That, of course came as no surprise to anyone who knows Reimers' game. Nevertheless, it contains interesting information, but does nothing to produce confidence.
WBAI Treasurer's Report - August 2018
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.
Chris - the Treasurer's Report is from August 2018 NOT 2918 - no desire to be here 900 years from now. Sad state of affairs that the station is relaying on people dying and their estates to sustain itself. The station is dying as it has been for years. It is corrupt and fraudulent. It is has a political line which is constipated. Serious crimes have been committed there, but no one ever has been called to account. Praying every day for the station to fall to its knees and die. It is an evil place with evil people running it, past and present.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing that out—I have corrected it.
Delete"The General Manager said that the building out of the front room would cost less than $10,000, and would be worth it."
ReplyDeleteSo the GM is proposing a lease-hold improvement, in a space that already does not meet the needs of the air staff and volunteers....
I'm wrapping up a temporary studio build and $10,000. Based on that process, $10,000 is simply not going to do it in NYC.
I listen to KPFA online since our NYC Pacifica station is dysfunctional.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite programs are Letters and Politics, Guns and Butter, and Behind the News.
It appears that Guns and Butter been kicked of the air.
Does anyone (especially anyone in California) know anything about this?
I don't think Guns and Butter has been taken off the air. Bear in mind that very little airs according to schedule during fund drives. The current one was extended because—as everyone but Berthold Reimers seems to know—a dated, recycled fundraising drive with the same products being pitched is always going to adversely affect sales
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMEMO
“Guns and Butter” will no longer be broadcast on KPFA.
After an avalanche of negative calls and emails from listeners about the airing of views of a holocaust denier, climate change denial and casting the Parkland mass shooting survivors as crisis actors. KPFA cannot defend this content.
Please direct all comments to KPFA's comment line at comments@kpfa.org or 510-848-6767 ext 622.
KPFA Management
Kevin Cartwright
So that's all it takes: an avalanche of angry phone calls and poof, one of the station's most popular programs is disappeared. Gutless. But Pacifica has been increasingly gutless for a long time.
DeleteI'll miss Bonnie. I didn't agree with all of her guests' point of view but appreciated hearing them. And she did some great interviews--like her interviews with Indira Singh about PTech.
I guess I'll stop listening to KPFA too. Mr. Cartwright's e-mail demonstrates that sanctimonious jerkdom is not limited to WBAI.
Bonnie has the disadvantage of being a white woman.
DeleteI'm sure the dimwitted Margaret Prescod inspires angry calls and letters for her bovinely stupid remarks--but Prescod is black and black women producers of Pacifica have carte blanche to say whatever they want.
Recently KPFA has banned Guns and Butter and sent 17 years of KPFA GNB archives down the memory hole.
DeleteThe following is a letter I’ve sent to the GM, PD, local station board, and business manager:
Esteemed Pacifica Station KPFA:
In the book, Freedom From Speech, Greg Lukianoff, president of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, informs us “how higher education pioneered the idea that some students, professors, or administrators have the ‘right not to be offended.’
“This mythical right manifests itself in campus speech codes that ban ‘hurtful,’ ‘inconsiderate,’ or ‘offensive’ speech.”
Nat Hentoff defended the right of people to say and write whatever they wanted, no matter who might be offended. His philosophy was that the remedy for offensive free speech was more free speech
Guns and Butter never offended me. I don’t agree with the opinions of all Bonnie’s guests; however, I almost always find her show worth listening to.
One of Bonnie’s recent guests who probably generated calls, e-mails, and letters, was a so called “Holocaust Denier”—he said the number of people murdered was grossly exaggerated. The man was a military officer and was Jewish himself. His target was Zionism. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the negative responses you received about Bonnie were generated by AIPAC and its ilk.
There have been some guests on Guns and Butter that bored me or irritated me. However, most of the time Bonnie’s guests and her excellent interviews have educated me.
Among Bonnie’s guests have been Alison Weir, Webster Tarpley, Michel Chossudovsky, Douglas Valentine, F. Willian Engdahl, Michael Hudson, David Talbott, and Dr. Suzanne Humphries. They have offered non-mainstream opinions that may be offensive to people suckled on the milk of main stream media. But their opinions, from being on lunatic fringe, raise questions about important topics such as the legitimacy of making vaccines obligatory or giving 5 billion dollars in military aid to Israel; offer challenges to the official 911 conspiracy theories, describe the abominations of The Vietnam War and American foreign policy in general, and show the brutality of capitalism.
Guns and Butter was one of my three favorite programs—along with Behind The News, and Letters and Politics. Are Mitch Jeserich and Doug Henwood next on your hit list? I’m sure their programs generate a lot of feedback from offended listeners.
I fervently hope that KPFA will reconsider its rash action, restore Bonnie and Guns and Butter to their rightful place as a Pacifica program that offers an alternative view of reality, and retrieve/restore the wonderful library of Guns and Butter archives.
Respectfully,
LSB
Chris,
ReplyDeleteIt's been taken off the KPFA schedule and if you go to the KPFA/Guns and Butter site, where I used to listen to the program, you are informed that the page no longer exists. A bad sign.
Guns and Butter is available on WBAI during the 7 weeks every year when there is not a fund raising marathon. But who wants to listen to WBAI for anything? I wouldn't turn on the station if it were the only radio station left in the world.
Bonnie Faulkner occasionally had a legitimate guest. but—all too often—she was as dishonest as Geoff Brady.
DeleteThe difference between the crackpots on Faulkner's show and the crackpots on Brady's show was that Faulkner's crackpots were offensive, in addition to being crazy.
DeleteChris, speaking of recycled fund drives: I keep hearing in some segments Gary Null speaking with Tony Bates - whom I understand is gone from WBAI:
ReplyDelete1. Why was this scam artist - Tony Bates- let go; and why does the other scam artist - Gary Null- remains?
If I might respond for Chris:
DeleteWBAI had to pay Bates.
Null pays WBAI.
Thank you TPM. Since I have been out of the loop for a while, can you or anyone else ellaborate on Tony Bates' misdeeds?
DeleteI can relate one incident from a reliable source.
DeleteHe sexually harassed a female producer at WBAI.
Ibrahim Gonzales and Reggie witnessed the event and complained to GM Reimers.
Reimers' reaction was to suspend Reggie and threaten Ibrahim.
I don't wish to name the producer but my source was Ibrahim.
He was a good friend whom I miss very much.
Is this why he was actually let go - and paid?!!!; or was it for another reason?
DeleteNo it is not.
DeleteI don't know why the station finally got rid o him.But good riddance.
Now if only they could get rid of the inept GM, Bertholt Reimers.
That's how Reimers operates—how he all but guarantees to lower the marathon income.
DeleteAn intelligent manager would analyze a fundraising failure, try to determine what went wrong, and change the approach for the next one. Berthold Reimers is dumb, but not the the point where he can't grasp the obvious.
Ergo, instead of spending his time between fundraisers examining why the last one failed, he just lets things ride and adds a week to the next one, which is also tanking. We all know that the listenership has hit an all-time low and any idiot can tell that selling junk, fraudulent services and questionable health crap is a scam that cannot keep on working.
Add WBAI's highly inflated prices, false claims of exclusivity, and known failure to deliver paid-for "gifts". Also, don't forget that listeners are told that their money goes to keep the station on the air and preserve the utter nonsense it broadcasts.
Every fund drive is extended by a week, because it falls short of Reimers' fantasy goal. So he blames his miscalculation on something else and does the same thing over again. Bates is heard because his torrent of lies is re-run. Even Gwen Scott (the legitimate holistic remedies lady) continues to be heard, although she died a few years back.
It's irresponsibility taken to the max—and don't let me go into the station's disk duplicator and the criminal activity it encourages.
Pacifica's "Robert's Rules" are not all that Pacifica needs to re-think....the entire disorganization must be scrutinized and measures taken to go legit or out of business.
Chris, how/why was Tony Bates finally let go?
DeleteI have no real information on this, but it is odd that he left just as another fund drive was launched. Berthold Reimers has been an apologist for Bates, but we all know how his "loyalties" can shift in a New York second.
DeletePerhaps Bates was pushing too far into Reimers' territory—they did share an office; perhaps there finally was some pressure from the PNB; perhaps... well, let me stop speculating and encourage an authoritative answer from an inside source.
Listen to Gary Null show of 7/24 - the final 8 minutes. After comments about Lopate, Null mentions the new Program Director, and then makes a comment to the effect that he could no longer work with the prior Program Director.
DeleteWithout mentioning Bates by name, he seems to imply some ethical problem caused this distancing.
Now if a staff member has a falling out with WBAI's biggest draw, that can't bode well for the staff member.
In other WBAI / Pacifica host news (Credico is regularly on KPFA with Dennis Bernstein): Special counsel Robert Mueller will reportedly soon issue a subpoena targeting Randy Credico, the associate of informal Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone who was his alleged connection to Wikileaks during the 2016 election, to force an interview with his office.
ReplyDeleteMSNBC's Ari Melber reported Thursday afternoon on his show, "The Beat with Ari Melber," that Mueller's office had "indicated" it planned to subpoena Credico and force an interview. The special counsel investigation continues to target associates of Stone, a longtime adviser and friend of President Trump.
Melber reported that "a direct source with knowledge of the special counsel's outreach" had confirmed the move, which is expected to occur in the coming days.
I pegged Credico as an opportunistic fraud when I first became aware of him. He spoke at a funeral service for Robert Knight, whom he described as a dear friend. Knight, of course, was himself a fraud.
DeleteI find it interesting that Mimi Rosenberg is hawking a documentary by Tariq Nasheed entitled "1804: The Hidden History of Haiti" which is total romanticized B.S.. This is the same fraud who has written such books on how to exploit men and women with such titles as "The Mack Within", "The Elite Way", "The Art of Mackin", "Play or Be Played", "What Every Female Should Know About Men, Dating and Relationships" and "The Art of Gold Digging". He lives a lavish life in California "nickel and diming" mostly ignorant black people on Youtube with information that will never improve their lives financially or otherwise. Sorry, I am not buying this crap.
ReplyDeleteI listened to that Haiti "documentary" and, also, could not believe that Mimi—even in her "under cork" role—would fall for it. I found it to be embarrassing, bad amateur theater, but I guess anything goes when any semblance of respect for the listenership has been dumped into a pot of serving greed.
DeleteWBAI is amazingly lacking in moral responsibility.
Chris,
ReplyDeletePlease note from The Treasurer's Report
The General Manager said that the new Nutel transmitter that 4 Times Square had paid for should be coming on line soon. The cost of the transmitter will be billed to WBAI over a 15 year period. He said that a backup transmitter that had been shipped from KPFT to a warehouse in the Bronx, where people at that warehouse had signed for it, could not be found when WBAI people went there to pick it up. The General Manager said that he believes that the KPFT transmitter was insured.
Why has no one commented on the theft of the transistor. Steve Brown's Group screamed when broadcasting equipment was stolen.
What can someone do with a transmitter. Open a radio station in the Bronx?
Ed Manfredonia
It can be sold for scrap, or draped with canvas and used as home in the beautiful Bronx. Or maybe sold for cash to a pirate radio station - along with the studio equipment.
DeleteThat's Nautel, not Nutel.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that it is WBAI, it is NUTel.
DeleteR Paul Martin's report wasn't heard by the WBAI Local Station Board last Wednesday. Why? "This meeting was cancelled when it had failed to achieve quorum after waiting for more than one hour after the start time of the meeting" (https://kpftx.org/archive.php).
ReplyDeleteWBAI's Community Advisory Board has a motto: 'where we honor the listener'. The Local Station Board doesn't seem to have one. Maybe the next fund-drive could run a competition.
Taking cash from the voiceless is a good start for a motto.
DeleteOr , we are a bunch of race based clueless idiots that think this is what people want to hear 24/7.
ReplyDeleteThat's catchy, lets for a committee to explore its possibilities.
Delete