In the letter below, Ian Masters, well-known host of "Background Briefing" on KPFK, responds to a listener by dissing programming and the fund drive, and slandering KPFK volunteers.

Masters is a leader of the Committee To Strengthen KPFK, now notorious for soliciting contributions to their club in order to bedazzle some listeners with a glossy mailer touting their slate during the recent KPFK elections for Local Station Board.  

Although other on-air hosts, notably Agustin Cebada of "La Causa" is disciplined for airing "dirty laundry," Masters seems to be immune from equal treatment.

Internally, the station is in disarray, largely because of divisive and bitter communications like this and by Masters' co-hort, Lila Garrett, and by the resounding silence from the station to listeners' critiques.  The webmaster, suddenly and without notice, shut down the comment board on the station website when it became critical of CTSK and Grace Aaron, now the public leader of the group.  Staff members thwarted listener participation in the selection of the new General Manager when they leaked the name of a candidate and, as a result of the breach of confidentiality, the process and the decision were turned over to the Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation, KPFK's parent organization.  Most of the leftwing Latino organizations assiduously avoid KPFK because station staff repeatedly put obstacles in the way of getting ICE raid notifications aired at the behest of the LSB's Stop ICE Raids task force and determined broadcast ghettoization of Spanish and Indigenous language programming. 

In his first introduction to the listeners, the new General Manager, Sean Heitkemper, choose to favor Sonali Kolhatkar's "Uprising," and mentioned that the show was "professional" and should be syndicated across the network.  Other hosts and producers are outraged.  Heitkemper is notable for firing beloved broadcaster from KKJZ, in what was widely denounced by the Los Angeles African American community as an attack on Black programming at the jazz station and a move toward "safer programming."  His wrongful dismissal of the program director at KKJZ led to a $780K settlement.

The infighting has left KPFK in shambles, with declining listenership and listener funding.  Meanwhile, KPFK, largely reliant on individual donations, is battling an economy that nears depression levels and the competition of liberal KTLK Air America radio in the Los Angeles area market. 

And nobody inside the station has the nerve to call out the Committee To Strengthen KPFK, comprised of leading,mostly white and monied, Los Angeles liberals, when emails like this are sent to inquiring listeners.

---

 

On Jun 23, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Ian Masters wrote:

 

Dear Carol,
A public radio station, owned by the public?  Doesn't the public have a right to know? How do you in good conscience raise money for an organization you know is falling apart (the network is bankrupt and KPFK is running at a 6 figure deficit) because of appalling management, or lack thereof, and an increasing official Station identification with cults, quacks and crackpots?  The recent Chemtrails and 9/11 events were station sponsored and it has cost us more a lot more than Richard Clarke.  People used to say to me I hear stuff on KPFK I never hear anywhere else, it used to be a complement, now it is dismissal of the idiocy promoted as news and public affairs.

I think this Art Bell - crop circle, chemtrail, 9/11 stuff is fine for insomniacs, but it should not be prime time station policy. With so much provable death, destruction, looting and larceny from Bush/Cheney, it discredits the few journalists left at the station and is a gift to Fox News and the right who can easily dismiss the left as loons.

Perhaps there is a reason the station, with the biggest transmitter West of the Rockies, is going broke and losing audience, while KPCC, with less than a tenth of the signal is thriving. The programming sucks and the station's governance is paralyzed by a few so-called "activists" who shout and scream everybody down at station and board meetings. Eva Georgia even banned two 9/11 cultists Larkins and Johnston (who incredibly are on the board) and another deranged thug, Reyes, who threatened to beat me up at the one and only board meeting I ever went to.  Incredibly the new "management" are congratulating themselves that Reyes has been reinstated.  Sadly the death of Don White will mean another single issue 9/11 cultist, Condon, will be elevated to the board.  He has sent me threatening emails, warning that if I don't see the truth and join the cult, I'll be purged.

As for the last Hammer event, I got lucky, it was the first time the Truthers didn't show up, but they've been a nuisance at all previous Hammer events and have shut down two events I moderated at the Church in Venice, lining up to take over the mike in Q&A and driving the sensible folks out the doors.  They also discouraged me from listener call-ins because no matter what the subject and who the guest was, they wanted to talk about building 7.  Why are you defending this tragic squandering of a precious public resource that is going down the tubes for reasons in plain sight?  Why should I subside these parasites and lie to the public? I still believe KPFK can be rescued, but don't pretend we're striking a blow for truth, peace and freedom, when we are wallowing in irrelevance.
Cheers, 
Ian Masters

 

What nobody says is exactly right, but it's only part of the story. Only insiders know how repressive it is in here, how we all tiptoe around, knowing that the paid staff is judging, judging, and talking, whispering to the new general manager.

We are volunteers, but sometimes it feels like we're prisoners of war. Every day i get closer to screaming "F**K you all" and walking out. For me, all that's left is what KPFK could be but not about what it is.

We love this anonymity on emails and Indymedia, and then wonder "who wrote that?..was it someone I know or believe ?"

But the comments I read here about the KPFK atomosphere are true to my experience too and I recognize the fears of KPFK's fall & failure, because behind all the complaining and frustration, each of us who write here about the station WANT OUR RADIO STATION TO THRIVE...
[ Kaiser's healthful promotional word fits here ]
and expand and include more fairly and the staff who hold our station together to 'get along'....kind of...

get along ? seems to be getting less so.

Less and more openly so...but that part is good... the exposure... the transparency ... though not from the 'insiders' or staff or LSB or programmers telling us what is going on inside those closed paranoidal doors

except for Ian, that is...we might even say he is daring and courageous ...even while we may shiver and worry about on-the-air expositions and actual opinions about the internal fights - fights unto death or firings.

I too squiched when I heard Ian denounce and demean opinions and people I may even agree with. But in reflection now, I realize that no one else dares to tell the rest of us - us= the owners subscribers volunteers of OUR station - what ugliness is actually going on and on and on.

And we all know it is not nice to air dirty secrets. But then how to clean house or station if all the strong differences are locked up in power-grabbing rooms with people who refuse to let anyone outside [that is us] know or participate in the bickering, striving, grabbing - as they exclusively do - for another little piece of what looks-like-power ?

For that is what it all seems to be about...
holding on to that little bit that looks like power, because that view or opinion or person can be aired and heard everywhere all over LA ? For example,
the LSB chairwoman pretend-plays like a moderate but then she carefully controls anything that comes near her so she can still manipulate others into Her Corner.

Isnt that what is called "politicalling" or playing-the-game-for-geting-power-and-more-influence? In other words, getting her or his way more? Of pulling allies to agree to get that person, that program, that connection higher up on the air ...to propagandize... to influence...
to control...

of course, that's it !!! C O N T R O L ....
to get this radio station to only repeat what those who have collected more allies, set up more programs, grabbed more air time, kept more secret ties to whatever gets them more of more is....

more control & power to own the airwaves here too ? at KPFK ?
I thought that was the other- the commercial ways...can it be that we are paying our station to do the same as those we decry as 'commercial' do ?
oh no !!!!

we cant be like "them" !!! or are we ????

Thank you Ian Masters for revealing and not denying what others are doing behind our aural backs ! All those secret feuds...hidden alliances....unspoken out here where we can know about the hate & anger... the opaque dealings and chosings....the fake announcements of openness and fairness... dont you know or wish to know what is Really Going On, anyhow ?

Thank you all - who comment about KPFK and care to write more of whatever it is you know....and think...and feel... and have the honest convictions to reveal yourselves...so we can share and learn and CHANGE, what definitely needs changing.

Every time I read an article on Indymedia,
= =thank you all who volunteer HERE !!!! ===
about KPFK, I learn about something or someone I did not know that about yet....even if it is slanted, biased, angry, there is something revealed and shared.

Let's keep this going here. [ the only place I know where we expose ourselves under psuedonyms but still, our thoughts are out at least here for all to read and connect thru this, at least.]

Let's find other ways, other blogs, other resources where we can do more than just accuse and insult, please !

Let's join forces, even if in factions, and not be AGAINST each other, not just be GREEDY for our ethnic alliances to move up in more air time, not just get our preferred viewpoints heard, not just focus on
"me, us, mine, and getting more for us" alone...as is so common, already.

Let's thank each other for what we give and teach and tell as well.

Can't we just 'get along" ????

[a famous line said by a man who was beat up by cops for resisting arrest, as I recall]
It seems like the answer is still "no! hell no !"

but maybe we can work harder to find some common grounds of some agreements...and re-stabilize KPFK as a fair flexible free available structure with it's real mission honored and maintained.

let's work together ....in any every way we can.
or we will lose it - KPFK - that is. easy. secretly. lost.

Around the world and here in the U.S., progressive political movements consistently lose. Witness Obams's right wing shift.

There is no subject more important to the KPFK community than why this is so.

News come form South Korea that progressive forces look like they have actually made some small progress. "South Korea: Another huge demonstration demands president's resignation" http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/kore-j08.shtml

The protest is hardly over beef imports and is emerging as a class revolt over falling living standards and neo liberal economics. Of course you would never know that from reading the Los Angeles Times, or listening to KPFK in general or Ian Masters in particular for that matter.

We should hear discussion on KPFK about what the Koreans are doing right and Americans are doing wrong. With the forums you could at least why we don't hear this discussion.

I see several things that the Koreans are doing that we don't.

The are focusing their marches on the President and the Presidential Palace. They are not marching to nowhere and to no one on a Saturday afternoon, like we do here.

They are stating an objective, resignation of the President. American's don't seem to understand osimply stating a specific object.

They are focusing together on a single political objective and not letting their energies get diverted into non political paths. You don't hear gay pride, abortion, identity politics, immigration, or other issues detracting from the objective of booting Lee.

We should be learning from the Koreans.

I love this freedom,....to roam anywhere and pretend it addresses the original issue....which as I read it way above was Ian Masters' on-the-air bad-mouthing other unnamed programs and their beliefs...ridiculing their views...and since it is a Free Speech Station that KPFK claims to be, I guess this is ok too....

even tho I cringe at how those listeners who dont know the participants involved in this factionalization may see the station = as finally cracking & crumbling and falling and others even hoping for that to take effect... but I dont.

What Koreans do and think and say and dont do or want or whatever is waaaaaaay over there , often out of earshot until there is some propaganda value to govt & media putting them in the news...again...and then "evil" forces as they are labeled are forgotten again, and replaced with another set of bad guys....

all done to induce fear and to self-agrandize the USA govt and their corporate and political manuevers. So what's new here ?

Yes, KPFK had [past tense, dead now] a web forum that was not well utilized, as few responded to the issues raised .... but it was still a place to communicate that centered around the station and it's problems. And those who wrote on the Listener Forum hoped fervently that the staff would maybe [?] ...maybe read their comments, suggestions, questions & concerns too. But it was removed with the excuse of spam proliferating, as if this didnt happen everywhere that is not cut out, as this service to the loyal listeners & volunteers was done.

I never found out if anyone at the station ever bothered to read anything on the Listener Forum. If they cared what others think or say or feel. No indication of anyone reading the comments about KPFK on their website seemed to affect or get any response, except for someone who added a brief "you are wrong" or "I agree" on rare occasion. It was a blank field in which hope that what was written would be read or help the station improve, hope that went just as blank.

We never heard any feedback from anyone at the station, or LSB, or hardly anyone at all. . We never knew if we were writing-pissing into the wind and just getting soaked, voicing our concerns all for nothing.

So back to the real topic again, Ian Masters is voicing what others dont dare do...letting everyone else know there is no unity nor much agreement at our station... and the elections should have made that clear with all the shenanigans that did occur and then had to be repaired.

Most listeners didnt even bother to vote in the elections anyhow, so if not Ian raising his ire and voice, they would have remained unaware of the instability or divisions that continue to exist. And maybe they are now worse than before ?

Even at t his point, those of us who CARE, but do not attend the boring, hostile environment of the LSB meetings or other committee meetings - in order to save our time & sanity, of course - we dont know what is going in the station we thought we paid for.... for services we could trust.

Question: How can we trust what is said or reported on KPFK if we cant trust the staff-mangement-LSB-programmers because they are all pretending they are
working together for our behalf ????? I
f they lie in appearing to be in agreement, then maybe they lie about other things they say on air too ?????
If they - all concerned and inside KPFK - hide and keep secret what is happening in that structure we call "listener sponsored" corporation, how do we know it is not another version of collapse-ready-to-happen, or take-over-already-happening or financial-ruin-yet-unannounced ???? huh?

Ian sounded 'bad' but he also did us all a favor just the same. Ever listen to family hateful - irritating - scary - squabbles and think that family is going to fall apart, and then what ? "The end of the world is coming !!!!" That is when we are children, not when we are already responsible adults. We need to know the reality of what is happening in OUR KPFK, from various versions, and not be pacified as if we needed infant formulas and the KPFK image carefully maintained upright.

So I again, thank Ian Masters, for venting his own spleen on his own program and giving us a hint that things are not as cool or calm or cooperative as the radio station's IMAGE is made to appear....and as we know, appearances are deceiving, especially at our beloved KPFK....very deceiving...it is mostly appearances because the hypocrisies are now showing thru = leaking, gushing, hemoragging out actually, on air too ! And we are hearing the damaged results.

Sounds dramatic ? of course. But so is all the fear-mongeringplayed aloud there too , the pleas to please buy stuff to save our lives with stuff {red or green or gold] that only KPFK offers during fund drives, stuff that we would never pay for at that price anywhere else. But fear brings in 'sales revenues' and so it is used, proliferating OUR airwaves. For many many days.

thanks to only the very few programmers who dont bow to the management and staff and LSB seat-holders and dont just stay quiet behind their microphones....while the majority, the rest, are just hoping not to lose their slots -so they continue to collude and hide and dont tell us anything.

Thanks Ian! for making apparent the friction & dispute, or at least one of them, anyhow. Tell us more of what we could not know if you do not expose that too. Not just USA governmental stuff, KPFK governmental stuff is important to us too. Keep it up!

Mr. Masters is really trying to denigrate the 9-11 truth movement.
he is not our friend or a friend of truth.
go figure

Has this appointment been announced by KPFK?

I couldn't find it on the web site.

What qualification does this Sean Heitkemper have to be GM of KPFK?

Does he have any involvement in progressive political movements?

How long has he been a listener sponsor of KPFK?

Is he a listener sponsor of KPFK?

Has he ever been involved in the KPFK community?

As I infer from the above cite, he cost the insurance company for his station $780K for wrongful dismissal.

Does KPFK have insurance for this kind of claim? Will KPFK's insurer continue its policy with him at the head? I doubt it.

This appointment sounds like trouble to me.

I realize this is going off the original topic, but where else can you raise such issues?

off topic of the intelligence agent, Ian Masters, and his endorcement of the 'committee' and his hostility towards 9/11 truth.
Why would anyone contribute to another Ford foundation divide and contain strategy / asset.
I used to listen to them before the internet showed what cowards at best, agents at worst, run the station under the guise of democratic process.

Strange that this never became local news. Wonder where the IMC people think Masters and KPFK are?

KPFK like the other tailored media has discredited itself by holding fast to the
no see
no hear
no speak

about anything not filtered through the staff of 'Jim Bobs' according to the fantasy of the official Sept. 11th conspiracy theory and the desperation they show to keep it in a tight box.
As the previous post, by Mr. Bob reflects the new management's attitude in its usual zionesque ad hominem attacks towards uncomfortable issues.
Thank you IMC for offering a choice and forum, unlike KPFK.
I haven't missed a thing not using this Pacifica station.
At least WBAI and KPFA still challange the constant barrage of corporate propaganda with such programs as Guns and Butter ( KPFA 1:00 PST Wed. ) or Taking Aim ( WBAI 2:00 PST Tues. ) and still hold a proud record of courage.

Jim Bob's [apove] hopefulness cannot be met by reality. And it is not just One OR the Other,but both views that need to be heard and argued and discussed and explored. Just because those who disregard what the 9/11 people consider possible, probable and maybe even saner than any 9/11 commission's vague reports, that does not mean they should be shut out of any conversation.

So keep on hoping for the "demise of KPFK "..it is not about to happen yet....what KPFK needs is not a death wish but a CHANGE. Or is that too hopeful a wish for defeatists ? Or those who only want one opinion to reign supreme....for their need to be "right !" and maybe gain some tippy top status too ? is that it ?

as above "No radical/left/progressive movement exists. It is a fantasy. It is a tragedy. But if the nuts go away, maybe the sane folks (like Masters) can build something. " sounds like an angry depressed nihilist hoping for a savior {Ian ? I dont think he doesnt even want to be one ]. No tragedy here. Tragedy is when all curdles, turns into mud, compost...from which new growth is always possible, but growth and rebirth is not for those who are Exclusive Single Payors or those who want to be the Only Ones to run any show. Sorry.

Can't we change and improve and help and do something to make this world and KPFK and ourselves better than we were before ? maybe ...with some working together ? huh ?

let's not cry "die!" before the time is ripe for all to crumble or explode...it may come but not with this kind of wishful thinking.

I really am disappointed in the path KPFK has been driven by hidden agendas. The most powerful station west of the rockies and it serves pablum that drives information hungry listeners into real sources of current events and radical, fearless analysis.
Amy once showed courage durring the E. Timor massacres but she has refused to air any 9/11 controversy which is the linch pin or center sprocket understanding of the mechanics of global fascism and terror.
Ian Masters thinks he holds enough creditability from his pulpit that few even tune in, to be able to lambast serious 9/11 independent investigations.
The jigs up, the moles have been blown and the guilty are heading towards justice. Whether or not they want to believe it. Does Ian have property outside extradition treaties?