirits. Screenshots can be seen here. Even after the embarrassing mistakes were fixed on June 23rd, problems remained. The membership department indicated the online inventory of gifts included many that KPFK was not prepared to fulfill. GM Radford indicated two weeks ago to her local board that KPFK still had not acquired about $77,000 in premium gifts owed to the station's donors. At an average cost of $15 a premium, the backlog may be as high as 4,000 unfilled orders.
Employees and volunteers at Berkeley's KPFA were startled to get a letter from management asking them to pony up to replace the computers. The radio station completed a fund drive on May 27 with $628,000 in pledges and has a 3 million dollar a year budget. The request sent out on the staff list asked for financial assistance from workers and volunteers to replace computers too old to upgrade to Windows 10 and specified cash or checks were preferred. KPFA's 2016 budget allocated $25,739 dollars for computer maintenance, of which only $2,089 had been spent as of May 31, but the station is operating at a deficit with revenues $290,000 short of projected as of May 31, prinarily due to budgetary assumptions of gifts and bequests that have not occurred.
Current, the industry magazine for public broadcasting, covered the unfolding disaster at the Pacifica Archives, where at least 3/5 of the collection has not yet been digitized and faces physical disintegration within a decade and a half. Josh Sheppard at the Library of Congress said "“Our fear is that the archive will cease to exist" and repeated his statement that Pacifica was erasing its own history. Both the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) headquartered at WGBH in Boston, have withdrawn staffing and funds procurement assistance to Pacifica after Brian De Shazor resigned as the Archives Director.
Pacifica's five stations, in addition to being delinquent on paying their shared service fees to the archive, which range from $1,500 to $4,900 a month, have declined to use the archive's products as premium gifts and have pulled CD/DVD duplication services away. Archive premium purchases have dropped sharply. Several stations, including KPFA and WBAI, have purchased their own duplication machines. These decisions have resulted in Pacifica staffers de-funding the archives and endangering the survival of valuable historical records and Pacifica's most grant-fundable program.
Pacifica's delegate election season *may* be here (or maybe not) and the usual suspects are up to the usual shenanigans. In Los Angeles, volunteer coordinator cum security guard Adam Rice used on-air time to take pot shots at the incumbents on KPFK's local station board. The incumbents won overwhelmingly in 2015 in the most lopsided victory in Pacifica election history. Rice, defiant or simply oblivious of the rules prohibiting such behavior, declared himself a candidate just days later.
And at New York's WBAI, a secretive committee created by the Siegel/Brazon faction to approve free voting memberships was shut down by national election supervisor Lynne Serpe, who issued a 16 page decision confirming that less than a majority of the local board lacks the ability to give away free voting Pacifica memberships.
If you would like to support either or both of the legal complaints filed by Pacifica members, you can visit the Clean Up Pacifica Project for more information.
A timeline of the now two year old coup by the Siegel/Brazon faction can be seen here.
To subscribe to this newsletter, please visit their website at www.pacificainexile.org
So Pacifica and WBAI might erase their own history, if unintentionally.
ReplyDeleteWell, you have to give them this: If they "succeed", they will have accomplished something folks like Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and Pol Pot tried to, but couldn't, do!
A powerful lot of thieves those hungry demons of Pacifica!
DeleteThink Verizon learned their lesson about giving WBAI phone service?
ReplyDelete"KPFK will now broadcast exclusively in Spanish from 8pm to midnight on Mondays through Thursdays." Say bye bye to your prime time audience! HAHAHA!
A solution to KPFA's computer problem and expenses - use Linux, which is free and puts no money into big bad capitalist hands. Check out distrowatch.com
For all this nonsense, the only worthwhile thing remaining, the archives, will be lost. Very sad.
Well, if nothing else, I feel dejected. Reimers is getting beaten by Radford in every asshole category. He really needs to get back to work and show he's a bigger one than she is.
SDL
My thoughts:
ReplyDelete- I am so glad that no public money is going to be spent to help Pacifica preserve its archives. No public money should go to Pacifica for any reason. Let them sell the archives to a foundation or a museum or let it deteriorate. I don't care, but no taxpayer money.
- That letter asking staff and volunteers to pay for new computers is just amazing. The person who wrote that has absolutely no clue how to talk to people. There isn't even an acknowledgment that the request is asking a sacrifice from people who already work for free. And here's how it ends: "Hardware donations are accepted but may not be at the speed and capability that we need. I [sic.] rather buy something new than use someone's hand-me-downs." Yeah, you'd rather buy new with your volunteers' money.
- How does it make sense to mandate 5 hours of Spanish language programming for all 5 broadcast areas? Wouldn't each area have its own demographics with its own particular needs? It might make sense to do 5 hours - or more than 5 - of Spanish language broadcasting in LA, but not in Berkeley. Or maybe it would be the reverse, since LA has so many Spanish language stations and Berkeley doesn't. Or maybe it would be the case that LA needs Spanish language public affairs programming but not music (which is offered on other stations) and Berkeley needs music. This is the sort of thing for which you do market research and you tailor your programming to the results of that research. You don't just say "Everybody do 5 hours of Spanish, whatever content you feel like."
This is a very good point about the KPFA email that had not occurred to me. The email sounds more like a directive than a request. Pacifica is not in a position to be refusing anything. Older computers can be used for simpler tasks under Windows. As a matter of principle and to save money, at least some of the computers should be running Linux.
DeleteRadford is just playing games using the Spanish language mandate. Their current Spanish language programs raise zilch. She probably has some problem with the current programs or is just trying to make space for something else. She is wrong about her LSB. The LSB has every right to step in when the programming is clearly hurting the station. They shouldn't micro-manage as a rule but they need to respond to the complaints about programming. I wish we had that problem at WBAI. I can't imagine people getting worked up about our programming to the levels in LA.
Linux distros aren't simply a free operating system, but are packed with free, top quality programs of every sort imaginable that would cost you thousands of Dollars if you bought the Windows and Mac equivalents. Another thing is that Linux needing slimmer resources, older computer run great with it.
DeleteAs for older Windows computers, the very one I am on right now is a P4 Windows XP that still handles anything I want it to do.
The Spanish programming mandate is just an admission that Pacifica can't do decent English programming anymore and is looking for a new audience because of that. It's a white flag, really.
As for WBAI's LSB, I remember when the split first happened and Joe Friendly (was that the name?) made the videos of each factions' meetings. There were like 6 - 8 audience members (out of then still like 8,000 WBAI members) in attendance. I think that tells us just how little even the station's members care about WBAI.
SDL
I always wondered if Chris wasn't being too harsh on Reimers but seeing that note about the phone service being out indefinitely makes wonder if Chris isn't harsh enough. Are they making more calls to Africa than the one I heard about a while back? Is somebody calling 900 numbers at off hours? They just can't shrug their shoulders and say we'll use Skype. What the bleep is going on?
ReplyDeleteThat letter requesting donations just left me dumbfounded. It's as if a shelter requested clothing donations but stipulated that they had to be Ralph Lauren or Yves St. Laurent.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Spanish-language programming: It's interesting that an organization that prides itself on its diversity and worldview would lump all Hispanics together. Yes, their common language is Spanish, but the way people from El Salvador speak it is as different from how Dominicans express themselves as the Guyanese English is from what's spoken on the West End or the Upper West Side. Also, each of those countries has very different cultures and concerns: As an example, Dominicans might think more about what's going on in Haiti than Mexicans or Colombians might. While people from both of those countries might be concerned about, say, immigration, their concerns within that issue are also different. And let's not forget that Cubans vote very differently from, say, Puerto Ricans--who, probably, are less interested in immigration issues than almost any other Latin Americans.
@Justine Valinotti: You brought up great points that I normally avoid due to Americans being so ignorant of them that it's not worth the time to try and give them a history lesson.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that Andean region Spanish is hard for my Castilian ears to understand, as is Dominican, with the letter "S" often not pronounced. And many Puerto Ricans speak what is really a dialect of both Spanish and English. Don't forget many Argentinians, who often use Italian words mixed in with the Spanish.
A Chilean woman I know hates that USA citizens call themselves Americans because the Western Hemisphere is The Americas. I have to agree with her that people from Canada down to Chili are Americans. However, I have explained to her there is no proper sounding word or term for a USA citizen that is equivalent to a word like Canadian. Spanish does have "Estadounidense," but that would translate as sort of United Stateser, which sounds odd, even if correct.
SDL
Its an old argument. Many use the term norteamericano or Americano as well as estadounidense. The first term could apply to Canadians and Mexicans. Canadians only use it when referring to something affecting both countries. I never hear Mexicans use the term to refer to themselves. This term is usually used to refer only to US citizens. I don't hear the second term much in the Northeast. The third term just sounds silly when referring to people. I am an American and just let everyone else work it out for themselves.
DeleteSDL--Maybe someone will say I'm racist for saying this, but I love the sound of Castillian Spanish. And you're right: If that's your lingua franca, it can be hard to understand Spanish-speakers from las Americas, just as the Parisian has difficulty with someone from Lyon or Marseille, let alone les Quebecois or an Ivoirien. (Interestingly, most television and radio announcers in France come from the Loire region--specifically, around Tours--because, apparently, it is the one French accent Francophones can understand without difficulty.)
DeleteAs for the issue of what to call people from the US: In my travels, I've heard the term "Stateside" in reference to things happening in this country, and "the States" to refer to this country. Perhaps we could call ourselves Statesiders and other countries can translate it, if they like.
Denmark is a very small country, but it's relatively small population speak many regional dialects. To Copenageners, people in the southern part of the Jutland peninsula might as well be speaking a foreign language.
DeleteOn the other hand, Iceland (the country of my birth) has no accents, not even any that might distinguish the well-to-do from the less so. This posed a problem when the Icelandic National Theatre decided to put on a production of "My Fair Lady," so they gave M's. Doolittle a Danish accent!
Apropos Danish accents, there was a time when the country's non-fishing/farming professionals were, in fact, Danish. Affecting a Danish accent was the equivalent to an American faking a British one. When I was a kid, one could still find the occasional old lady who ever so subtly spoke like my Danish mother, just to suggest that they moved in upper circles. For some reason, that seemed to be more of a female thing/need.
Good anecdotes. I'll give you some interesting ones.
DeletePeople think Flemish is a dutch dialect spoken in Belgium. Wrong. it's a load of Dutch dialects! It can be so bad that from East Flanders to West Flanders Flemings can't even understand each other. They have subtitles on Flemish TV because the written "language" is more standardized than the spoken one. I know two Flemings who speak to each other in English most of the time because they can't understand each others dialects.
A Quebecois buddy of mine swears never to go to Paris again because when he and his wife did they were treated "worse than English speakers." One waiter would only speak to them in English. Another person told them to go learn French.
We have it pretty easy here with our American English. The biggest problem are accents, and we get used to that in minutes, usually.
SDL
Chris--What you say about Danish accents reminds me of my experiences in England. (An aunt is from the Manchester area and returned after my uncle died.) The moment someone opens his or her mouth, he or she reveals (to a fellow Britisher) everything--where he or she lives, social class, education and the range of jobs or professions in which he or she might be working.
DeleteSDL--I've spent time in Belgium. I recall that, on my first day there, a worker in a hostel almost indignantly pointed out that he was not speaking "a dialect of Dutch"--that, in fact, he was speaking ""proper" Flemish--i.e., that of the Bruges area (at least, that's how he defined "proper"). Something similar is true of the French spoken in Belgium: Some have argued that Wallonian and spoken Artois are, in fact, separate languages from French. And Wallonians and those from the Artois area (bordering on Picardy) have as much difficulty understanding each other as my Neapolitan and Sicilian relatives had of understanding each other, let alone Pugliesi, Genovesi or anyone from the Val d'Aosta (where French is actually more commonly spoken) or Tyrol (Austrian).
I think one reason why we have it easier with American English is that we had mass media relatively early in our history, whereas other countries went centuries before getting it. Also, we became a mobile society relatively early on, while folks like my ancestors never made it out of the villages or farms in which they were born. (That is why dialects of Italian sound so different, I think.)
Back in the early Sixties, when I was Lil Armstrong's houseguest in Chicago for a couple of weeks, she introduced me to an old friend, someone she had known for decades. A black man, he spoke with an elegant though somewhat theatrical accent. I asked Lil if he was English—she told me that he had returned from a two-week visit to London in the Thirties, carrying that accent!
DeleteIt happens easily—I spent a year attending school in Canterbury, but was able to shake my new accent rather quickly after my return to Denmark.
Iceland feared corruption of its ancient language du to American presence, so they enacted a law against owning a TV set (we had a station on the base, where I worked). They also had a history of not giving new objects a name similar to that commonly used. Thus, a telephone became "sími", a radio was "útvarp", etc.
Today's technology has, of course, killed all that. I must confess that I am bit bothered by the many English/American words that have crept into the Danish language—guess I'm just an old fogey!
FYI: Of the two Flemings I've mentioned, one always calls what she speaks Dutch, the other will adamantly call it Flemish. I always laugh.
DeleteItalian is so different from North to South that it makes you wonder if there is even a real Italian language. Also, don't forget there is Sicilian.
SDL
If they're violating FCC rules and federal law by not having a studio phone line, how come they haven't lost their FCC license?
ReplyDeleteDoes the FCC know?
DeleteSDL
How could they not know? With Pacifica's extremely long, severely messed up history I would actually be shocked that NOBODY had ever complained about them.
DeleteYou could also get into the fact that all of the FCC appointees are political hacks. Which means that even if they did know about a problem, they would just blow it off. You don't like what some talk host says on-air? It's called free speech. Nobody's forcing you to listen. So stop complaining and turn it off. I've actually been told to do that (more than once).
No one pays attention to WBAI anymore nor complains. That is why the FCC doesn't know what antics they are up to.
DeleteSDL
The story about the Quebecois couple is ironic. The people who work so hard to defend French from those Anglophone interlopers getting disrespected by the French. Maybe we should all just get those universal translators from Star Trek or learn Esperanto.
ReplyDeleteYou have to understand that Paris and central France is where they have the attitude problem. There they really look down on Quebecois, besides everyone else. The rest of France is actually nice.
DeleteSDL
I have been all over France and, honestly, never had a problem--not even in Paris.
Deletenotice the HEAVY emphasis on african americans , but then again, it is Mimi , so pretty much a no brainer there . Hate to belabor the point but .....
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked Chris. An intelligent conversation about Brexit on WBAI on Between the Lines. I forgot what it felt like to hear grownups on WBAI.
ReplyDeleteThere are still pleasant surprises coming out of WBAI. The sad thing is that we have to label them as such.
DeleteSadly the current show , the blacks, is not one of them.
ReplyDeleteWith so much real talent in the gay community, leave it to Reimers' WBAI to dig these two up.
DeleteChris--I agree. As a transgender woman, I find "The Blacks" embarrassing. They are to LGBT people as blackface minstrels were to people of African heritage.
DeleteThe Blacks came on after Hopper became iPD, and with her clubbing contacts, they sound like something she would dig up and put on. They really are as stereotypical as a stereotype can get.
DeleteSDL
If Hopper really had WBAI's interest more in mind than her own, she would not do that bland chit-chat crap on Saturdays. I think it's pretty obvious that this show, "Liquid Sound Lounge", is there as a promotional tool for her off-station enterprises, the boat rides, dances, etc. Notice that her commercials for thee events claim that "a part of the proceeds go to WBAI." I suppose that was added to justify Hopper's use of the station for commercial purposes. We are never given the percentage she allegedly donates to WBAI, nor is there ever a follow-up. It looks like Reggie Johnson has a vested interest in this, although he might simply be an uninformed participant.
DeleteThe Haitian All-Stars (not a star in the bunch) are also airing questionable non-WBAI promotion and. should the station somehow manage to survive long enough, I bet this practice—like the racism—will quickly escalate.
I used to find Hopper and Reggie out of place but somewhat acceptable—now I think they need to transition to some other station or far away spot.
I know, "transition" is the idiotic metaphor du jour—I don't wish that on any of them. :)
Chris - as usual your intuition is spot on. There is a romantic component here. Hopper dated Samori Marksman for years - it was an open secret - he gave her a show. Reggie was involved with Hopper too - they are tight - he gets paid by Jeannie, in cash and in other ways. She gets away with it because she shares the politics of the station as well as the affection of the various men, including the late Samori.
DeletePDR
That's interesting, PDR, and highly plausible to anyone who follows the devious patterns that keep the scum floating on top at WBAI. Thanks for the added focus.
DeletePDR is resorting to his MO--unsubstantiated calumny.
DeleteHe probably just made this up.
No one I know at WBAI has ever heard of any such rumors.
I can't stop laughing. WBAI still doesn't have phones but this low power 90 watt station Bernie S mentioned, WPPM, will be taking phone calls. HAHAHAHAH!
ReplyDeleteChris, how do you say WBAI - Radio without phones! in Icelandic and Danish?
SDL
I don't know how one would say that, because that sort of thing doesn't exist in Denmark or Iceland.
Deletehaskins bringing the slavery lessons earlier than usual today .
ReplyDeleteHow utterly clueless is this man ?
Utterly utterly.
DeleteDid you hear him say that people were clamoring to hear a repeat of Pamela Brown's clumsy reading of what so obviously is, at best, semi=fictional.
According to Wikipedia, the book was "accepted as a novel" by some historians and more or less collected dust until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1970s and '80s shifted the spotlight to black culture and feminism. It fit well into those movements. I don't believe that it is total fiction, but the ring of truth is tarnished and Haskins' inept production contributes nothing except to confirm how amateurish and small-minded the station has become.
If a couple of people "clamored" to hear this snippet again, it was probably because Haskins drowned out the reading with his "slave music", which comes right from the Hollywood Hills.
Haskins gets more attention here than he does from WBAI. Why even waste time talking about him? Nobody wants to hear his crap.
ReplyDeleteSDL
He symbolizes the programming issue. He has a prime slot with a huge potential audience. That slot should be reserved for a flagship show which would promote the station and other programs. Instead we have Haskins. I would rather have you read poetry. You would probably raise more money and have more listeners than he does.
DeleteExcellent point, SDL, but he epitomizes the ineptitude that makes nobody care—he is currently one of the leads in the pathetic Pacifica piffle. :)
DeleteI agree about the moron, and you all know that. I just feel like he gets more publicity than he deserves for a broadcasting corpse. Sometimes I feel like certain people get most of the blame (Haskins, Mimi, Kane) while others barely get a mention (Jordan, Diaz, Halper, Sargent).
DeleteAlso, just noticed on the WBAI schedule that Forlano has been replaced by Perry.
SDL
Oh, and I wouldn't read poetry. I think reading from news magazines, like The Economist, would probably be more my style.
DeleteSDL
Education at the Crossroads ... What happened to the education part ?
ReplyDeleteSounds like just another show with the robo racist's from bai.
Now i want everybody to say in your robot voice, (if your driving or around people and don't want to look nuts) than you could say it to yourself. Here goes, I must say the words, african american as much as humanly possible, I will bitch and moan hoping someone gives a shit .
Hey we need a few laughs here , that slavery stuff could really get you down . haha
Finally submitted my FCC complaint against BAI. We'll see what happens next.
ReplyDelete