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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.
Progress Chris. They went from barely existing to barely noticeable. All it took was a mountain of loans
ReplyDeleteand an insane amount of red and green stuff, double helix water and zappers.
Assuming that there are 20 million people within range of WBAI's signal, these figures mean that only 0.5% of the people within its listening area tune into WBAI.
ReplyDeleteSo 99.5 of people of that 20 million AREN'T listening. how poetic....
ReplyDeletemeantime "education at the crossroads" bringing us MORE slavery and white supremacy coverage .
So basically the are talking to almost nobody.
Off topic, but whom I refer to has been said to be off: Randy Credico. Not unknown to WBAI & other Pacifica stations, he's now known by Mueller, allegedly as the link for the Trump election campaign to WikiLeaks.
ReplyDeleteHe's been staying away from the media for a while, but on Wednesday teleSUR broadcasted an interview with him by Abby Martin. (Abby even gets to pull her Tucker Carlson/Carlson Tucker face – 36:35.) The same day KPFA's 'Flashpoints' broadcasted the whole interview bar the last 1'20", & spoke with Randy himself (9:14).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCCEeK0cofs
https://kpfa.org/episode/flashpoints-november-28-2018/
Thank you, Jara.
DeleteIt so happens that I have been planning to do something on Credico, who—as I sense it—is a failed "comedian" turned political opportunist.
So, it indeed being off topic for this segment, I will move it up front as soon as I get it together.
Surprise, surprise, Randy's a prospective candidate for WBAI's LSB. His name was added to the list either today (Tu4Dec) or yesterday. He's a nominee because no-one on the 10 Pacifica lists (listener, staff; five stations) has been verified as an eligible candidate; candidates will be told if they're kosher a week Friday (perhaps after sunset), 14Dec, according to the timeline.
Deletehttps://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/election-timeline/
For each station, there are nine vacant listener seats, & three for staff. For the 45 listener seats there are 86 names down, &, for the 15 staff ones, 31 names; so, 60 seats, 117 happy but nervous bunnies. Not surprisingly some stations are more excited about the pseudo-election than others, although the only contest with more vacancies than candidates is 'WPFW listeners': five Duracells for the nine seats. The distribution of candidates is KPFA, 18 & 5; KPFK, 24 & 8; KPFT, 17 & 7; WPFW, 5 & 4; WBAI, 22 & 7.
At the Tu20Nov PNB, two election timeline motions were presented: one from the KPFT Local Elections Supervisor, Ms Alma Viscarra, who now also acts as the National Elections Supervisor (31:59); the other, an ambush from director Carole 'I-was-a-co-founder-of-the-Sojourner-Truth-Organization' Travis (25:12). The former never got voted on because the latter got passed, 11-7 (big kerfuffle about whether it needed 2/3rds: it didn't). Alamo-Alma's predecessor, Graeme Drew, was going to announce the election results on M31Dec. Alma's motion had M15Apr, but obviously that was absurd, pure time-wasting, moving far too slowly for the Grace/Carole juggernaut, in fact, *10 weeks too slow*, so they pushed for Tu5Feb. Maxie made a plea on behalf of the judgment of the newbie, but that was rubbished by the teamster duo. Avanti! Crush the Fabians! After all, Alma is simply the NES, what can she know; Grace/Carole, the Siamese twins, omnipotent, all-seeing, all-knowing, Pacifica's very own gorgon – hopefully Medusa . . .
https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb181120/pnb181120b.mp3
Of course, all this means that Maxie isn't Grace's latest best friend. She's burnt that bridge – & it only took her six weeks. Guess CA really is the home of fires. Also noticed that the election website's timeline is defying the Board, with a M25Feb date – albeit with the proviso, "pending approval from the PNB" (sure to come up at Thursday's PNB).
On W28Nov I asked PNB Chair Nancy for a copy of these two motions. Not surprisingly I haven't even received an acknowledgment – nor an early Christmas card, which is more upsetting.
Meanwhile back in PacificaWorld, what may cause the juggernaut to crash is driver error, surprise, surprise. Remember, no evidence has been presented that the pseudo-membership list has been miraculously transformed into a membership list during the last five weeks, since M29Oct, when Mr Drew declared it unusable for an election. The crux is that a corrupt membership list will include lots & lots & lots of Gogol's dead souls. This will artificially inflate the list, bloating the corpse. And that makes it even harder than usual to make quorum, the magical 10% of members (c. 5k). Indeed, someone on the PNB mentioned the big Q question – & how crucial it was to avoid a re-run election, with all that extra cost. Serious self-injury beckons.
Dear Colleagues,
ReplyDeleteEmergency Meeting: Stop the Firings, Downsizing & Displacement
of Programmers! Stop the Unilateral & Autocratic Dismantling of WBAI!
Wed. Dec. 5, 2018, 7:00 pm @ 111 Livingston Street (bet. Boerum Pl. & Court St.), 6th Fl., Brooklyn, NY (@
the offices of The Legal Aid Society). Near the Jay Street stop on the A,C, R & F trains, or the Borough Hall
stop on the 2,3,4 & 5 trains
Significant numbers of shows have been cancelled or downsized. Still other programmers have been given a Hobson’s choice - move to another time slot, which they may find is personally untenable and or which they have no desire to displace another colleague from and so have been forced out. We have lost still other programmers, who self-exiled from the station in protest over the solicitation of and hire of a producer who had been dismissed from another radio station for sexual harassment.
The programming is being dismantled, and we the laborers (unpaid staff) were used and are now being discarded.
So:
if you have been affected by the cuts;
if you are concerned about whether your broadcast will continue;
if you believe that it’s time that the unpaid staff of WBAI comes together as an “unpaid staff organizing committee” to protect the fruits of their labor and to better the terms and conditions for their work;
if you believe that management should be accountable to staff and operate under some degree of advice & consent; and
if you believe that we the workers (paid and unpaid staff) should have a recognized, meaningful role in the development of the station through a program council,
Now is the time to make it so!
WE MUST PROTECT OURSELVES & OUR COLLEAGUES
FROM THE ARBITRARY, AUTOCRATIC WHIMS OF
MANAGEMENT BY GROUPING TOGETHER
We can either be as a powerful fist together, or stay as weak individual digits alone!
In Solidarity
Mimi
and John Riley
As the lyrics to the song go,"Send 9n the clowns; don't bother, they're here."
Delete