Progressive Radio Moves Right

KPFK ENDS HOPE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, QUASHES GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY FOR PACIFICA

In a sharp reversal of its historic support for affirmative action, the KPFK Radio 90.7 Local Advisory Board yesterday voted by a nail-biting margin for a bylaws proposal (Plan B) without affirmative action remedy.  Plan B, unlike other proposals, has no mechanism for a failure of its subscribers to elect boards with ethnic, gender, or social diversity.

As the last Local Advisory Board needed to pass Plan B for the Pacifica network, the LAB's reversal may install Plan B as the organizational framework for the Pacifica Radio Network Foundation if legal challenges do not arise.

Without assurance of diverse boards, Pacifica Foundation endangers its status and funding as a "majority minority" owned radio network under Corporation for Public Radio broadcasting guidelines.  KPFK's vote removes Pacifica from a shrinking list of progressive "minority" non-profits.  Such status for Pacifica's stations now will depend on the varying outcomes of annual local elections.

The vote also threatens CPB funding for the network, which is struggling with unscheduled fund drives and incessant campaigns for additional donor support, to recover from the years of lawsuits and financial misappropriation that culminated in the new bylaws..

Numerous alternative plans, including one modeled after the recently-upheld University of Michigan's Law School admissions process, were derailed by some members of the current national board and organized groups of listeners from other stations, who bombarded the KPFK LAB with e-mails and phone calls.

Plan B has been widely opposed by peoples of color throughout the network since it first arose in February in response to a corporate attorney's recommendation that Pacifica avoid the use of numeric goals for diversity, in spite of CPB regulations.  

A several-years struggle against centralization and firing programmers of color ended in a court-ordered settlement in January 2002 mandating the Foundation revise its bylaws to include subscriber elections of its local and national boards, and reinstate its local boards, including that at KPFK. 

Last month, Pacifica's national board appealed a vote of its own directors to the settlement court.  The Oakland court determined that the three national Directors, who had voted for none of the three plans before them, had effectively abstained from voting and would not be counted among the number needed for 2/3rds approval of Plan B.  With this national "approval" of Plan B, the five station boards voted on Plan B.  KPFK rejected Plan B by a single vote, joining stations in Washington DC and New York City.  The stations' votes, which should have ended hopes for Plan B, were reported to the court by its July 23rd deadline. 

A facilitation process began last weekend, with an agenda and facilitators determined unilaterally by Foundation Chair Leslie Cagan (also of the Peace and Justice Coalition), after Cagan after cancelled a public national board meeting which might have reconsidered the national board's vote supporting Plan B.  Last week, in spite of the continuing process, Cagan distributed a confusing memo about the chances of a successful outcome to the facilitation process.  

The memo and reports from a few of those involved in facilitation (two of whom were flown in to address the local board meeting), led to one KPFK board member's decision to support Plan B, and may have entrenched others in their determination that "passing bylaws now" was a necessary step for the Foundation.  A LAB member reported at the local meeting that Cagan, in a private conversation, had concluded that the facilitation process was in difficulty, shoring up that member's vote for Plan B. 

The 47-page bylaws continues much of the centralization that threw the network into turmoil in the late 1990s.  It permits the national board to mandate local programming, limits local representatives' access to station financial records, and restricts which bylaws amendments listeners may vote on, among other provisions that allow for strong top-level control of the network. 

The KPFK LAB had, over the past nine months, repeatedly endorsed requirements for including women and people of color on Pacifica boards, as well as greater local board and subscriber control.  

With its vote, KPFK, a widely-respected voice for Southern California progressives, breaks ranks with DC and New York sister stations, and joins more cautious stations in Berkeley and Houston.  

KPFK programming has recently moved to diversify its public affairs and cultural programming, including reviving the African-American Mental Liberation Weekend and adding Spanish-language programs.  The impact of the local board's vote on these programming changes remains to be determined. 

KPFK LAB passes bylaws draft B

audio of KPFK LAB

bylaws draft B

Carol Spooner 8/24/03

one of the main sources of info

Pacifica's precious few public discussion boards

lotsa links

ominous valve

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Pacifism at Pacifica

KPFK and LA-IMC

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KPFK LISTENERS

an account of the previous K-LAB bylaws vote (with useful links)

where did we go from there? (bylaws discussion)

white privilege and other problems at "Independent Media Centers"

links , including a good WBAI thread

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Let's Go To Detroit!

anticrisis

lynx

latest comments

You just hate white people. Quit your bitching, Pacifica is by far the most diverse network and KPFK is ruled by a Black programer named EVA Georgia. Its very easy to see that if she had her way the only white programer that would be on is Michael Slate. IF you notice the recent changes all marginalized white programers like folk scene and the nixon tapes while stupid shows like space ways radio weren't touched.

I"m sick of all you pussies complaing about how you want special treatment because your a minority.

If you haven't noticed there is spanish language programing now and you don't here us bithcing about it

Get a life man and fight against the right wing dictators not progressive activist who are on your side. Idiot

Edwin Johnston, the author of this piece, is a white man from Texas who is well known in progressive circles for disrupting their work. He insists on speaking for people of color instead of letting them speak for themselves, and has made racist attacks on Joseph Wanzala in the process. Many, many people of color want our elections and want them now -- and many also want to free Pacifica from the coercive hold of the U.S. government teat by rejecting Corporation for Public Broadcasting money, rather than taking more of it and tying it to people of color.

No movement to the "right" is evidenced by the adoption of Pacifica's new bylaws.

1) Where the previous bylaws had no expressly acknowledged members except for the directors themselves, the new bylaws make listener-sponsors members and staff members, each voting for their representatives on the boards (75% listener reps and 25% staff reps)..

2) Where the old bylaws had only self-selecting local advisory boards, the new bylaws have member elected station boards with more than advisory powers.

3) Where the bylaws that were being fought in court had a self-selecting national board of directors, the new bylaws have a board of directors elected by having four directors from each station board, pus 2 directors representing affiliate stations and one optional at large director.

4) There is no direct threat to CPB funding. KPFK's vote doesn't change anything about any of the stations minority controlled status. Two stations only, WBAI and WPFW, now receive the incentive premium as a portion of CPB funding for being African-American controlled stations. If the elections result in 50% people of color on the board of directors, then those stations only may have to change their status from "African-American controlled" to "Multicultural controlled" stations and still keep the incentive portions of their CPB funding for being minority controlled. The greater amount of the CPB funding will not be lost even if the Board of Directors is not 50% minority directors. (FYI: CPB does not recognize Asians and Pacifica Islanders as "minorities.")

5) No plan was modeled after the recent Univ. of Michigan cases. Inchoate suggestions were raised that used some of the Univ. of Mich. case language but those suggestions also violated the Univ. of Michigan cases by including mechanical percentages which were expressly prohibited by Grutter v. Univ. of Michigan.

6) It is not true that "Last month, Pacifica's national board appealed a vote of its own directors to the settlement court". A majority of the Pacifica board of directors went to court after being eight months behind schedule to ask how to proceed under the circumstances where it appeared that some directors were deliberately impeding progress. Also at the same time a single director asked the court to interpret a vote that had taken place. That was not an appeal of the vote, it was asking to have the vote upheld after the Chair of the Board had applied the wrong rule on counting of the majority needed. The court found that there had been both actual compliance and substantial compliance with the settlement agreement and gave the green light for the bylaws to go to the next steps for consideration and approval.

7) The so-called “centralized” control to mandate local programming is disinformation. While the Pacifica Foundation owns the licenses for broadcasting at its five sister stations, the central Board of Directors must have the power to mandate local programming, otherwise the board can not control the licenses. The old bylaws gave the central Board the same power to mandate local programming. However, the new bylaws now give the local station boards a direct role that the old bylaws did not provide. The local station boards now have the power and duty “To work with station management to ensure that station programming fulfills the purposes of the Foundation and is responsive to the diverse needs of the listeners (demographic) and communities (geographic) served by the station, and that station policies and procedures for making programming decisions and for program evaluation are working in a fair, collaborative and respectful manner to provide quality programming.” The local “advisory” boards never had this level of authority, so this is decentralization of authority as much as possible. The bylaws also give the new station boards the power and duty to conduct written evaluations of the station general managers and program directors, a power they never had before. The station boards may even recommend the firing of the general manager if the GM doesn’t work with the station boards or perform their job effectively. The old advisory boards did not have this power. These are also examples of the decentralization of power in the network provided by the new bylaws.

8) The anonymous writer complains that the “KPFK LAB had, over the past nine months, repeatedly endorsed requirements for including women and people of color on Pacifica boards.” In fact, the new bylaws state: “SECTION 4. COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY - The Foundation is committed to diversity and inclusion of people of all nations, races, ethnicities, creeds, colors, classes, genders, sexual orientations, ages and people with disabilities in its programming, staff, management, committees and governance.” And the station boards are given the power to “To actively reach out to underrepresented communities to help the station serve a diversity of all races, creeds, colors and nations, classes, genders and sexual orientations, and ages and to help build collaborative relations with organizations working for similar purposes;

To perform community needs assessments, or see to it that separate "Community Advisory Committees" are formed to do so.; and To ensure that the station works diligently towards the goal of diversity in staffing at all levels and maintenance of a discrimination-free atmosphere in the workplace.” The role of the station boards to ensure diversity were never in the old bylaws.

Its a shame that writers like the above will abuse the open publishing access with such disinformation worthy of the best. Caveat lector: let the reader beware.