Interims in the interim...

A few days ago, misinformation had it that former WBAI iPD, Andrew Phillips was going to continue doing work for the station, as a volunteer. It didn't make any sense, nor was it true. I used to wonder why Summer Reese, the iED of Pacifica hadn't fired Berthold Reimers, a well-paid "GM" hired by her predecessor about three years ago. This is a wimpy man whose resumé belies his actual experience and capability to a greater extent than most such self-generated documents.

That Reimers—keeping his visibility as low as possible—has made one idiotic mistake after another, is a matter of record, as is the thousands of dollars WBAI's listener-supporters have unwittingly wasted on his salary. The reason why Summer Reese has retained such a costly deadweight becomes clearer each time she is heard from: she either shares his incompetence or is using him to bring WBAI so far down that liquidating it will not only seem justified, but advisable. t think the truth lies somewhere in between.

Last year, when Andrew Phillips was iGM of KPFK, he was dealt what, from every angle, appears to be a fabricated race card. Reese put him on "executive leave of absence" in an attempt to quell a potentially explosive situation. Then, before you could digest that turn of events, this interim Pacifica head was sobbing before an open microphone in WBAI's interim studio and declaring Mr. Phillips the station's interim Program Director. Are you beginning to sense a pattern?

Having seen an earlier appointment of Chris Hatzis to the interim PD position yield nothing more than expressed good intentions, Andrew Phillips' hiring met with understandable skepticism. Would he also extend, rather than curb, the programming stagnation? WBAI was still spiraling downwards, and nobody was loving the spin it was in—or were they?

Certainly not Mr. Phillips, who wasted no time preparing and affecting changes that listeners could hear. The salaried staff had been reduced by 19 when he went to work—that saved the station money, but it was a mixed blessing, because WBAI lost its entire news department, which had been one of its rare assets. Esther Armah, Robert Knight, Kathy Davis and Hugh Hamilton were also gone off the air—which was a good thing—but Knight and Davis kept their gratis shows, their egos not allowing them to let go.

Back to Andrew Phillips. He worked very hard and productively, turning staff and listener skepticism around and giving hope where none had been left. The fraudulent infomercial scams were gone, replaced by original premiums that actually bore a relationship to WBAI's original mission. One does not have to be visionary to know that such a mess cannot be solved in a few weeks, or months, or a year, but a sensible direction had finally been taken. Now it would seem a good idea if Pacifica aided Phillips in his efforts by raising money through other means—enough to allow his repair work to continue. Yes, that would have been a natural, practical thing for the Pacifica Board to do, but the Pacifica leadership has long been loath to do anything practical.

Read the Current article below, and you will get a good idea of what happened. Listen to the station now, and you will hear that Summer Reese not only took it back to the bottom of the pit, she dug an even deeper hole. Bringing back former interim PD Tony Bates, who was ousted when over 100 WBAI staffers signed a petition demanding his removal, is a further betrayal of trust that touches insiders as well as listener-supporters. There were witnesses to Bates' sexual harassment of a WBAI coworker and his playing favorites as he badly bungled the program schedule had dipped staff morale to a new low.

Very recently, Summer Reese seemed to find all that acceptable as she made Bates the new interim GM of Pacifica's Washington, DC station. Bringing him back to WBAI as an interim fundraiser is simply too outrageous a decision to discuss rationally. Bates was the man who had taken premium selection and pitching down, beyond the imagined boundaries of legality and decency.

I hope you will ass your comments below.  —Chris  

In case you left the door ajar..slam it shut!

Seeing this lowlife brought back to WBAI's air should be all the reason you need to never send WBAI or Pacifica

another penny! The man belongs behind bars, not a microphone. WHERE ARE THE PROTESTS FROM INSIDE?

There's a lot of Null on the air as zero hour approaches...

Last week's Report to the Listener by Pacifica iEC Summer Reese was, basically a bunch of dogs playing poker on black velvet—she painted the picture some wanted to see, but it bore no relationship to reality. We will have to wait and see what her game is. In the meantime, tuning in to 99.5 produces more tangible results...odds are in favor of the voice you hear belonging to Gary Null. As the station heads for the final lap, his merchandising enterprise has received a boost, courtesy of Pacifica. The infomercials are almost all recycled stuff from this and previous marathons, with secondary roles eagerly played by Michael Haskins and Christine Blosdale. Painful to the intelligent ear, these skits contrast what Lewis Hill had in mind when he founded Pacifica in 1949, but—the audience having effectively been dumbed down—they generate money.

It is, of course, only a matter of time before this audience, too, has had enough from these scam artists, so I don't share the flash euphorias one hears from some of the stagnant ones.

Please click on image to enlarge it.

When it goes to your head...

My days on the infamous BlueBoard may be numbered, for I have invoked the wrath of its Master!

Should he carry out his threat, your posts in that forum will be stifled if you as much as mention my name. It's called censorship and is already in effect for LSB members Mitchel Cohen, Carolyn Birden, and others. Only the Master himself knows why. 

R. Paul Martin

You will not find that kind of nonsense here, nor would it have been acceptable back in the day when WBAI adhered to Lew Hill's principles, and the "free speech" label was taken seriously. I guess the threat is symptomatic of the abuse WBAI suffers at the hands and small minds of opportunists and amateurs.

BTW—My post, the one that gave the old Master that hissy fit, was rather innocuous (a response to his accusing me of wishing WBAI dead), but it did contain an observation that—while true—was critical of the Master's stance. The man has a difficult time taking criticism.

Peace of cake...

Anyone catch the Haskins/Davis not-so-dynamic Duo this morning?

Yep, make that Davis, as in Berthold's babbling bird brain! She was on the air live with Haskins this morning, urging the listeners to "prevent fracking in New York City" and—in a contrite aside—to show "forgiveness of things that might have occurred." It was very moving, and Haskins could not contain himself as he enthusiastically declared that he was "energized and charged" by Kathy's words. When our Lady of the Double Helix Water suggested that the fate of the world might depend on "us behind the mic and you on the other side of the dial," Haskins found it so profound as to merit repeating—and so he echoed Kathy.

The product they were pushing is a 3-DVD documentary dealing with the Zionist rape of Palestine. They ask $150 for the DVDs, which will help WBAI bring about peace and understanding to the world. We know how important harmony is to the WBAI family, especially to the loving members who arm themselves for meetings, march around giving the Hitler salute, and—through no fault of their own—now cling to the Pacifica raft.

Now, a mere 150 sawbucks will allow you to extend a hand and pull these wonderful guardians of truth out of the stormy sea. Is it an offer you can refuse? Yes, and you can have your cake, too.

They don't as much as hint at this, but if you want to see this documentary, yet haven't a compelling interest in keeping the profound observations of Michael Haskins and in-depth political analyses of Kathy Davis on the air, click here. The link will take you to YouTube, where you can view it all without spending as much as a penny.

Yes, the WBAI Andrew Phillips tried to give a needed makeover is back, courtesy of the Reimers-Reese team!

Apropos Reese, she has promised a live status report at 6 PM tomorrow (Thursday). Will she sob? Have a tissue handy, just in case.