"AN ALERT FROM THE FRIENDS OF KPFK

The Restructured New Pacifica Board Fast Tracks Executive Hiring While Ignoring KPFK's Financial Crisis"

Analysis: The heading alone should be a clue that something's wrong with this piece of retrograde spew. You see, KPFK's financial crisis is just a small part of the whole Pacifica financial crisis. The outgoing, renegade board ran up around three million dollars in debt. You can bet that when the new board meets this weekend, the financial crisis will be one of the top items on their agenda. For KPFK to complain that they are not being taken care of is just ridiculous.

"If you listened to KPFK in the last 48 hours, you heard and almost inaudible, over-the-telephone announcement from Pacifica National Board Member, Marion Barry. The announcement, by any objective measure, technically unfit for broadcast, was sent to the five Pacifica Stations on Monday of this week by the new National Board majority."

Analysis: I heard the announcement myself. The audio quality wasn't great, but it was no worse than the stuff Pacifica has been broadcasting for years. However, I did notice that Mr. Barry was a bit difficult to understand. He has a deep, gravelly voice with a strong "African American" accent. One has to wonder if there's a subtle race-baiting component to this complaint about the board's announcement.

Just a side note here. This issue that's brought up here regarding "professional" sound quality is one of the big issues in the Pacifica struggle. What we're seeing now at Pacifica is the defeat of a faction that believed strongly in the "professionalization" of Pacifica radio. While finding ways to make Pacifica's message more appealing to the masses is doubtless a good idea, the faction that believes in this is more or less bereft of social skills. They prefer giving orders to achieving consensous, and are in favor of diluting the message in order to make Pacifica more "palatable," which strikes me as being the moral equivalent to watering down of the beer.

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"KPFK was ordered by the board to play this piece of unlistenable radio every two hours. So what, you might ask. Well, the devil is in the details. First, this announcement was a job search for the crucial post of EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, of the 10-million-dollar Pacifica National Board, the organization that controls and owns this network. "

"This post is effectively the CEO of Pacifica, the most powerful person in the network who has the authority to directly hire and fire, management staff at the five Pacifica Stations. And yet, the newly configured Pacifica National Board, by means of this broadcast announcement, was giving itself a mere 48-hour window to conduct a national search."

Analysis: Given that the old Executive Director was selected by the old, renegade board that put Pacifica in debt to the tune of 3 million big ones, the new board HAS TO move fast. From both a moral and a legal standpoint, they've got to get the old guy out as quickly as possible. Also, note a distortion of fact. The radio stations PLAYED the announcement for 48 hours. At this point no one has been selected.

"This defies and contradicts all of the high flying lip service to democracy that the newly restructured Pacifica Board has been generating. No responsible organization would conduct a search of less than 30 or 60 days, combing through as many candidates as possible, before making a hire for its top executive post."

Analysis: In other words, we want to keep the old Director for another month or two, probably because we hope we'll be allowed to keep our jobs long enough to find a new situation, and for general help against the new board, which we do not support.

"There is no justification for this short circuiting of normal, job-hiring processes, but there's certainly an explanation. There is no justification because Pacifica currently employs a competent, acting executive director, and there is simply no reason to throw overboard all normal national job search processes and make a middle-of-the-night hiring decision."

Analysis: See above.

"Which brings us to the explanation of what is really behind Pacifica's three-day, execrated naming of an executive director. It's obvious that the top priority of Pacifica's Board is not to solve the network's and KPFK's mortal financial crisis. (No emergency committees have been named, for example, to fast track restoration of KPFK's looted treasury.)"

Analysis: In other words, they ordered us to put Democracy Now! back on the air before they cut us a check out of the funds they don't have anyway. Cutting a check is impossible because the old, renegade board which you support spent KPFK's looted treasury on expensive lawyers, PR, and security. (See http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=14001 for details of this spending.) Also note that the board has only met once, by phone, on December 29th, just after being selected. They will have their first meeting this weekend.

"What seems most important to Pacifica, and to the faction now controlling its restructured board, is to immediately establish its political control over the network. It seems more important to the board that, without any real exploration of available candidates, that one or another reliable political ally, be immediately slotted into Pacifica's top executive position. Indeed we expect that the formal naming of that new ED may come as soon as this weekend."

Analysis: Yes, please establish your control over the network - the sooner the better - maybe you can get these hacks to stop sending me their propoganda!! And yes, a political ally of the new board members may well be chosen. How would this be worse than the present situation?

"If the real interest of our station and our listeners were truly at the hearts of our new national board they'd be paying more attention to our financial needs than their political needs. The board's disrespect for the integrity of KPFK can be no better symbolized by the embarrassing quality of the job announcement that we have been forced

to run. > A serious, mature and responsible board not only would have announced a job search for 30 days or more, but it would have started that process by at least giving us an audio announcement that reflected the minimum degree of professionalism and dignity."

Analysis: Integrity? When you put Amy Goodman back in her 9:00 am time slot we'll talk about integrity.

More importantly, lets lay this complaining about the finances to rest. Pacifica has about 1 million in debt, and perhaps 2 million dollars in legal fees need to be paid. These fees and debts were mainly run up in the old boards attempt to take Pacifica away from the listeners. In addition, each of the stations has debts as well. KPFK is having trouble keeping their power on. KPFA is about 0,000 in debt. Against these large debts Pacifica has about 0,000 in cash reserves, and the settlement also requires the insurance company for Pacifica's directors to pay 0,000 to the foundation on the basis that the old board damaged the foundation by alienating the listeners. (The insurance company is getting off easy.)

In other words child, there just ain't enough in the pot. What we'll probably see is small allocations being made to pay the most pressing needs, and the new board having to somehow deal with the three million dollar debt left by the old board. Dealing with this won't be easy and all the stations will have to tighten their belts.

"We'll keep you informed of future developments. In the meantime, take a moment to contact the following board members and tell them you want them to put aside this cynical political game of fast tracking the hiring of an executive director and instead give their full attention to the resolution to KPFK's financial crisis for which they bear full responsibility."

Analysis: Once again, let's be clear. The old, renegade board is responsible for the fact that KPFK is broke. The old board didn't pay the bills. The old board took control of the station finances and used the money to pay legal, PR, and security firms to help hijack Pacifica's airwaves instead of buying the promised fund drive gifts for the listeners and installing the new transmitter. Don't contact the new board members and give them a hard time. They're working on the problem. Hopefully they'll even solve it.



WHAT CAN I DO?

Contact KPFK and tell them what you think. Here is their contact information:

3729 Cahuenga Blvd. West

North Hollywood, CA 91604

Main phone: (818) 985-2711

Fax: (818) 763-7526

Studio phone (for call-in shows): (818) 985-5735

Email: comments@kpfk.org

You might also want to tell KPFK that they need to start broadcasting Democracy Now in their 9:00 slot.

You can also contact the following people and discuss your feelings.

General Manager, Mark Schubb (818) 985-2711 Ext: 503. His email is: GM@kpfk.org

Operations Manager, Stacey Fancher (818) 985-2711 Ext: 205. Email at: sfancher@kpfk.org

Administrative Manager, Terence Chang (818) 985-2711 Ext: 206 Email at: tchang@kpfk.org

On Air Host Marc Cooper, email to mcooper@kpfk.org

Let them know how you feel about their attempts to vilify the interim board and impede a solution to the Pacifica Crisis.

You can also go to:

http://www.ominous-valve.com/pacific.html

http://www.ominous-valve.com/pacific2.html

http://www.ominous-valve.com/pacific.html#mark

for excellent news on the Pacifica crisis. The site is run by my friend Hugh, a relentless reporter on the doings of the ominous valve. His site has many further links which will allow you to explore the crisis at Pacifica for as long as you like.

Maybe Marion Berry, whom the author defends as a victim of race baiting is among the board members who is partly responsible for this crisis. Let us not forget what a great job he did as mayor of D.C. then wonder just what the hell he is doing at Pacifica. Maybe we can say that the board is literally "smoking crack." Then by stating a well established fact the author might call me a racist.

Barry was brought onto the Pacifica board in a telephone meeting of dubious legality last September 19. I say dubious legality because the new people (Marion Barry, Dick Gregory, George Barnstone, James Ferguson, and Krishna Roy) were allowed to elect themselves, thereby making a quorum that could elect them, thereby electing them. (??!?!??!) This travesty of a meeting was in fact the last gasp of the Washington/Houston post-Mary Frances Berry clique as it tried to maintain its once considerable power over Pacifica governance.

In reality Barry was not on the board long enough to cause the crisis, though he has certainly been steadfast in his support of the DC/Houston clique which did. I say DC/Houston clique because of the illegal by-law changes of 1999, in which the board was made self-selecting, and no longer accountable to the LABs which used to select it, therefore a clique, not a validly constituted Pacifica board. This is a historical fact one can find anywhere, but still one that Mark/Marc choose not to tell anyone. I say illegal because four rather convincingly argued and cited law suits were filed, charging that a legally binding vote to change the by-laws did not exist, and seeking injunctive relief to basically undo everything since 1999. At least one of these suits would probably have won had they not been settled last December, in which case the DC clique would find itself in a far worse pickle than its current one.

I know Alex, and know he's no racist. He's a dedicated leftist who has lived in the third world and knows what's going on. In fact, I was hesitant to comment on the Barry matter, since to do so is to raise the Race Card whether or not one intends to. Personally, Barry gets the same chance that I'd give anyone else, and in fact even though he carries considerable historical baggage I haven't made up my mind about him yet. There was one incident where one of his former lawyers aroused a bit of my ire, but Barry had nothing to do with this, and in fact i don't know the man at all, nor have I ever had a single contact with him.

Presumably, Barry made the announcement for the executive director search because he had volunteered to head up the committee doing it. I agree with Marc Cooper that the technical quality of this thing is below even a minimal standard to put on the air of a 112,000 (oh, OK, 28,000 :)) watt station. Barry is poorly rehearsed, and he fluffs about every third line. He is off-mike and we hear dogs barking and children screaming. Now, this is kind of a Barry style from what I understand... he's a man of the people, and keeps it simple and friendly. Still, the more paranoid among us are bound to speculate, could they have used a shotgun mike? Could they have rehearsed it even once? Were in that much of a hurry to get the thing onto the air that they couldn't spend another 20 minutes on it?

Back at KPFK, I find the whole strident line being taken by Mark/Marc rather disgusting. They've taken up all our old tactics, now that the shoe is very much on the other foot. The difference, of course, is that they have either 112,000 or 28,000 reasons for people to hear them, while we've been trying to get the message out for three years. I would not go so far, as many have, as to call this an irresponsible use of the air, but it's sure a tacky one.

Schubb says that it's the first time in 40 years the national board has ever told local stations what to put on.

This is a lie. A falsehood. A statement made with full awareness that it has no truth. A whopper. The substance that comes from the rear end of the bull.

Leaving out the various incidents, such as in 1967 and 1988, when board or executive members directly told KPFK what it could and could not air, we are still left with the policy adopted by the Pat Scott/Lynn Chadwick/Mary Francis Berry/Robert Coonrod/CPB/Washington clique in the mid-90s which specifically ordered local stations to completely change their formats from community radio to something considered more "professional."

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, the term "professional" is theirs, not mine. Their idea of professional is lots of strip-scheduling, less Mumia, less Amy, more George Bush sound bites, lots of bumper music... a bunch of crap that is only marginally relevant to Pacifica's mission. MY idea of professional is closer to what real news organizations USED to do, what Pacifica used to be about, and what this IMC does - to accurately and passionately seek and articulate the truth, as gathered from the street by those who do it, not strained and homogenized by a bunch of rich Democrats with books to plug!!!!!!

History says, as you can find out in 15 minutes' research, that Pat Scott was made executive director of Pacifica by Salniker and the CPB clique for the express reason of carrying out a professionalization (their kind, not mine) program at all 5 stations. Scott and the board published a "My way or the highway" memo that can be found all over Internet, stating specifically, that programming was to be "reconfigured," and those not up for it were "advised to resign."

Part of Scott's reconfiguration was to personally take over KPFK, in the "Wednesday Night Massacre" of January 4, 1995. She sat there and fired the management, and, yes, took over at least partial control of the station's budgeting, and KPFK has been going down the shitter ever since!

Now, Mark Schubb knows about this because he owes his job to it. He was brought in, from SAG, to do it! He's hatcheted the whole station. He's the one who, according to Amy Goodman, told her in 2000 that he didn't like hearing about police brutality before he'd had his morning coffee!

For Schubb, and his buddy Cooper, to suddenly act all pouty and say their wonderful station is being interfered with for the first time ever, is ludicrous. It is humorous in its denial of the facts. Mark Schubb IS the interference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could bore you with hundreds more historical facts, but it's a big internet and people like Lyn Gerry (fired by the Mark/Marc axis) have been posting to it for 6 years, so just poke around. Or ask the hundred or so people who went to the LAB last Wednesday night and for the most part came away with a different point of view (to quote Johnny Cash). Don't just believe a boy named Hugh.

Stay informed about what's going on at KPFK

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Yeah, we have a pretty good, lucid discussion going there. Plus you get to argue with Marc Cooper. Definitely Internet at its best. :-)