- The storage unit is an old one, located in Rosemead CA, not visited in years, and never inventoried. Pacifica's National office was paying the bill, not PRA, because this was not part of the $1,900 monthly PRA budget for the 4 units it does pay for. This is not PRA's fault, it's the National office having ignored invoices, alerts, warnings, etc. Understandably, the seller wants to make a profit as this is his business.Let's hope that someone can negotiate with him to donate it to a secure place with trustworthy custodians. It is highly doubtful that Pacifica can afford to buy these tapes back or—if reacquired—what it will do with them. The inventory is "several thousand tapes" and thousands of folios. Most of the latter are digitized and available online for free at archive.org, but there are a number of sets PRA never found, so it would be valuable to review what is there and add any of the missing ones (mostly WBAI 1963-1967). Sounds like a good thing for crowd funding or a rescue emergency grant.
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- Here's a brief update posted to Pacifica Radio in Exile. It links to this blog, but contains a few more details.
- Tracy adds: Here is the sound clip mentioned above in the response that Chris posted.
An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Those elusive tapes...
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Is it time to revise the conspiracy theory? The Siegel/Brazon members of the PNB Finance Comm. fought themselves over a proposal to come up with a budget to shut down the PRA and transfer material to a third party. Of course, they could just pay the storage bill or move the contents but why let common sense get in the way of forming a good KPFA conspiracy theory? Maybe its all a plot to discredit PRA and keep the money that should go to them. KPFA did pass a motion to recommend a sale of WBAI and now their person on the Committee is pushing to shut down the archives. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteThe overall situation has become so obvious and desperate that only the hard core is group hugging—the fringe fools are confused and old loyalties are vaporizing. That's how I sense it, but, with these inmates, who knows what will happen. I bet that even Siegel, the puppeteer behind the green curtain, is unsure of what his next move should be.
DeleteThese people are steeped in conspiracy theories, so I doubt if any two of them trust each other at this point.
The stupid thing is that these tapes could bring in money as materiel for writers and other researchers.
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These are the same people who dismissed the CPB grant--their idiocy is well established.
DeleteI've been wondering how much of the CPB loss was incompetence, and how much was on purpose? I know a number of people have been very vocal, opposing Pacifica taking any government money. CPB had issues with meetings being properly noticed and late audits. I also wonder how many stations have fallen below the thresholds for Non-Federal Financial Support and minimum ratings that CPB requires. I found it funny that some people on the PNB call a week ago about WBAI seemed to think they would see all the back money from CPB. That bird has flown the coop for 2014 money and 2015 money loses 1/365th each day the audit is late. Do the math folks. 0+0=ZERO. However Reimers was all sun shiney about WBAI being on the verge of being the greatest Pacifica station, with million dollar drives. Yet he was saying that WBAI was getting 8K a day (on a good day? What is fulfillment rate?) And was talking about 9K a day. That would be 112 days long to reach a million. KPFA, btw was doing about 45-50K a day during weekdays during their recent drive. And is it true that WPFW has to move because they didn't pay their rent?
ReplyDeleteThe only aspects of today's Pacifica governance that pass the test of verisimilitude are that body's dominant, consistent incompetence and the bumbling schemes of its dubious majority.
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