Okay I was wrong: KPFA is the latest victim and WBAI is next.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In all of my recent writings I have attempted to give an accurate representation of what is planned and what is currently happening to WBAI and the rest of the Pacifica network at the hands of the new Pacifica Board majority supported by the ACE/Inependents led by Steve (Big Money) Brown. Through the use of lies, half-truths and fear they have the network embarking on a path that is going to destroy the very reason why Pacifica came into being. I don’t believe Lew Hill, Louis Schwietzer or Samori Marksman would be happy with Pacifica’s new direction. This long-time coveted, newly adopted and enacted direction is being shaped and guided by a commercial, race negating and class based audience measuring tool…the Arbitrons and more recently the Personal People Meter (PPM). These measuring tools are notorious for their unwillingness to include people of color and poor people as a significant presence in their assessment process. These devices do not measure the listening habits of the aforementioned groups because they are designed to measure people who have discretionary income. The primary function of the Arbitron and now the PPM”s is to ultimately determine the amount of money radio stations can charge advertisers for their ads. The stations that reflect large numbers of people listening can of course charge the most for their ads. Under this new board majority the conclusions of the Arbitron and PPM ratings are now supplying the logic for program changes at Pacifica. 

Both KPFK’s and KPFA’s managers are telling us this new direction is temporary. However, the managers who are fronting for this form of change are not being honest in their illogical attempts to make us believe that once they increase audience then they will revert back to listener-sponsored, non-commercial, community radio. Since they have gone along with having these changes imposed by fiat from the top they have eliminated the protective wall that kept programming from being fashioned primarily by economic concerns.

These changes are not temporary and they will not work. You can’t make program decisions for community radio based on the findings of a commercial audience-measuring device without making your programs more commercial. The logic of this course of action means that you must begin to eliminate programs that focus on the concerns of poor and marginalized communities and replace them with programs that have a broader (whiter) appeal and will attract listeners that have greater incomes. 


I have stated from the beginning of the coup at WBAI that this was not about my termination or Anthony Riddle’s removal or about the finances of the station. Although falsities about finances and claims of bad management have been placed in the fore ground the real target is our programming. The goal of the racist firings without providing due process, the bannings, the gag rule, the numerous reports to the listener and the mendacious upbeat attitudes of those staff who are collaborating with the interlopers are the main ingredients in the smokescreen that obfuscates the real target of their desire…WBAI’s programming.
If this cabal was really interested in increasing revenue one place they might look is the escalating amount of money that the PNB spends each year to conduct its business. This year it cost about a million dollars of subscriber’s money to hold national meetings and conference calls. That’s more than WBAI wastes on maintaining its Wall St. address.


The management at KPFA in San Francisco is the latest to have capitulated to the PNB majority’s misguided vision for the network. They have adopted both the form and the language of the Arbitron/PPM. Pay close attention to the email sent to the staff at KPFA and visit the State of the Station posted at kpfa.org. You will find it very revealing.

Here they come.

Bernard White


---- Forwarded Message -----
From: "KPFA Staff Announcements"
To: kpfa-staff@mailinglists.kpfa. org
Sent: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 4:50:48 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: KPFA Staff: Changes at KPFA

Dear Staff,

The current economic conditions are having a significant impact on all
organizations, including KPFA and the wider Pacifica Network.  As you
can see in our State of the Station posted at kpfa.org, the trends we
are experiencing as a station and, specifically the decline in
listener donations and overall listenership is significant.  Our
current share of bay area audience, especially in some parts of the
day, is too small for a station with a signal of KPFA’s size.  At the
same time, our current pace of spending and expenses versus revenue
(listener support levels and donations) is unsustainable and adds up
to a budget deficit.  In spring 2009, the Pacifica National Board and
the Interim Executive Director directed KPFA and all sister stations
to improve audience share and fundraising immediately.

In order to implement this directive and stay true to the Pacifica
mission, we are working on a plan to expand and grow KPFA's audience,
in particular loyal audience, because if we want to have an impact on
social change and nurture cultural expression, we need to reach a
significant number of people.  We have gathered and analyzed audience
feedback for the past two years, and have conducted extensive analyses
of our audience data.  In addition, we have sent out more than 15,000
surveys to our members and listeners to learn more about them, their
interests, and their needs.  Please see KPFA State of the Station
posted at: www.kpfa.org for details.

We have the responsibility of identifying short term solutions as well
as long term strategies that will set KPFA on a successful track.
Within the next several months KPFA will implement organizational
changes to ensure the station remains competitive and relevant both
terestrially and on the Internet.

For the past two years, we have prioritized expanding KPFA's
technical, administrative and development capacities.  Thanks to the
entire staff and managers in all those departments for their
diligence, excellent work ethic, and care for KPFA.  Growth and
development is a long term process, and I am very grateful there is a
lot of energy, talent, and skill within KPFA, and to have worked
alongside many fantastic people---both unpaid and paid--- to build the
necessary foundations for KPFA to grow as a very special radio and
media institution.

As you may know, management and staff have completed several important
projects: digitizing and upgrading equipment, redesigning our website
technically and aesthetically, tightening up on compliance so KPFA is
not at risk of loss of license, addressing legal risks to end hundreds
of thousands of dollars in legal spending (see last page of State of
the Station), getting long time KPFA supporters to include KPFA in
their wills and thus, securing KPFA's future operations.

In programming, we have implemented several programs and projects.
One of these, piloted as a series twice, Letters to Washington, will
be airing daily 10am to 11am.

Music of the World, which is an excellent program with outstanding
hosts and programmers, and which has a huge competitive advantage for
KPFA because great world music is hard to find on the FM dial, has
unfortunately been sandwiched between news and public affairs
programming.  As a result of this scheduling issue, the audience tunes
out in significant numbers at 10am, and those listeners go to other
public broadcasters with public affairs and talk programming.

We have identified one of the key weaknesses we need to address in our
programming department is flow of our content, so it is crucial we
adjust our scheduling to ensure flow.  While we have excellent and
unique content, we need to improve the flow in our schedule, promoting
our programs, and in some cases, we need to improve our content.

As you can see in the State of the Station, we have a strong morning
block and many problems with flow starting at 10am.  We are beginning
to implement a plan to address the audience loss that occurs at 10am
to noon, as well as afternoon drive time, improve average listening
time, and increase loyalty.

At this point, we would like to gather input from music of the world
programmers to identify a successful schedule for our wonderful music
of the world programming.  Once we are able to work through the
scheduling logistics, we will phase music of the world out of the 10am
to noon slot and move it to another time slot.

We have a lot more work to do in to improve our audience share for
music as well as public affairs programming.  One of our long-term
goals is to cultivate listeners ages 20-40, and some of the most
effective strategies available to us to galvanize this generation of
listeners are our music programming as well as our presence on the
Internet.

We are on our way towards improving our audience share on the radio
and the Internet and believe we can achieve this goal working
together.  We would love to get your feedback, so please email us your
thoughts.  You can reach me at gm@kpfa.org and Amelia Gonzalez at
iagm@kpfa.org

Best,

Lemlem


--
Lemlem Rijio
general manager
KPFA 94.1 FM  www.kpfa.org
1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 848-6767 (ext. 203)
(510) 644-1699 Fax
gm@kpfa.org
_________________________________

_______________________________________________
Kpfa-Staff mailing list
Kpfa-Staff@mailingl ists.kpfa. org
http://two.pairlist .net/mailman/ listinfo/ kpfa-staff
__._,_.___
.

First They Came For KPFK… Is WBAI Next?

KPFK, located in Los Angeles, is one of the five radio stations that make up the Pacifica network. KPFK’S Interim Program Director, Alan Minsky, has been given an order to change programming in an effort to increase revenue. (Attached is a copy of his semi-apologetic rationale) The program changes Minsky has proposed further reveals the long range intentions and direction of the new Pacifica National Board (PNB) majority. I am not adverse to change. Change is necessary if Pacifica is going to survive. However this proposal is based on an enormously flawed premise.


Over the years I also have been approached by dozens of untutored media watchers who make pronouncements about what Pacifica, more specifically what WBAI, should do to increase audience and revenue. Their claims were made without any real investigation, study or experience in organizing a creative and diverse program grid that actively pursues the Pacifica mandate. To these prognosticators their proposals appear to be a perfectly logical and obvious solution. But without the benefit of study and research, what they are actually expressing are their personal feelings.  Although personal feelings cannot be totally disregarded in formulating a schedule, they can neither be the sole nor the primary consideration in evaluating or changing a program grid. Among other things, a radio station’s program schedule reflects its identity, ideals, direction and how it perceives its role in society. To organize a compelling program grid for a listener-sponsored radio station is an extremely important task. To be successful requires a deeper analysis and a more comprehensive discussion. However, these are activities that for this writing will have to wait.


It is very important that we understand what this seemingly innocent action portends for the future of the Pacifica Foundation. There is an indisputable way to characterize the changes: the renegade PNB majority is “imposing” a corporate commercial model on the network and the first victim is KPFK. And next in line will be occupied WBAI.


If they are successful with their plan, it will surely mean certain death for the nation’s only listener-sponsored community radio network.  The corporate commercial model is not neutral; it has predictable consequences. You cannot impose a right-wing commercial media model and maintain left credentials.


The corporate model is based on profit - not people, community issues or community struggles.  It is intrinsically racist and exclusionary in its construction, and this is certainly true for its outcomes. The goal of this model is to fashion a broadcast schedule that targets a white middle class listenership with the goal of capturing a portion of their discretionary capital.


Pursuing this course of action represents the adoption and projection of the philosophical change that the new leadership has brought to Pacifica. The new leadership is led by Scientologist, Grace Aaron on the West coast and multimillionaire junk mail marketer Steve Brown on the east coast. This top-down corporate monetarist model is incapable of supporting genuine people’s concerns and movements. One of the more odious aspects of this format is the incentive to severely restrain giving voice to the voiceless, the marginalized and people of color as a fundamental part of its on-air product. The primary focus for this model is the accumulation of capital, not the amplification of marginalized voices residing in our community and in other countries. The adoption of this path necessitates the abandonment of Pacifica’s historical mission and the decimation of local autonomy.



The corporate model is based on the belief that poor people don’t have any money and therefore they can’t monetarily support the stations; thus, it follows, broadcasting to them is a waste of precious airtime. Of course, that is not true. Poor people in the aggregate are by far the major donors to Pacifica and comprise the largest percentage of listeners to the Pacifica network. Pacifica has no way of accurately measuring their presence. Poor people are routinely ignored by audience measuring devices like Arbitron and its latest incarnation, the Personal People Meter (PPM) because the system isn’t designed to track their listening habits. This under-monitored group comprises a major portion of the listenership who relies on Pacifica stations for news, information and entertainment. However they will not be a part of discussions about changes, and their presence will not be factored into the new strip programming time slots. The audience rating system has become the new bible, providing an unchallengeable rationale to selectively eliminate progressive programmers and hosts with close ties to community struggles. The schedule will of necessity have a “whiter” presence as it reshapes itself to appeal to a richer, wider, whiter audience. Alan Minsky is already using the language of Arbitron and PPM as he refers to KPFK’s potential listeners as the “Southern California Metro Radio Market.”


All of this is being done under the rubric of increasing audience and revenue. The twin questions of “what kind of audience is being sought?” and “how much is Pacifica willing to dilute its programming to acquire audience and increase revenue?” will soon be revealed.



I am speculating that this action kicks open the door wider for further impositions. Will we soon see the imposition of multimillionaire Steve Brown’s multimillionaire business partner Gary Null on the entire network so that jointly they can make multimillions of dollars from our listeners? When the broom gets to WBAI, will Robert Knight be one of the strippers imposed on New York’s program grid? Is that why he has been hanging around the station lately?


Anyone can see clearly that Minsky’s announcement marks a dangerous shift in Pacifica policy and that in order to sell this plan he has begun to make promises that the Interim Program Director knows he can’t insure will be kept. After all, this entire action isn’t even his idea. It came down to him by fiat from on high. It is the Pacifica National Board majority and their ACE allies who are the architects of this major step away from Pacifica’s history and its mission.



You must join in the effort to stop them. If not they will surely destroy the network.

For additional information check out the following websites: www.takebackwbai.org,
http://www.facebook.com/pages/takebackwbaiorg, http://www.livestream.com/wbix,

http://bernardwhite.blogspot.com/


First they came for KPFK, but I lived on the east coast…


Please read Minsky’s email several times and pay close attention to what he says and how he frames it.


Bernard
-------- Original Message --------
Subject:
About KPFK's Programming Changes
Date:
Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:24:35 -0700
From:
Alan Minsky Error! Bookmark not defined.
To:
Error! Bookmark not defined., "staff" Error! Bookmark not defined.

Dear KPFK Programmers, Staff, and LSB Members,

I will be releasing the new KPFK Programming Grid tomorrow.  I am writing in advance of announcing these changes, which commence on Monday, to explain some of my thinking that has informed the moves being made.

My primary responsibility at this time is to increase KPFK’s audience; and I feel this is an urgent need.  KPFK has the most powerful FM signal in Southern California ; and I believe, because of KPFK’s uniquely humane mission, it is the most important media outlet in the region.  Yet, all evidence suggests that few people even know about the station, and very few are listening.  This has to change.

In order to achieve this, I will be taking what in my mind are some drastic measures.  I will be introducing three new “stripped” shows on the week-day grid at prime hours: 7am, 5pm, and Noon (which will be shifting to a new 10am public affairs slot in three weeks).  While all three of these stripped shows will actually be partial strips (i.e. not five days a week), I am doing this because every radio professional I’ve consulted with suggests that stripping popular programmers at key (previously un-stripped) hours is the quickest way to reverse the downward trend in listenership.

I want to be clear to the KPFK community that these moves – especially in the form they’re taking – runs counter to the vision of KPFK that I hope can be achieved in the coming years.  But, as a measure to draw people to KPFK, I think they are necessary – and, unless KPFK increases its audience, the station is in serious jeopardy of having no future.

What I, personally, hope KPFK can evolve into is something that is both a journalistically responsible media outlet and a vibrant social center, a hub for the expression of the political, social, and cultural needs of the people of Southern California .  I recognize that handing key stretches of programming over to a small handful of people will not achieve that.  Therefore, I want to explain clearly to you how I plan to proceed.

If these moves prove spectacularly successful (e.g. a doubling of our audience at the stripped hours), at most what I will do is create one more mini-strip in February.  If the success is more moderate, I will cut back the days of one of the new strips and try a talk-radio mini-strip in the 3pm hour.  If they fail to build audience, it’s back to the drawing board.

If strip programming proves a success for KPFK (building audience, raising funds etc.), then I will work to make sure that the format evolves into a more participatory, community model than our current talk-shows.  This will be achieved by having regularly appearing co-hosts and non-host segment producers on the stripped shows.  In this manner, KPFK should be able to have many more people regularly producing on-air content, than is the case with the model of “one host for one hour” that is the standard for most of our current talk shows.

I very much believe in expanding the number of people regularly involved in producing content on KPFK, and following this round of programming changes, I will see to it that KPFK’s programming trends in that direction – if it doesn’t, I expect to be held accountable as iPD.

Lastly, I truly want to hear from as many people as possible about the direction they hope the station will take.  There are 12 to 15 million people in the Southern California Metro Radio market – and given the strength of our signal, perhaps as many as 20 million people within our range – and that doesn’t even take into account the internet.  Given the global significance of Southern California as one of the world’s greatest and most influential population centers – it’s not an overstatement to say that KPFK, which stands apart from every other media enterprise in SoCal, can profoundly influence the course of history.  But what it will take, moving forward, is a clear sense and a solid dialogue about how to organize this station so that it truly serves the needs of the people of this region.

KPFK’s current situation requires immediate measures, and bold experimentation.  While changes this sweeping understandably evoke apprehension, they also represent an opportunity for us to revitalize our programming and attract new audiences.  I ask for your patience, participation, and insight as we proceed.

sincerely,

Alan Minsky
KPFK interim Program Director

WBAI’s new leadership leaves a trail of deception as they turn their back on community radio

Since the takeover of radio station WBAI’s air waves led by a California-based invasion party from the Pacifica Foundation, WBAI’s parent organization, arbitrary program changes designed to appeal to a wider, whiter audience have been put into place by fiat. Although this newly imposed administration claims that it is going to increase community participation in WBAI’s daily broadcasts, their practice has been the direct opposite. Since the deceitful removal of the station manager, Anthony Riddle, and the callous firing of the program director, Bernard White, in May of this year, the new regime at WBAI has taken away a total of seven hours of locally based programming per week.


“Wakeup Call,” WBAI’s locally produced morning drive program— which is the station’s largest fundraiser and has arguably the largest listener base—has been reduced by an hour each day for a total of five hours per week. Inserted into the evacuated time slot is “Democracy Now,” a program that focuses on national and international issues. A collective of producers from sister station KPFK in California has been placed in the 10 a.m.-11 a.m. hour. All of these interlopers are white, predominantly male and spend their hours bantering with other white “experts,” pundits, politicians and pontificators about their particular view on issues of national and international import. Seldom will you hear the voice of a person of color and you will not hear a discussion about local issues from a local perspective.


“Under the Learning Tree,” hosted by Kamau Khalfani, an African American producer, was suspended by Interim Station Manager LaVarn Williams.I know from personal experience that for these usurpers, suspend and terminate has the same meaning when it comes to African American males. I’m certain that he will not be allowed to return to the airwaves. The reasons for Khalfani’s removal are outrageously unfair, but thus far, fairness has not been a hallmark of this regime. The elimination of his program constitutes the removal of a total of seven hours of locally produced, community-focused programming hours per week.


As a result of this and similar actions taken at KPFK in Los Angeles and WPFW in Washington, D.C., the goals of the new regime have become crystal clear. Over the last eight months, the Pacifica Foundation has terminated or removed eight producers and administrators, and all of them are male, African-Americans or Latinos. Programming produced by, for and about poor people in general, and people of color in particular, are being systematically decreased across the network to appeal to a richer, whiter audience.


The new management is now actively engaged in a pre-election propaganda campaign to make listeners feel that everything is great and to keep the “ACE” faction of the board in power. We have been told ad nauseum that the last two fund drives were an enormous success. This alleged success is being characterized as a positive listener response to recent management changes. However, on September 24 and 25, just two weeks after these two “whopping” successes, an “emergency” fund drive was held. In the days leading up to the drive, the rationale for conducting the drive kept shifting. First, it was going to be a three-day drive. Then it turned out to be a two-day drive. First, it was to raise $120,000.Then it was to get rid of “excess” stock in the premiums department. Then it was an end of year sale. Some of the producers leaked what appears to be the most credible explanation. They’ve said that the reason for going back to the well so soon was due to a lack of listeners fulfilling their recent pledges. I believe that the giggling and the incessant reports of success are merely a part of the pre-election propaganda campaign. In about two weeks, the new management will have to go into a full-fledged fund drive.This effort will last for at least three weeks. Will we be lied to about the outcome of that one too? Stay tuned.


There is, however, is an action subscribers can take to maintain WBAI as a diverse, progressive, community radio station. In this current board election, the Justice and Unity slate provides a departure from the lies, distortions and racism that has become the modus operandi of the new local board majority and the Pacifica Foundation. If listeners and WBAI producers continue to sit on the sidelines and not intervene quickly to put a stop to this race-based takeover with its neo-colonial face, then WBAI and Pacifica will soon be transformed into an entity that closely mirrors commercial media in both structure and content. Decision making will emanate from the top and people of color will have little opportunity for input. The ability of poor and marginalized people to tell their stories in their own voice will be severely diminished, and so will the relevance of Pacifica and WBAI.


Until next time: Stay Strong and Pay Close Attention,


BERNARD WHITE, former WBAI Program Director

For up-to-date information about this ongoing struggle to save community radio, visit: www.takebackwbai.org, www.takebackkpfk.org, www.wbixradio.org and www.bernardwhite.blogspot .com.

Steve Brown and His Propaganda Machine

I know this might sound Andy Rooneyish but, I’ve always been skeptical about people who are so willing to put their picture on all of their documents. Since this is not a common practice I wonder what their motivation is. Hmmmm.

In past years, weeks before each of our fund drives, Steve Brown’s propaganda machine was geared up to send out emails and letters to his extensive address book of subscribers and listeners strongly suggesting to them that they should not support WBAI with their cash contributions. His methodology was the utilization of negative racial imagery and totally fabricated conversations and encounters designed to undermine listener confidence in WBAI and past Pacifica management. The ACE brochure is a continuation of his effort to manipulate reality and impose his will.

Over the past several months, the Steve Brown propaganda machine has been operating at full toxic speed. It seems that hardly a week goes by that he isn’t sending out an email or a letter with his face splattered on the front page. Even though he is not running in the present board election, his imprint is indelibly etched all over ACE’s literature. Any intelligent reader can clearly see that he is the one who controls this organization. He has brought to their presentation all of the subterfuge and deception that he uses in his business of marketing junk products that people don’t need and that often don’t work. (whoisstevebrown.info)

Stevie’s latest mailing is the ACE election brochure. It is a slick brochure replete with misstatements of facts, the use of images that give the impression of endorsements and also…his picture. Most of the people whose images he has attached to this document are there to give the impression that they endorse his slate of candidates. People like Harry Belafonte, Mumia Abu Jamal, Amy Goodman, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Gore Vidal, etc were never asked about whether their images could be used in this fashion. Most of them don’t even know what ACE is. This is all being done to mislead the reader into believing that these individuals are all on board with Mr. Brown. An honest candidate with principles would not go along with the type of trickery. But then they wouldn’t be on Stevie’s slate. This slate is packed with individuals who are willing to acquiesce to Brown’s leadership and influence. Obviously, they cannot be trusted to stand up and insure adherence to the Pacifica Mission against reactionaries.

Speaking of reactionaries, Steve Brown and Grace Aaron constitute the present leadership of Pacifica. This is a marriage of East coast millions with West coast millions. They both share a common philosophy. They believe that Pacifica should be reshaped to appeal to a richer, wider, whiter audience. Their recent actions are a testimony to this assertion.

Take Forward WBAI is ACE and ACE is Take Forward WBAI. Take Forward WBAI’s brochure is also an obvious Brown product. It employs the same tactics that the ACE brochure uses. For instance, I knew Al Lewis and if one check’s with his widow, Karen, I am sure that she would tell you that Al and I were friends. I know that Al would not have sanctioned the use of his image on the Take Forward WBAI brochure. I know that his politics and beliefs were the antithesis of Take Forward WBAI. He would firmly denounce the overtly racist statements and associated behaviors that the leaders of this group have made over the years. This is a very nasty bunch.

Readers and voters should be outraged by the ACE group and Brown’s blatant attempt at manipulation. This is not the kind of leadership that WBAI needs or deserves. Whenever reading a document issued by Brown, make sure you read the small print first.

Until next time, Stay Strong and Pay Close Attention,
Bernard White
http://www.takebackwbai.org

Catching You Up

Dear All,
For many of you, I have not been in any communication with you in quite some time but that doesn’t mean that I and the “Take Back WBAI Coalition” hasn’t been actively organizing in a concerted effort to return the autonomy and retain the community character of WBAI. Without having access to the air waves or a propaganda machine equivalent to that of Steve Brown getting the word out about what is actually happening to WBAI remains an arduous task. This communiqué reflects my perspective and analysis and will provide an update on recent events and activities. When you read this document you will have a good idea about what in fact are the realities that are emerging inside as well as outside the station.

UPDATES:
Take Back KPFK & WBIXradio.org:
On September 12th , I was in Los Angeles, California, the home of Grace Aaron, the chair of the Pacifica National Board and also the Interim Executive Director of Pacifica’s national office. Our sister station KPFK is located in Los Angeles. My reason for being there was to give solidarity and support to the “Take Back KPFK Coalition.” I participated in a public forum that addressed the issues affecting KPFK and WBAI resulting from the actions of the new national board majority led by Grace Aaron and Steve Brown. A group of concerned listeners producers and board members are protesting the redirection of KPFK’s programming away from the Pacifica mission and the heavy-handed, racist actions being taken against staff and producers.

Tim Wise was the keynote speaker at the forum. Thanks to the perseverance of Don Debar the entire program was streamed live over WBIXradio.org. It is very important that you hear what Tim had to say. He absolutely understands what is happening in Pacifica and points out its location in the broader context of what is happening in “progressive left” media. Tim has friends on both sides of this issue yet he has chosen to speak out against what is happening to the network. Either purchase a copy of Tim’s presentation from http://www.takebackwbai.org or visit http://www.wbixradio.org and see a streaming video of the entire forum. Tim Wise shares his profound understanding of the psycho-social dynamics at play in this recent takeover.

Fund Drives:
WBAI has had two fund drives since May of 2009. We are told that both fund drives were successful and that each exceeded their stated goal. I think we can believe that this is true for the first drive but I question the conclusion about the success of the second drive. For the first drive I believe that our listeners were responding to hype and fear that was created by Grace Aaron as she led us to believe that we were about to get evicted from 120 Wall St and that she got there just in time to stop it. Once this lie was told over and over our listeners became frightened and gave donations, many without asking for a premium. Even Michio Kaku just to name one producer went to the air waves without doing much investigation and reiterated Grace’s line in dramatic fashion. Remember after Errol Maitland read Anthony Riddle’s letter questioning Grace Aaron about her attempt to surreptitiously take over our transmitter in the middle of the night, Wakeup Call made $40,000 dollars without offering a single premium. Folks were scared that we were about to be taken over…once again, so they gave generously.

The second fund drive is a different story. First of all it is being posited as a sign of listener approval for the change in management. Many listeners are unaware that changes have been made and the reasons for making those changes. Secondly, I don’t believe that what we were told regarding the monetary success of the drive was totally true. The question that I have is, if the last drive was such an overwhelming success then why in the next few days is WBAI going back to the listeners to get an additional $120,000? This three day micro-drive has been scheduled with the full knowledge that in October there will be another full-fledged drive that will last for at least three weeks. It doesn’t make since given their pronouncements of success. They say it is designed to clear out inventory. If that is the case then why give a goal?

I think that there is a direct relationship to the budget. By this time last year Tony Riddle had already submitted at least five forcibly revised budgets. To date this crew has not submitted a budget for review. It’s hard to lie in the budget. Either the money is there or it’s not.

Program Changes ?
They call them pilots. They say that they are just temporary programs that will not necessarily lead to a permanent location in our schedule. Time will tell.

Over the past few weeks, the community focus of WBAI has been dealt a severe blow. Wakeup Call, whose primary focal point is on local events and issues, has lost 5 hours of air time, and Democracy Now, with its national and international focus has been relocated to the 8am-9am time slot, from 9am -10am. We have experienced the importation of a bevy of white, Californian producers from KPFK, mostly male, who are speaking to other white men and women about their perspectives on the rest of the world. This means that a total of 10 hours that could present issues of local concern have been reprogrammed. Now it can be clearly seen what I mean when I say that their real intention is to take community out of community radio. The new management and their collaborators are gradually removing the tri-state community out of community radio as they search for a richer, wider, whiter audience.

Simultaneously Steve Brown is pursuing his primary goal by paving the way to get Gary Null a Democracy Now type relationship with Pacifica. If that happens, and it will unless we stop it, Mr. Null will be imposed on all five stations. $$$$$$$

In conclusion, you and only you can do something about what is happening to Pacifica. Although there are a few producers with enough understanding and integrity to challenge the authoritarian rule of the new board majority, most of them consider themselves to be safe. It will not be until they are personally affected that they will be willing to stand up and fight. They know that some funky stuff has gone done but they are unwilling to stand up on principle. Therefore it is up to the listeners and a hand full of enlightened producers to fight this struggle. If we do not fight, Pacifica will be lost to a group of extremely narrow-minded individuals who will recreate the institution into their own image. The poor and the marginalized will have lost the last media institution that has as its mission the amplification of their pain and their experience.

Until next time, Stay Strong and Pay Close Attention,

Bernard White

http://www.takebackwbai.org

contact information

takebackwbai@gmail.com