Wednesday, May 30, 2018

As WBAI germinated


It was fifty-two years ago, almost to the day, that I came close to relocating to KPFK. Contrary to the crap Steve Post wrote in his book of fiction, I was not fired by Pacifica. The truth is that I resigned my position and Hallock Hoffman tried to persuade me not to. He knew that I had become less than pleased with WBAI after Chris Koch showed his true face but he wanted me to stay with Pacifica. 

There was no other Station Manager position for me to fill, so he invented a new one. Here's a letter he wrote to confirm and detail the job to which he wished to appoint me. It is only of interest now, because it gives us a sketch of the thinking that could have made a significant difference in Pacifica's future. Frankly, I thought it had some good points, but I found it unrealistic at the time, so—after fulfilling my promise to train Frank Millspaugh (Hallock's choice as my replacement)—I moved on to the BBC. A month or so spent with Millspaugh depressed me, but he turned out to be a greater bump in Pacifica's road than anyone could have imagined.

Let's hear what you think of Hallock's ideas. 


9 comments:

  1. I should add that "The Land of Green Ginger" is the name of a children's book written by Noel Langley. If they haven't erased it, there should be tapes of Noel reading the entire book for WBAI's Programs for Young People, but we also worked with him to condense it for release on an LP. We offered that album to listener-sponsors.

    Noel, BTW, was one of the writer (the chief one) of the Wizard of Oz screenplay. He also wrote other films, including "Ivanhoe" and "Svengali". A delightful man who left a successful Hollywood career to live in his Virginia farm.

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  2. Interesting article from 2012 by Steve Post about you Chris
    http://wbai-now-and-then.blogspot.com/2012/07/who-is-chris-albertson-really.html


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    1. That's a link to a generally dormant blog put up by Pamela Somers, a not so tightly wrapped woman who cast herself as the late Robert Knight's PR source and has for many years personified "fake news".

      The nonsense from Steve Post's book is just him spewing falsehoods about me (and others). They were a pathetic pair whose image continued to fall victim to something we call TRUTH. :)

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  3. A question for you Matt Lasar author of Uneasy Listening, why can't Pacifica grow it's audience?

    Lasar's book P.106: How could Pacifica influence American discourse if it did not provide programming that reached the Left's opposites as well as its base? These concerns were often expressed by Pacifica activists following their departure. "Acting on the dubious assumption that conservatives are always part of the mainstream establishment, with its pervasive power, programmers elected to concentrate their limited resources on promoting leftist views." commented KPFA LAB member Charles Brouse in 1974. "This inevitably made Pacifica sound more ideological, rhetorical and repetitive than it ever had before." With the ascendence of Reaganism in the eighties, the conern that Pacifica has become a choir preaching institution resurfaced with a vengeance.

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  4. Off Topic:

    So the big money question of the day is, will WBAI say good bye to Empire this evening(5/31)? They probably have an agreement to...

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    1. The switch was almost seamless, but they still have to replace the transmitter borrowed from WPFW—that is, if they find it in the FedEx Lost and Found :)

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  5. PACIFICA OPENS SEARCH FOR NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR • READER COMMENTS

    There is big news from Tom Livingston, the interim Executive Director of Pacifica. His company is beginning the search for a new, permanent Executive Director.

    Spark News has reported extensively in the past few months about Pacifica’s problems with debt, governance, ineffective program and personnel matters. Things became more urgent last year when the Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT) – owners of the Empire State Building – won a court proceeding calling for Pacifica to immediately pay $1.8 million in past due transmitter site fees. For a while, it looked like Pacifica was headed into bankruptcy and possible liquidation.

    In late January 2018, the Pacifica National Board of Directors (PNB) hired Tom Livingston to be the interim Executive Director and his company, Livingston Associates [link[, to search for a new Executive Director. That search is now beginning. www.livingstonassociates.net

    Livingston and the PNB have recently taken steps to deal with the most urgent problems including securing a “bridge loan” that allowed Pacifica to settle the debt to ESRT, moving the transmitter from the top of the Empire State Building to a less pricey location, preparation of tardy audits and other reports and creating a situation where the PNB can make future plans.

    However, many problems remain. The new Executive Director needs to have his/her eyes wide open when approaching this job. Pacifica is still millions of dollars in debt, the programming truly does suck and the organization is not considered a reliable business.

    There are also many opportunities for the new Executive Director. Once, years ago Pacifica, was an important part of our national conversation. Pacifica stations are in five of the country’s biggest radio markets. This is a situation where, hopefully, a new Executive Director who is not encumbered by Pacifica’s recent past can truly make a difference.

    For more information about the job, see the position description and application process here. http://liv.jobs

    Disclosure: Ken Mills has been a business associate and friend of Tom Livingston for more than two decades. Throughout Livingston’s association with Pacifica a firewall has been maintained and no confidential information has been shared.

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  6. Prescod wants to put up a radio station in haiti and thinks she is gonna raise 6k this hour .
    talk about delusional .
    If i were her i would try to get the station your on listenable first .
    I think she just likes to hear herself say the word haiti like she is some kind of aristocrat or something. lol

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  7. Apropos hiring, Reimers is looking for an interim Program Director. What’s wrong with that picture?

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