This open letter was written by filmmaker/author Michael Moore and posted on his site following the 2012 presidential election. Please click on it to enlarge.

WBAI: Some Thoughts

Here are some of my own thoughts followed by an e-mail letter TPM wrote to Gary Null's Progressive Radio Network.

The mismanagement team seems to be stirring a bit, having hitherto been in hiding or hibernation. What has put them in motion? I think that their unusual burst of energy is, more than anything else, fueled by a need to keep those salary cheques coming to the select few. If it reflected a desire to keep WBAI on the air for the sake of the remaining listener-supporters, the focus would be different and the awakening would have come much sooner. 

As long as WBAI is under the direction of people who, either purposely or through ignorance, are loath to raise the station's programing to past standards, there is no hope for recovery. What we are seeing is a coterie of opportunists who will sink to any depth in order to keep their turf at WBAI. If that means defrauding the listener-sponsors, so be it, but as more listeners  abandon the morally corrupt station, the abusers find it increasingly difficult to maintain even the flawed status quo—the jig is up and everybody loses, perhaps most notably, the listeners.

WBAI would probably not be on the air during the present Sandy crisis were it not for Gary Null, who has made his PRN online facilities available to WBAI. A generous helping hand, but—as I have stated previously, and he himself will acknowledge—Mr. Null is not totally selfless. He is a business man who reaps great benefits from the air time WBAI afford him, but he is also someone who has sound ideas and is not afraid to criticize the station's management for its ineptitude and poor taste.

I have been critical of Gary Null, whose slick presentations often seem out of place on WBAI, and I think we can attribute to his success the station's lopsided emphasis on amateur health care, but the truth is that Mr. Null has impressive knowledge of holistic medicine and practices, he know his way around business, and he is an excellent, articulate communicator.

This is a refreshing contrast to the station's current management team, which stays out of touch and treats listener-supporters as were they afflicted with leprosy.

Last Friday, Mr. Null devoted a part of his program to the present situation and offered rational, do-able suggestions for a solution. Will they listen? I doubt it, but—in terms of helping WBAI—the value of Mr. Null's business advice could easily exceed and certainly outlive the temporary benefits reaped from his successful on-the-air fund-raising efforts. The problem, of course, is that those who currently make the decisions at WBAI are shortsighted, unimaginative people. They all need to be replaced by competent management that can take good advice without giving away the store.

Finally, there is a problem called Pacifica. Over the years, it, too, has been corrupted by opportunists and obsessive radicals. Ironically, to a point where it may well prove to be the entity that ultimately sounds the death knell for Lewis Hill's extraordinary creation

—Chris Albertson

TPM's letter to The Progressive Radio Network

2 November 2012 e-mail to PRN

Dear PRN:

Recently I hooked up my computer to my Bose wave radio so I could listen to your outstanding programs without being attached to my computer and my headphones.

I have turned to PRN because of the demise of the station I used to listen to for five or six hours a day, WBAI. WBAI has succumbed to nepotism, cronyism, obscurantist programming, and governance by mob rule. It has been crippled by parasites who milk the station –which is bankrupt, for $1.5 million dollars in salaries awarded to the most corrupt and inept of the people at the station.

I am disappointed that PRN lent its support to WBAI during the recent crisis caused by the mega-storm. I would prefer to let WBAI self-destruct so that something better might emerge from its ashes.

Respectfully,
TPM

When I recently added an e-mail address for contacting me privately, I failed to link it. That problem has now been corrected and you can reach me at:

downheartedblues@mac.com

Delusion all?

BF from NJ is among the many formerly loyal WBAI listener-supporters whose hope for the station's restoration has dissipated. Here is what she said in a recent comment, and the response this has brought us from another regular visitor. What do you think?

"Well Chris, It seems the same personalities are trying to solve the same problems. Hopeless. I think people should give up on this station, as I have, and take your money and support elsewhere. —BFNJ

If you wish to send me a private message and would like a private response, please send e-mail to me at: downheartedblues@mac.com (your e-mail address will never be published, unless you request that it is.

Is the Stagnation permanent?

It is no secret that WBAI is stuck in a groove and that it continues to suffer under gross mismanagement. Several decades ago, when that mismanagement was a mescaline-head appointed by then Pacifica President, Hallock Hoffman, it did not take long for the opportunists to avail themselves of the power vacuum. The result was that Steve Post and Larry Josephson simply took over WBAI and used it to feed their own egos. That was done at the expense of loyal listener-supporters and the principles upon which Lewis Hill founded Pacifica. It was also a slap in the face of Louis Schweitzer, a highly principled man with an abiding belief in free speech, the furtherance of cultural exchange, and the importance of having an informed public. Louis, who it was my great privilege to know and regard as a friend, embraced Mr. Hill's concept of alternate radio, so he made Pacifica a gift of his ideally located commercial station, WBAI.

Louis felt betrayed when Millspaugh, Post, Koch, Josephson, and others began to abuse WBAI. I shudder to think how he would have suffered seeing the station in its present stage of deterioration. Louis loved to follow technological advances. He used to carry the weekly Chicago Symphony concerts live on WBAI and he was the first to have high fidelity transmission done over such a distance. His WBAI was also among the very first stations to experiment with stereo broadcasting. I bring this up, because I know Lou Schweitzer would have loved the Internet, iPods, iPads, etc., and he would have urged Pacifica to join the technical revolution. It was Lou who suggested to me that we apply for increased power and permission to move our transmitter to the top of the Empire State Building. He also lent us the money needed to purchase a new transmitter. It made a huge difference in our coverage and generated a substantial increase in listener membership. In his shamefully self-serving book, Steve Post, with typical vindictiveness and dishonesty, ascribed the membership rise to my leaving WBAI.

Today, the majority of WBAI's subscribers have abandoned the station, some—but only a small percentage—have been replaced by people who send in money for the wrong reason—they are not so much interested in supporting the station as they are in acquiring the products being offered as "premiums." When those overpriced "gifts" turn out to have been falsely pitched, even the gullible tune out. Here is what a lady posted on the BlueBoard recently:

I pledge for shows I like and—I hate to admit it—in recent years as bai has really been pushing premiums-for when there's a premium that really appeals to me.Initially I didn't like the whole premium thing [I liked having a Folio and being able to vote for board members] as it was overiding the initial reason for pledging and became more and more a cottage industry in itself.But I admit I got "corrupted" and have pledged when a show was offering a desired premium.

The greed and seeming inability of current management to recognize its own failures continues to diminish the ranks of listeners. You may have seen a recent comment here from BF from NJ:

Well Chris, It seems the same personalities are trying to solve the same problems. Hopeless. I think people should give up on this station, as I have, and take your money and support elsewhere.

It does not take ESP to conclude that the line between the former and present mis-leadership is barely visible, and one of the common denominators that should be clear to any regular listener is the rampant dishonesty. We do not see the internal dagger eyes or that baseball bat in the corner, we get but glimpses of the discontent that has staff morale at a low. We do, however, hear loud and clear the lies and detect the hypocrisy.

WBAI can be run honestly, but not with the present crew in place—not as long as people feel obliged to feed the invisible GM, or chatty Kathy, the blabbering heart of mindlessness, or the hateful, attention-seeking drama queen who would be a King, or the perpetually pondering PD, a man who came aboard to fix, but didn't even try.

Just today, Sidney Smith had an experience at the station that proves Berthold Reimers' complicity in the abuse of WBAI. Sidney posted about it here.