Very much the usual – a further eternal extension of Pacifica’s dwelling within the eternal miasmic doldrums of its various failures, the sole positives to be found within iED Livingston’s report.
That report indicates further progress on the iED’s part in putting Pacifica’s accounting procedures in good order – credit where due :)
The search for a permanent Executive Director is at this point narrowed to a group of eight, soon to be further narrowed to three, final choice expected by September latest.
Other than that, there’s nothing.
Nothing.
There has been no reporting of budgets or preliminary budget projections or planning from any unit of Pacifica.
Just as last year, in which no budgets were ever produced, for any unit of Pacifica.
The Strategic Planning Committee has produced literally nothing to date other than a draft survey.
They have, however, divided into groups.
For further discussion.
The chair of that committee, however, thinks it might be nice to have a volunteer national program director, with no actual authority.
There has been no movement of any sort with respect to clarification of lines of authority, nor with respect to programming.
Programming… nope, nothing.
Nothing at all.
Finances, nothing at all, really.
Nope.
Nothing.
So… let’s step back a bit and seek perspective:
Pacifica, which has been in crisis for… oh, perhaps a bit shy of four decades, assuming that one feels an ongoing decline in listenership, with very nearly no one listening despite inherited positions in major media markets might be thought to qualify as a crisis, continues to prove itself irrelevant and incapable of evolution or indeed adaptation in any form whatsoever.
The cast of talentless talent eternal.
Air to which very nearly no one is interested in listening.
As for the new Executive Director, we’re in the dark, of course. That said, it’s very difficult indeed imagining anyone competent willing to work with an eternally dysfunctional organization with no talent and no listeners. Unless you believe in Miracles.
Yet Pacifica is itself of course faithless in the very deepest sense.
I can’t see any of this changing in any way until the knackers are once again at the door, and at that point there will be the spectacle of their all turning upon one another once again.
It will be fascinating, I’m sure…
but I think I’ll pass 😩
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI would like to add something to your wrongheaded criticism of Mitchel Cohen.
Pigs do fly. There was a tv commercial that showed pigs flying. Ergo, Pigs fly.
You cannot argue with people like Mitchel Cohen; they are true believers.
For years Russian gangsters have been enabled by journalists like Gary Weiss, Stephen Shepard and Peter Kann and politicians like Chuck Schumer.
Thank you.
Ed Manfredonia
Another inspiring observation by The Pirate.
ReplyDeleteHere's the latest WBAI Schedule.
(Courtesy of The Fugs)
Monday, nothing
Tuesday, nothing
Wednesday and Thursday nothing
Friday, for a change
A little more nothing
Saturday once more nothing
Sunday nothing
Monday nothing
Tuesday and Wednesday nothing
Thursday, for a change
A little more nothing
Friday once more nothing
Do you like boobs a lot, yes I like boobs a lot, do you hear boobs a lot, yes I hear boobs a lot, on BAI BAI BAI...
DeleteSDL
"That report indicates further progress on the iED’s part in putting Pacifica’s accounting procedures in good order – credit where due :)"
ReplyDeleteTo the uninitiated, it might sound like the above. But to me, it sounds like a big snow job on the PNB by Livingston. The most cringeworthy is they're going to file a "placeholder audit" by August 15??? First of all, the real audit was due June 30. I don't believe there is any such thing as a placeholder audit. I don't think Livingston or the PNB has any idea of what they're doing as far as the finances and accounting goes. It still sounds like a huge, incompetent crapshow. And they're going to be in default of the loan in September.
Kim
Hi, Kim, which term, or terms, will they be in default of? And how do you know what the terms are (including any temporary waivers)?
DeleteThe only other time I have heard the term "placeholder audit" used was a NPO that was on shaky financial ground, and another NPO was absorbing them.
DeleteThe placeholder audit was exactly that, a placeholder with warnings that the data was unverified and a "best effort" product using the available data.
This was later replaced by the results of a forensic audit. by the healthy NPO that was absorbing the failing one.
NETA are getting on with their work, & the-Crisis-Actor-known-as-the-Acting-CFO is merely a figurehead in all this. He is not known to have any technical, professional competence as either an accountant or a manager of the finance function, & to his credit he has not publicly claimed any: his profession is administering recruitment. He deserves to be recognised for what he is.
DeleteHis public oral reports can be compared with those of his predecessors, as found in the audio archive at pacifica.org. None of his written reports is publicly available. Even so, readers might be interested to go back in time & see a written report to the PNB from a CFO. I link below to one from Lonnie Hicks, from September 2007. That was a notable time, one not apparent to the protagonists, for fiscal 2007 started a sequence of uninterrupted annual losses, one that is almost certainly ongoing, now in its 12th year, & by September these cumulative losses are likely to be $17m.
Some of these 2007 reports read as if they were written for today, but in general they display an honest attempt to grapple with the challenges Pacifica faced, not least in how to address the internet. It has a revealing graph, showing the Arbitron (now Nielsen) listener data, 1990-2006, peaking in 2003, then falling in each of the last three years, dropping by almost 20% (page 6). Were the listeners not keen on the coverage of the Iraq invasion & occupation? Did they switch to the visuals being broadcast by Democracy Now! ? Rumsfeld & co. are responsible for many things, but did Iraq mark the death of radio? Take another topic: the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee has recently discussed whether national programming would be desirable & practicable, & here there's a 2007 report by the Network Programming Coordinator, Nathan Moore (pp. 41-5). With a high turnover of senior staff & elected officials, reinforced by the apparent lack of a documentary archive, Pacifica lacks an enduring organisational memory. Proverbially, it's as if it is continually re-inventing the wheel. And perhaps these days there's less talent. So, no surprise that no-one asked if Pacifica had previously ever thought of national programming, which conceptions had been identified, the drivers & barriers to the project, etc., &, of course, no-one mentioned Nathan's work. Enjoy.
http://pacificana.org/public/files/National/BoardReports/20070928-MeetingBook.pdf
There are certain poems that I return to at least once every year: Yeat’s “The Second Coming”; Steven’s “The Snow Man”; Eliot”s “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock”; and Larkin’s The Old Fools”--among many others.
DeleteI also have among my computer’s documents Nicole Sawaya’s letter of resignation and her apostrophic letter to Lew Hill. Like certain great poems, it merits rereading.
I’ve posted this letter on this site before.
If Chris doesn’t mind, I think it’s worthwhile to post it again.
Mind you: this was written in 2008.
I’ve provided a link so those interested may read the entire document.
“…Your Pacifica is showing signs of stress as well.
Sadly, it is no longer focused on service to the listeners but absorbed with itself and the inhabitants therein. I call it Planet Pacifica, a term I coined during my hiring process. There is an underlying culture of grievance coupled with entitlement, and its governance structure is dysfunctional. The by-laws of the organization have opened it up to tremendous abuse, creating the opportunity for cronyism, factionalism, and faux democracy, with the result of challenging all yet helping nothing. Pacifica has been made so flat, that it is concave – no leadership is possible without an enormous struggle through the inertia that committees and collectives and STV's (no, not sexually transmitted viruses, but single transferable votes) can engender.
Pacifica calls itself a movement, yet currently it is behaves like a jobs program, a cult, or a social service agency. And oftentimes, the loudest and most obstreperous have the privilege of the microphone. There are endless meetings of committees and "task forces"– mostly on the phone – where people just like to hear themselves talk. Sometimes they get lucrative contracts from their grandstanding. It's been grueling for someone in my position, someone like me who is not a process person, much less a political gamer. I keep asking: what's the endgame? Paralysis has set in, coupled with organizational drift.
The programming isn't attracting many listeners anymore, either. It skews towards the narrow in its editorial stance, leans towards the niche, and change to the programming can't occur without a fight. The listening audience is small, in other words, the stations have yet to grow into their large signals.
Business practices are oftentimes shoddy and opaque and mirror the culture of our times – lots of self-interest with a focus on individual needs as opposed to performance, affordability, or the common good. And we've hit some tough economic times without having the general will to do the hard work necessary in order to ensure sustainability– contracting rather than continually expanding the size of our financial obligations. Basically, resources and airtime have been allocated for internal political purposes at the expense of service to audience, innovation, or the care and feeding of our broadcast physical infrastructure. Some of this has to do with the fact that very few people either on air or off air actually have radio experience, other than being part of Pacifica.”
http://www.glib.com/sawaya_farewell.html
Thank you for this, especially the link to Ms Sawaya's letter.
DeleteThe site that you link to, hosting Nicole's resignation letter, is that of R Paul Martin. It's an invaluable archive documenting events at Pacifica. There he also posts his ever-useful WRITTEN treasurer's reports to the WBAI LSB, so usually monthly; sometimes they are re-posted to Chris' blog. They continue to be an exemplar of due diligence, & thus respectful of Pacifica members & listeners, so all too rare on what Nicole called Planet Pacifica.
But Nicole isn't all peaches-and-cream. 20 August 2008, two weeks after telling the PNB she would be resigning, she was in the Pacifica building in Berkeley when a KPFA programmer, Nadra Foster, was involved in a disagreement. Someone called the police. It is reported that "[w]ithout provocation, several officers severely beat and permanently disabled Nadra and carried her out in a straightjacket", furthermore, hog-tied. A vid on YouTube shows another programmer, Anita Johnson, complaining to camera, "[y]ou couldn’t ask me to talk to Nadra?”. Which in all likelihood would have made everyone's life a lot easier, especially Nadra's. Nicole Sawaya is shown being illiberal, trying to stop filming of the incident. This vid was uploaded to Steve Zeltzer's channel, 'laborvideo'. Steve is currently a staff delegate to the Local Station Board.
Article with vid embedded http://sfbayview.com/2010/11/save-kpfas-hard-knock-radio-flashpoints-and-full-circle/, & the stand-alone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44gp0BXCNpw
Interesting. The incident seems to be an anomaly in the career of a woman who worked well with the people surrounding her
Delete“In his book, Easy Listening: Pacifica Radio’s Civil War, historian Matthew Lasar tells of Sawaya’s fight with management over the budget which some believe led to Pacifica’s non-renewal of her contract in March 1999.
“During a 1998 national board meeting, she outraged the national office and much of the governing board by suggesting that if station budget cuts were necessary, KPFA could tighten its belt by reducing its annual tithe to the Pacifica national office…,” Lasar wrote.
Lasar said Sawaya wasn’t like the managers before her. “Sawaya seemed to enjoy KPFA for what it was at least as much as what it could be turned into. For that she won the staff’s undying gratitude,” Lasar wrote.
Retired KPFA programmer Larry Bensky was among those who refused Pacifica management’s gag order at the time and denounced Sawaya’s firing over the air waves, which led to his firing. (He was hired back soon thereafter.)
In a phone interview Monday, Bensky recalled that Sawaya had been part of a “very exciting era” at the station, where collaboration within the station and between stations was in motion.”
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2007-10-02/article/28124
If I were the power that be, I’d make Ms. Sawaya National Director again without hesitation. I’d also love to have her as GM, PD, and absolute dictator of WBAI.
I did hear something about a few bequests to WBAI and KPFK totaling about 1.5 million (if my memory serves). Hopefully it will all go to Pacifica National to pay down pension payments due and restricted fund theftreimbursement. After all, they forced KPFA to turn over a bequest they got a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteThere is something wrong when bequests are considered a source of revenue. You can almost see hear the relief in their voice as it means they can keep delaying making the hard choices for another few months or years. A bequest should be seen as a welcome gift that should be used only to pay down debt or essential services and nothing more.
DeleteBequests seem to total $1.62m – it's uncertain because Major Tom spoke ambiguously (44:15, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb180802/pnb180802a.mp3). The question to him came from Grace-for-the-Stack, aka Grace-from-the-Hood, formerly known as Grace-from-South-Central, who said she had heard some rumours – in Pacifica? Anyway, the Major started off by talking about a bequest of "$580 000 for Pacifica & $280 000 for WBAI", but immediately confused things by calling it two bequests. Before that confusion could sink in he contradicted himself again: after saying, "[t]hose are the only bequests I'm aware of", he remembered two others, both to WBAI, one for $180k, the other $280k – only to forget about a $300k bequest. How we laughed.
Delete(Yes, I too noticed these four sums all end with '80'; some coincidence.)
That Kundera moment came when the sis sent the Board into raptures, rapping about MC Bustany bequeathing $300k. At this Major Tom took to the decks, the PNB took an impromptu adjournment, only for Point-of-Order-Madam-Chair Adriana to challenge the chair's ruling, Mr Tatum gave his opinion, DeWayne Lark accused him of racism, forcing Benito Diaz to say that was nothing coz some stations still haven't implemented PNB policy on minimum Spanish-language programming.
The Board had their moment of levity, & although reality soon dawned, enough good-feeling remained for the passing (with five objections) of Grace's motion that the PNB & the five stations should each make a motivational video to launch Pacifica's new channel on YouTube. After all, as Casey Kasem always said, keep your feet on the ground & keep reaching for the stars!
Carole 'I-know-more-about-Sojourner-than-you'd-care-to-know-huh' Travis then killed the room by saying that perhaps for a recipient station, if it's heavily indebted to the National Office, the PNB should have some say in how much of the bequest should reduce that debt. That the Acting Chief Financial Officer didn't know what to make of this suggestion was no surprise because he's a crisis actor, acting as a CFO.
This planting of a crisis actor at the very heart of Pacifica adds credence to the persistent rumour doing the rounds that the Foundation is the subject of an educational documentary on organisational dysfunctionality. It's a mash-up of fly-on-the-wall footage, talking heads (some like Homer's brain), & re-enactments of key episodes in Pacifica's history, including inner-city shootings, walk-on sledgehammer parts, smashing smartphones, & Gitmo/Abu Ghraib/Bagram-style disrupting of telephonic PNB meetings. But as they say, bad publicity is still publicity, & it's consistent with longstanding Pacifica practice, if not policy.
I think it's rather morbid that a radio network actually wants its listeners to die off, so it can get some cash...
DeleteSDL
Funny you should say that, SDL, because I've just made that point in the report I'm finishing on FJC, the loan, & the future. Given the age structure of listeners, especially members, I've called the 2020s Pacifica's gilded age, with the bequests rolling in:
Delete"[...] net income is less likely to come from operations than it is from bequests. Which gives another meaning to Pacifica as the home of zombie radio, now with the corpses of Pacifica members rising from the dead, handing over their money, & ghosting through the studios & corridors, drifting throughout the network. The Pacifica living are the undead; the Pacifica dead return as zombies; so Pacifica, like the Hydra, cannot be slain. And, given the age structure of members, it’s likely there’ll be an excess of those popping their clogs over this coming decade compared with the one after; so the 2020s will be much more of a gilded age for Pacifica than what are likely to be the much harsher 2030s. 2029, the centenary of the Wall Street Crash, may mark Pacifica’s turning-point, relief after 23 years of hurt."
If Pacifica is looking forward to the deaths of its members, in order to receive their bequests, then the marketing of Null's nostrums would appear to be counter-productive, unless, of course, they do not produce the results promised.
ReplyDeleteShame on you! They don't get their premiums! Either way WBAI win$
DeleteFans of WBAI’s The Laughing Cavalier, aka Teri Noel Towe, can listen to him Monday mornings on WKCR for the rest of August (at least).
ReplyDeleteIf one wants to understand the difference between “pedantic” and “erudite”, listen to Phil Schaap (for the former) and then Teri (for the later).