Monday, February 19, 2018

Pacifica in Exile Newsletter


Berkeley - Information from Pacifica's National Board out to the members it represents has been a little scarce as of late, with 4 consecutive closed session meetings on January 25 and Feb 1, Feb 8 and Feb 15 not providing the routine report out. The audit committee has also not filed report outs from its last three closed session meetings. Part of the problem has been the transition between executive directors as Tom Livingston takes over for Bill Crosier and part the annual turning over of the national board. This year's rotation of national board members has been far from smooth with repetitive director elections from KPFA's local station board, which has been hemorrhaging members at the rate of one a month, and filing lawsuits against Pacifica. More on the KPFA directors mess below. 

Back in late January, the Pacifica National Board approved a friendly loan from KPFK members to pay off the judgment due to the Empire State Realty Trust and bridge the organization to a $3 million dollar 3-year line of credit intended to tide the organization over until it can decide how to leverage its $10 million dollars in real estate and $100 million in broadcast licenses to pay off acculmulated debts, primarily to the Empire State Building, Democracy Now and the network's duplicative fixed benefit pension plan. The exact amount of the debt has been a subject of debate with an $8 million dollar amount thrown around the media. When this publication asked for substantiation of that figure, since it was approximately double the known debt level 4 years ago, the document provided by Pacifica's chief financial officer indicated the $8 million figure included a $1-$1.5 million dollar estimate for the legal and administrative costs of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing (which has not happened), $500K in "ongoing operating expenses" and $650K listed as accrued for program fees for Democracy Now in FY 2013, although the second five year contract with DN expired on October 1, 2012. The program has since been supplied to Pacifica without payment for 4 years. 

The friendly loan fund is in an LA-area escrow account while a prominent public media broker assists Pacifica in discussions with the Empire State Building aimed at resolving the long-term outcome of the contract, which runs until April of 2020 at ever-increasing rates. By the final year of the contract, annual expenses would approach $750K a year (currently it's at about $600K annually). This is an amount that would sink almost any community radio outlet in the country. 

The slightly exaggerated $8 million debt amount was used, mostly at KPFA, but also in a few other sectors of the network, to push for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, an expensive and risky process (85% of entrants into Chapter 11 never get out of it) that would have placed the nation's only progressive media network at the mercy of the federal judiciary and a creditors committee. The national board rejected that route in January 2018, choosing instead to accept a short-term loan from its Southern California supporters and then to mortgage property for a line of credit in order to maintain autonomy for the harder decisions that lie ahead in the next few years. Some in the network have remained distressed by the avoidance of bankruptcy, despairing that the network's members, who fought hard in the late 90's for the right to decide on any swaps, transfers or sales of broadcast licenses, would ever agree to leverage "their stations" assets. These folks are essentially taking a Hobbesian view and prefer to rely on the authoritarian force of the judiciary to make the decisions instead of Pacifica's members. KPFA's litigious lawyer on the local station board, Bill Campisi, stated in a February 18 email: 


On another side of the fence, a number of WBAI programmers continue to push for the NY station to be leased out in a public service operating agreement (PSOA) to former Pacifica executive director (2002-2005) Dan Coughlin via Manhattan Neighborhood Network, the NY public access channel Coughlin runs. The PSOA offer, which has been floating around since at least 2011, would pay ongoing operating costs including forward payments to Empire State, but leave the other 4 Pacifica stations stuck with all debts accrued prior to the operating lease, with no access to WBAI's income during the lease period. In its earlier iterations, Coughlin's offer was clearly non-temporary in nature as it removed WBAI's occupancy in its Brooklyn rental property, and incorporated all BAI programming into MNN, leaving nothing viable at the end of the operating agreement. Coughlin was the ED of Pacifica during the negotiation period for the catastrophic Empire State lease and resigned from the position 2 weeks prior to his successor Ambrose Lane signing the 15 year lease. Apparently, without saying "No, don't sign it or Pacifica will go broke". 

Coughlin has his own troubles with the public access community in New York City, having been sued by Deep Dish TV co-founder Dee Dee Halleck and Puerto Rican poet Jesus Papaleto Melendez for banning them from MNN's premises. Coughlin's somewhat quixotic argument that a public access channel is not a public space was rejected by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on February 9, which stated: "“We conclude that the public access TV channels in Manhattan are public forums and that MCAC’s employees were sufficiently alleged to be state actors taking action barred by the First Amendment to prevent dismissal of the claims".

Meanwhile, KPFA's local station board which has lost seven members since the last election set in 2015-2016, continues to turn itself into a self-selecting body in an ironic joke on the station's rebellion of 1999. No less than Carol Spooner, the architect of Pacifica's democratized bylaws, was the latest old hand to reverse course and grab on to an appointed seat. In so doing, Spooner skipped over no less than 20 different write-in candidates who had been written in by KPFA's members, including seven former members of the KPFA local station board over the past decade and a half. As with the first appointed seat given away in January to Susan Da Silva, there was only one candidate for the seat provided, and it went to another retired white woman with a decades long history in KPFA politics. A third appointed seat will be filled in the March board meeting.

The skipping over of write-in candidates, whatever representational concerns it presents, maintains the disproportionate whiteness of KPFA's local station board which, at a ratio of 70% (17/24) is considerably whiter than the 9-county Bay Area (which was 43% non-latinx white as of the 2010 census) and the station's domicile county of Alameda (which was 34% non-latinx white as of the 2010 census). It is likely that at least one of the write-in candidates would have taken a seat if offered one. Samsarah Morgan, a Black Oaklander who served on the board from 2013-2016, intended to run for re-election in 2016 and filed papers to do so, but ended up being declared ineligible after a membership renewal on a monthly installment plan didn't hit the required amount by the deadline. Morgan was never offered the seat despite being on the runners up list and her willingness to serve a second term on the local station board. 


26 comments:

  1. A suit to ask the courts to take over management of Pacifica pending determination as to whether to reorganize Pacifica’s governing structure or to simply dissolve Pacifica seems both entirely sensible and realistic to me, whereas all other notions mooted to date, save Ch 11, seem essentially variant forms of delusional madness. If that suit would require the approval of the California Attorney General’s Office, then I would think that at this point they have infinite evidence to justify the reasonableness of that course and of its necessity.

    Let’s face it, Pacifica is already in the advanced stages of self-dissolution. Acknowledging that fact might make the process more orderly and might even save a sliver or two.

    ~ ‘indigopirate’

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  2. But what to do with the corpse of Pacifica?

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  3. How about we let Amy Goodman run WBAI in exchange for cancelling the debt to her, paying Empire and most important getting that rich fair trade coffee that she loves to sell?

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  4. Does Berthold get to keep his computer?

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  5. I vote for this:

    George and Amal Clooney have just donated $500,000 to the students fighting to change the gun laws.

    Why not take this as a cue.

    Turn Pacifica in its entirety – each and every Pacifica station, plus the archives – over to a younger generation, in part to revive the original worthy (and support-worthy) principles of listener-supported coverage of the arts, literature, music, education, and public affairs on which Pacifica was originally founded, and in part to establish their own, fresh agendas, including things like truly progressive (not ancient old-guard ‘progressive’) coverage of issues like gun control, and a thousand others, eg, income distribution, education, and the like.

    This generation has a voice clearly worthy of being heard, and it already has media savvy in abundance.

    It’s ready to take the lead.

    Let’s let it.

    Folks like the Clooney’s, the Gates’s, Bloomberg, Bezos, and many others will, I’m sure, take care of the funding necessary for the transition.

    It could happen, and would be a worthy succession.

    ~ ‘indigopirate’

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  6. Indigo, won't work, quoting your earlier remark, they have media savvy (paraphrase) and don't need no radio, a quick look and you could swear they are holding a transistor radio to their ear, closer look they are holding the future.

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  7. With respect: I disagree. I’m infinitely well aware of the shift in media. Old media is however still of potential value as a partial identifier and as a central locus of activity. Bezos saved the Washington Post for a reason, and the reason wasn’t nostalgia.

    A handing over of Pacifica to a younger generation would in and of itself be extremely valuable as a media event.

    Please don’t hear me wrong. I’m not arguing the generation I’m referring to here, mostly in the neighborhood of 17 or so, has a need for Pacifica. They will have their way, and they are the future, whether we like it or not. Personally, I like it :)

    I’m simply arguing that if Pacifica is to be of any use to anyone – and it might, with a near-wholesale transformation – this might be a path.

    If, instead, it simply winds up being dissolved and the frequencies reverting to the FCC for auction, that’s fine, too.

    I simply thought this might be of some use.

    The Washington Post has abundant presence on the web, yet the paper is of use as a central identity.

    The same might be true for Pacifica – but if and only if truly radically deeply transformed.

    ~ ‘indigopirate’

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  8. Perhaps there will be a better chance if the FCC mandates all cell phones have an activated FM chip?

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  9. I do agree that more younger voices are needed and would re-boot the brand but some older voices are needed too. I am working with some young people on a different platform and the welcome perspective and history. A little of both.

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  10. I always liked Armand Demille, and so was appalled at the recent allegations against him, in fact the generally negative view of him on this site. Right now on "his" show he has returned from the dead to talk about men and (among other angles) sex.

    So it seems like an appropriate time to inquire...what ever happened with those allegations ? Is there any substance to them ? I have a hard time believing - though perhaps I'm naive - that his mentees, the current hosts - could keep things going as they are, if there were any conceivable legitimacy to the claims.

    Anyone know anything ? This theme seems to have dropped off the radar lately.

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  11. turning over anything to a younger generation of loonie lefties would be even worse than the old lefties. people who despise science and believe in even worse bigotry, 500 genders, etc. are simply mentally unstable. I'll stick with old commies, since, at least, they have a foothold in some sort of reality, even if I disagree with their views.

    As for Armand Demille, who the hell knows. Accusations of sexual impropriety are rife in Pacifica, as the rest of the nation, these days. Gary Null has been threatening to expose sex stuff for a lon time and never does. One thing I can tell you for sure is there is never any evidence to speak of presented.

    SDL

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    1. This is so annoying. Its not about swapping one group of idiots for another. We need programming that appeals to a broader group of people. We need competent management.
      50,000 watts in New York City to broadcast the likes of Brady and Haskins? Really?
      Really?

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    2. Agreed. I know older listeners from before the '77 fiasco had it best, but the late '70s to when Samori gained power still had a very varied mix of programming, even if from left of center to blatant commie views. The point is that it was still far reaching in subject matter.

      Leonard Lopate was a great example. One week he would have a guest on about Lyndon LaRouche, another week a guest about Jonestown, yet another week another topic. That's why his show was so good.

      By the way, I am healing at a "better than average" rate, according to my doctor and visiting nurse. They seem surprised.

      SDL

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    3. Did you tell them the cause of "better than average" rate? Not listening to Gary Null? Or are you secretly swilling that double helix water?

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    4. HAHA! I tell them them it's the hardy Spanish genetics the woman who gave birth to me imparted. Hey, makes more sense than any health show on WBAI. ;)

      SDL

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    5. Gary Null is said to have reams of documents on Armand DiMele's sexual activities in and around the station. He is writing a book which include a chapter on Dimele.

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  12. Do they think by playing black nationalist over and over again , will cure
    white nationalism ? Maybe in their warped minds it does.
    But in the real world it's doing less than nothing.

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    1. Compulsive programming, lack of vision, and numbing of the brain.

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  13. I wasn’t by any means advocating for a cohort of younger loonie leftists. I’m simply arguing, as I have for some time, that WBAI/Pacifica ought strive for the goals and ideals originally espoused long long long long ago – not for reasons of nostalgia or some such bullshit, but because those were and are worthy ideals. An openness to and presentation of the arts, music, drama, literature, freeform, and yes public affairs from any and all worthy and challenging perspectives.

    The ‘younger folks’ out there don’t buy the old leftist shit, they haven’t for a very long time, which is part of the reason why WBAI/Pacifica, with their abandonment of the original goals and ideals, are stale as shit [I seem to have forgotten the frank language alert here, feel free to rewind the tape].

    The real ‘mission’ of the place, today and for years and years, is insularity, companied with irrelevance.

    It’s an onanistic wasteland.

    I suppose in a sense what I’m saying is that there’s an infinite variety of worthy things to do, and an infinite variety of fresh talent out there, and WBAI/Pacifica refuses to to any of them.

    Did anyone pick up reach out to all the energy out there currently and just say ‘Here’s some fucking air. Run with it. You’ve got a shot.’

    I mean that in all the areas I’ve referred to, not simply stale shitty leftist politics [forgot the frank language alert, again, I guess].

    Here’s a programming concept for you: Hi. We’re Pacifica. We’re tearing ourselves down and rebuilding ourselves, on the air, live, 24/7. Maybe we’ll succeed maybe we’ll go down in flames, probably that last one, but we’re going to gamble and we’re going to put it all on the line because what have we to lose and because it truly matters.

    Open the fucking doors and windows.

    Fuck the committees.

    The plan is that there isn’t a plan.

    How’s that sound?

    ~ indigopirate’

    ps: Yes, I know it won’t happen, but it should, and the fact that it won’t tells us more than anything, perhaps, who these people are and who they aren’t.

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    1. I'd like to see a WBAI that would be a place for political discussion from all sides, arts, literature, music (of all sorts not receiving airplay in general), etc. However, with a myopic management right up to the top of Pacifica, that isn't going to happen, sadly.

      One idea I have is an hour long weekly show dedicated to different neighborhoods and their problems. Have some of the residents come on and try to get their local politicians to discuss their neighborhood matters. Now that is truly grass roots.

      SDL

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    2. Good idea, SDL, but people like Bates and Reimers would very likely not embrace it. The risk of showing that problems of the poor include non-blacks is simply too great. Besides, they don't go for multi-sided discussion.

      As I have said before, and you well know, these WBAI occupants have small minds. The term, "community" only covers like-minded area residents "of color".

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    3. Able, intelligent people are able to argue for and to defend their positions. Bill Buckley, for example, frequently debated Jeff Greenfield on Firing Line. Greenfield, incidentally, had a show on WBAI prior to ‘The Crisis’ of 1977, and was present at a number of the meetings. He also brought his engineer coffee & from around the corner. A good man :) He did not return after The Crisis.

      The point, of course, to belabor the obvious, is that WBAI/Pacifica is unable to argue for or defend their positions.

      They are capable only of empty proclamations in service to their ‘mission’, and, of course, if I may repeat yet again again, long ago abandoned Pacifica’s foundational goals and principles in service of their ‘mission’.

      Though I suppose their mission might best be defined by a single word: Failure.

      That, at least, they can manage.

      ~ ‘indigopirate’

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  14. Chris,

    I just read Mitchel Cohen's response to your e-mail to Linda Perry. Mitchel Cohen is an a--hole. Mitchel is such a piece of crap that he backed Berthold Reimers whenever I stated that there was financial fraud at WBAI.

    Mitchel is like so many other individuals at Pacifica- they believe that they are much brighter than they are.

    Mitchel told me that he did not like my going to the FBI- about narcotics smuggling and money laundering on Wall Street. Who was I supposed to go to? The Fuck Ups at WBAI. The morons at Pacifica who advocate free drugs- even though 1,400 Americans were murdered by Jamaican drug gangs.

    The people, who are associated with Pacifica, are comprised mainly of individuals with severe psychological problems.

    Mitchel was happy as long as Berthold bought coffee for him.

    Thank you.

    Ed Manfredonia

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    1. where was the aforementioned letter posted?

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