Pacifica gets noticed—sad

In the case of astronomical arrears owed to ESRT, the WBAI manipulators—true to form—have been playing the victims of their self-generated mismanagement. They wrongfully and publicly point their fingers at a legitimate creditor and beg, with unjustified hostility, for undeserved mercy. This is par for the course for opportunists who routinely recite a litany of culprits upon whom they blame their own shortcomings, including an exodus that has resulted in an all-time low listenership.

In recent years, wiser people, with genuine concern for the station's welfare and a desire for it to regain its integrity, have attempted to lend Berthold Reimers and his coterie du jour well-founded advice, but they are routinely ignored.

Over the years, WBAI has suffered under much bad management, but none as detrimental as that feigned by Berthold Reimers, a clueless clerk who shirks the responsibilities for which he is paid over $100,000.00 annually and obstinately refuses to recognize that listenership is, in great measure, commensurate with program content and quality. If the product is not the programs, what is he trying to sell?

Turning the station over to a small, confused segment of the New York area's black population and granting substandard producer/hosts permanent on-air presence has had the effect of discouraging listeners—of all beliefs and ancestral origins—from seeking intellectual stimulation and a broader scope. The concept upon which Lewis Hill founded Pacifica in the late Forties is as attractive as ever, but it is no longer practiced. The audience that made the intellectually curious tune in and give financial support dwindles with each pedestrian amateur show thrown together, with each race-based propaganda effort, and each lie told. 

Using Pacifica's original mission as a sales tool while not following it, WBAI and its sister stations are in the main morally bankrupt centers for scam activity and mis-information. The few dedicated voices still heard on the spotty network of five Foundation-owned stations and distant affiliates increasingly speak to an empty room.

Now the sword of Damocles hovers more perilously than ever. Madame Defarge is about to add the last name to her interminable knitting, and Pacifica is finally noticed, albeit for the wrong reason.

Here's an article by Ernesto Aguilar, a former Program Director at KPFT, the Houston station. It appeared in Radio World and is excerpted in Spark News. 

Radio World article in PDF format.