[This is another re-post from the website listed below that I just discovered, which informed me that there are some unexplained and unannounced actions being taken in non-transparent silence apparently.

Has any KPFK listener heard about this on air ? And was more or even the information below given ? And can you share with us all when it might have been aired, if at all, so we can find archives to listen to it also ourselves ?

Share what you know. Many of us who care tremendously know nothing until we stumble on a vital piece of news...accidentally. That is not what KPFK represents itself to be acting as = a hider, denier, avoider and broken black box of scrambled encryptions.

Did you know all this before ?]

"Nicole Sawaya’s departure letter from Pacifica, September 2008 pm Filed under: News & Culture, Pacifica ...Nicole's letter here in full....
September 24, 2008

To: Pacifica National Board, Local Station Boards, All management and staff, Affiliate stations, collaborators, and stakeholders in Pacifica

Fr: Nicole Sawaya, executive director/CEO

On August 3rd I gave notice to the Pacifica Board that I would be leaving. September 30th (end of our fiscal year) will be my last day. Concurrently, I had written myself out of the FY09 budget, as the Foundation is hard-pressed to support two well-paid executives. You lead from the top.

Lew Hill is the founder of Pacifica, now almost a 60 year old non-profit media organization. If I could have a conversation with anyone to explain my departure, it would be with Lew Hill. So, I decided to write him a letter.

Feel free to read it, and to share with others who care about Pacifica. All I ask is that this preface always accompany the letter as it sets the context.

I thank you for the opportunity to serve!

Peace.
********************
September 23, 2008

Dear Lew Hill,

Greetings. My name is Nicole Sawaya, and currently, I’m the executive director and chief executive of the radio endeavor you started called Pacifica. It’s changed a lot.

You wouldn’t believe what your “killer app”, as some might portray it in 21st century lexicon, has spawned. Now there are 5 stations licensed to Pacifica in densely populated and roiling urban areas – millions of human beings within ear shot, all with easy access to the cheapest and most accessible broadcast mediums on the planet, radio. Yes, the planet.

There is an Archive of programming and folios spanning decades – a repository and collection of voices that truly belongs to the people as part of the history of our country and the world. And, there are over a hundred smaller stations scattered through rural and urban settings — cities and towns and ridge tops — affiliated with Pacifica and broadcasting our programming – a network that has been in place for quite awhile.

Beyond that, your notion that the listeners would voluntarily financially support radio, journalism and cultural exchange, created a model for many, many non-commercial educational radio stations to apply. Your vision of public ownership of the airwaves put into practice with the radio license you applied for and grew as the first non-profit community licensee station, gained great traction and has been replicated exponentially.

We don’t exchange The Subscriber radios anymore for pledges, and you wouldn’t recognize how the fundraising marathons have changed – it’s a bit like an on-air shopping experience. But listeners continue to support us voluntarily with their hard earned money, and they’re not necessarily just bound to radios to listen to us.

An aside: When I was (briefly) general manager of your first station, KPFA, there was a Subscriber radio in the office, but it was tucked away and dusty. When I discovered it, soon after taking the job, I was so excited to learn of its history. It completely inspired me as Pacifica was heading to its 50th anniversary. So elegant, so innovative for its time, so smart.

Mr. Hill, what you conceived has had one of the highest impacts in media history. Not just the staunch belief in listener support, but your notions that journalistic enterprises should remain unfettered from any sort of business support in order to maintain credibility; that to help in striving for a more peaceful and just world, radio (or what we now refer to as media) programming should give access to myriad viewpoints and in-depth news, coupled with an exposure to the arts and to cultures and happenings from all over the world; that innovation is vital, have all lived on. You were a pioneer.

Fast forward to today.

Our country is at war. Our government is a death machine abroad and a fear machine at home. Our broadcast media is, in general, mind-numbingly useless, filled with shameless propagandists and completely profit driven. The earth’s climate is changing radically and the gap between rich and poor is larger than the Grand Canyon, with by far the larger group on the poor end. I could go on, but it would take a while.

Your Pacifica is showing signs of stress as well.

Sadly, it is no longer focused on service to the listeners but absorbed with itself and the inhabitants therein. I call it Planet Pacifica, a term I coined during my hiring process. There is an underlying culture of grievance coupled with entitlement, and its governance structure is dysfunctional.

The by-laws of the organization have opened it up to tremendous abuse, creating the opportunity for cronyism, factionalism, and faux democracy, with the result of challenging all yet helping nothing. Pacifica has been made so flat, that it is concave – no leadership is possible without an enormous struggle through the inertia that committees and collectives and STV’s (no, not sexually transmitted viruses, but single transferable votes) can engender.

Pacifica calls itself a movement, yet currently it is behaves like a jobs program, a cult, or a social service agency. And oftentimes, the loudest and most obstreperous have the privilege of the microphone. There are endless meetings of committees and “task forces”– mostly on the phone – where people just like to hear themselves talk.

Sometimes they get lucrative contracts from their grandstanding. It’s been grueling for someone in my position, someone like me who is not a process person, much less a political gamer. I keep asking: what’s the endgame? Paralysis has set in, coupled with organizational drift.

The programming isn’t attracting many listeners anymore, either. It skews towards the narrow in its editorial stance, leans towards the niche, and change to the programming can’t occur without a fight. The listening audience is small, in other words, the stations have yet to grow into their large signals.

Business practices are oftentimes shoddy and opaque and mirror the culture of our times – lots of self-interest with a focus on individual needs as opposed to performance, affordability, or the common good. And we’ve hit some tough economic times without having the general will to do the hard work necessary in order to ensure sustainability – contracting rather than continually expanding the size of our financial obligations.

Basically, resources and airtime have been allocated for internal political purposes at the expense of service to audience, innovation, or the care and feeding of our broadcast physical infrastructure. Some of this has to do with the fact that very few people either on air or off air actually have radio experience, other than being part of Pacifica.

That was not the case with you, nor is it with me.

Conversely, there are many dedicated and smart people working within Pacifica. They may not work at full speed – it is rather “comfortable” especially for those who work unsupervised – but they make a consistent effort to give voice to the voiceless and hold government and power accountable. And those who work without self-interest or giving constant grief to management (a four-letter word in Pacifica) are to be applauded.

The overall media landscape has changed fundamentally. I find it exciting and wanted very much to bring Pacifica into the 21st century. The demographic of our country has changed as well, not to mention all the new generations now active and alert to the world around them. It is, to quote Victor Hugo, the best of times and the worst of times. Apparently, it’s always been like that.

Pacifica could take advantage of technology, both at the front end (content and programming) and the back end (infrastructure and business applications), but that would require the general will of the internal stakeholders, and that general will is not cohesive enough or even amenable to altering the status quo.

I have given notice and will be leaving Pacifica shortly. Despite my best intentions and determined and focused efforts, I was continually thwarted to do the job I was hired to do. I did my best to apply my knowledge, expertise, and creativity to Pacifica, and we made some forward progress.

I gave to those responsible for the governance and oversight, plans, clarity, and transparency. They cannot deny knowledge of the state of the network. Whether they act on it, or just call in consultants to tell them what time it is, is another issue. I tried to dispel magical thinking in all arenas and was relentless in my attempts to get some best practices and collaborations in place.

I had some success.

It’s not necessary for me to alliterate those successes. Despite being handed an enfeebled situation and having no resources to work with, I gave it my best shot and worked hard. And despite having to fight for every inch of standing, not to mention authority, I have enjoyed working with those who actually work and accomplish bona fide deliverables of consequence and service.

We stand now on the shoulders of hundreds, if not thousands of those who have contributed internally. And Pacifica is much loved and valued by its listener supporters. Pacifica will carry on, and it has been a challenging opportunity to, albeit briefly, help out.

I hope that all stakeholders remember that Pacifica is a public trust, a veritable weapon of mass information, and keep a big vision in play rather than petty politics.

Thanks for being a bold and brave broadcaster.

With much respect,

Nicole"

Look up Pacifica on Charity Navigator. I love KPFK (well, most of it) and the programming and information I receive (well, most of it.) But there is no excuse for the wasteful spending.

Ever try to read one of the station's budget reports? The graphs tell you how much money they spent, but aren't too clear on what it was spent on. There is no framework for comparison to, say, how other radio stations spend their money.

Charity Navigator has evaluated the foundation, but not individual stations, so it's impossible to know how our local stations would rate.

But if their use of finances is anything like the mother organization's the efficiency is abysmal.

I know there are a lot of hidden expenses, conflicts, personalities, coalitions, drama, etc., and we probably shouldn't expect the same numbers from a media organization as we expect from the charities that feed the hungry or care for the sick.

But really, 28.6 percent of the budget going to administrative costs? It's excessive.

I've given many times before. Too much, in my opinion. But this time I was proud of my restraint. Or maybe the prizes weren't good enough. But I decided to give money to the organizations I'm actually involved in (the ones that are not formidable to get involved in), rather than just the squeakiest wheel.

The recent activity on the Pacifica front shows why KPFK should turn the listener web forums back on.

Much is going in in Pacifica, but there is no way for ordinary listeners to find out. The station never reports anything on the air.

Places like the Independent Media Centers are not properly discussion boards for Pacifica/KPFK and have other missions.

KPFK had listener forums on the web where listeners could go discuss such issues.

I have heard notices of by law changes. The station web forums should be the place for central discussion of them.

When Jim Lafferty, he turned the boards off and they have remained off. This was Lafferty's lasting contribution to the station.

Given the real attitudes I see of KPFK for its audience and its last of interest in developing any community other than as contributors, I am about ready to declare the whole enterprise a lost cause.

good sharing of expenses allocation...website some of us would never have found..thanks !!!!

and comments of those of us who never know/ see/write to each other directly, and here, we are =
THANKS TO INDY MEDIA as if this were a blogspot....
oh well, maybe it's all we can find in this small city of LA and the hidden-off-to-sponsors-access is KPFK ...

also anyone wanting to look further, check out
www.pacificana.org
you can contribute to their 'forum' as well
and even if we dont learn much about KPFK directly
from the main players [and they are playing with our money, our radio station, our access to participation of our sponsorship..... it is the only other site I can find.

who knows more ?

and there is another blog that is not used hardly,
called