It don't mean a thing if the phones don't ring, but try telling that to WBAI's amateur manager, Berthold Reimers. Well, now that Federal Communications Commission has at last reacted to complaints. The following "very gentle response" was submitted to our blog by the ever-helpful, ever-concerned Tracy Rosenberg:
Below, is a transcription and audio file of a voice mail message left for me this AM while I was in a meeting.
"Hi Tracy. This is agent Gary Barker from the Federal Communications Commission. I received your complaint in regards to station WBAI not having a telephone line at their main studio. In the midst of the investigation, I spoke with them and they are hopefully going to have that resolved within the next day or two. I just wanted to update you and inform you on the investigation being conducted and thank you very much for your complaint. If you would like any additional information, please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx".
As a reminder, it is a violation of federal telecommunications law for an FCC NCE licensee not to maintain a local or toll-free grounded telephone number at their main studio location. This is part of the public safety infrastructure of the United States in the event of catastrophic Internet and wireless failure.
a) The Pacifica national board should make entirely sure Mr. Barker's hopes are realized and the violation is resolved "in the next day or two". Please report back at your September 15th meeting.
b) When there is an FCC investigation in process regarding a Pacifica-owned broadcast license, it must be reported immediately to the board of directors. I sincerely hope it is not news to any member of the PNB that an FCC investigation is in process.
I assume you will take my word for the message transcription, but here—minus the phone number—is the voice mail message.
—Tracy - September 13, 2016
I should very much like to hear the audio, if only for its entertainment value.
ReplyDelete~ 'indigopirate'
Linked to in the bottom line.
DeleteThanks, Tracy and Chris, it's much appreciated.
DeleteIs there any word or credible rumor as to whether or not Sam Agarwal is to attend the PNB Special Meeting Thursday, 15 September. As I understand it, the next day, 16 September, is to be his last day as Pacifica's Chief Financial Officer.
ReplyDelete~ 'indigopirate'
I have not heard anything, but my guess is that Agarwal won't be there. I hope I'm wrong.
DeleteMy guess is he will be there.
DeleteIf WBAI does have a working telephone in a few days (which is far from a sure thing), it will only be because of the FCC investigation Otherwise, hell would have frozen over before the phone was restored.
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to agree. The question is: will he come up with the hefty sum Verizon is owed or will the make-believe "engineers" be able to rig something up (perhaps with help from OTH)?
DeleteTell them to get magicJackPlus or Vonage...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Vonage+Vs.+magicJack
SDL
I have subscribed to Mmagic Jack since it became available--several years ago--and it works fine at under $40 a year.
DeleteOh, I see. That's too cheap and logical for WBAI...
DeleteSDL
"logic"', like "truth"', is not a word found in the neo-BAI vocabulary.
DeleteWhether one can justifiably apply a sense of enjoyment to the impending total destruction of this formerly significant radio station depends on one's reason for doing so.
ReplyDeleteIf you only knew - many stories to be told, anonymously, due to fear of retaliation from WBAI staffers and producers and acolytes of the aforementioned dead people. Many reasons to be glad the station is suffering. If you only knew, Chris, if you only knew....
ReplyDeleteI have an uncomfortable inkling. It is based, in no small measure, on my personal experience with psycho duo Knight and Somers, but the wake-up moments go way back to Post, Josephson, and Fass.
DeleteRobert Knight was an evil man - a lover of North Korea - who could love North Korea!? Robert Knight destroyed Undercurrents, an award-winning program, because of his insanity. Knight was EVIL! Chris, you were courageous to challenge his insanity, because he had threatened people with violence. Frankly, I am glad that bastard is DEAD!!!
DeleteHard to believe in his early days Knight actually did some good radio, but he did. I guess some people just can't handle success.
DeleteSDL
Hugely inflated egos inevitably disrupt the unbalanced mind, bringing it to or beneath the surface from which its possessor believes he has risen.
DeleteThat said, the success Knight is credited with having handled arguably belonged to others.
I see it as sad, like a musician with lots of potential dying an early death from a drug OD.
ReplyDeleteSDL
(JustAListener)
ReplyDeleteI'm curious if OTH has an update on the phone situation tonight.
As of last week they were supposed to be working with Reimers on the situation but does Reimers actually feel enough pressure to change his ways and be slightly cooperative and less than totally opaque?
Chris, the Treasurer's report bummed me out. Can you tell me one of our 'only at WBAI' stories to cheer me up?
ReplyDeleteIf Robert Knight were really any good, he would have been picked up at a legitimate news source decades ago. They were scared of his ultra-leftist take on everything and that he couldn't separate it from legitimate objective news coverage. They were right.
ReplyDeleteKGT
Knight lived in a fantasy world where his skewed mind made him everything he wanted to have been, including network "anchorman", investigative reporter and, yes, a love child of Martin Luther King, Jr.
DeleteKnowing that WBAI's listenership--with considerable help from himself--was rapidly dwindling and drastically dumbed down, he felt free to heighten his ego-driven hype. In that process, he became a pathetic charicature of unrealized aspirations, a man without integrity who filled his far too generous allotment of air time with YouTube downloads and bitter blather, a man who sought to impress a small intellectually deprived group of listeners with a strained vocabulary sprinkled with words learned from Roget.
In my opinion, the networks were not "scared" of Robert Knight's assumed political leanings, which were dictated more by trends than by conscience, nor was his lack of objectivity much of a factor, but this was clearly a man with a bloated ego, trapped in a limbo from which there was no exit to the real world. However, I am mostly inclined to believe that Robert Knight's name didn't make any list of aspirants.
Consider how quickly even WBAI people turned him into a fine-print footnote. Well, Kathy Davis didn't relegate him to oblivion quite as quickly, but that is because she saw in his demise an opportunity to acquire more air time for her pseudo-spiritual scam. Cleverly, she talked Reimers into allowing her to turn Knight's long-since-stagnant "Earthwatch" show into a weekly tribute to a "beloved" WBAI fixture. It quickly became apparent that the hype died with the "hypist,"as it were, but Kathy's mission was accomplished and she is still occupying that time slot with her shallow "profundities."
Dead on. I dealt with Knight upon his very first arrival. He was always what he was, but in time became even more so. Little surprise in that.
Delete~ ‘indigopirate’
I have the final word about Robert Knight, told to me personally by Bernard White. When Utrice Leid was in the Fuhrer's spot at WBAI, she installed a hidden CCTV system. When Don R took over, he decided to keep it. DR went on vacation and returned to find his office with files out of place. He asked Bernard if he knew what happened and Bernard said no. They both watched the video footage for the time DR was away and saw Robert Knight walking in and out of DR's office with something secreted under his jacket which was a file about Robert Knight performance evaluation. That was the reason why RK was fired. It had nothing to do about his show or reportage.
ReplyDeleteKGT
Several sources have told me that Knight was caught in the GM's office, going through files. As I understood it, they were indeed files on him. Did not hear that he was fired for that reason, but I know that he and Bernard White were not getting along. The story I heard, more than once, was that White thought Knight was playing too many recordings by white artists. That sounds a bit far out, but we are talking about a WBAI gone bad.
DeleteNeither White nor Night wore shining armor, as it were, and neither belonged at WBAI.
Enough about the station's sordid past.... back to its sorid present. :)
Lois Henry, the Development Director, hated "white" programs or "white" sounding programs too. There was a black mafia that roamed the station, enforcing cultural "rules". What a place!
DeleteThe infestation of WBAI by racist blacks and wannabe blacks is not new, but it is rapidly escalating under the present amateur "management."
DeleteWhile it is deplorable that these self-serving lightweights have been allowed to bring WBAI down to their level, I find it even more alarming that they are fomenting racism in the very community they purportedly embrace.
At this stage in the destruction, the plug begs to be pulled.
Would that sordid present include the PNB meeting tonight and the one next week to talk about WBAI?
ReplyDeletePresumably.
DeleteIt is now 5:55 PM on Thursday, September 15, 2016. Any word on the WBAI telephone issue, which was supposed to be resolved in a "day or two", as of Tuesday, September 13?
ReplyDeleteApparently, something was scheduled for installation by TWC today, but all I can tell you is that the station has a history of lying to its listeners and supporters. Reimers' idiotic "buddy" tag has a hollow ring to it.
ReplyDeletejust heard now... they are almost done attaching the string to the second paper cup as of this
ReplyDeletewriting . true story ! haha
We knew there'd be strings attached.
Delete"The story I heard, more than once, was that White thought Knight was playing too many recordings by white artists".
ReplyDeleteThat's nonsense. Robert Knight was a Stevie Wonder freak. All his broadcasts were replete with Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder songs.
KGT
What Is This I Hear About A WBAI Without Phones????? How Is This Possible???? It Is An Outrage!!!!! I Thought The Reason I Wasn't Getting Through Was Because I Am Dead!!!!!!!!!!! How That Martyr Robert Knight Tells It Is THE WHITES he Wasn't Playing Their Game was A MISTER BERNARD WHITE!!!!!! It IS Like Listening To The HOWLER MONKEYS at The Bronx Zoo!!!FREE SPEECH = NEVER ENOUGH!!!!!!!! CHRIS A. YOU GIVE GOOD INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Signed!!!!!! The Ghost of Monroe Litman!!!!
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