KPFK started its Spring fund drive Wednesday with the usual references to stories and issues that people hear only on KPFK.

However, listeners will not hear criticisms on KPFK of KPFK practices and management as the KPFK "Strengthening Committee" slate mailer controlled local station board and management have decided that ignoring critics is a better strategy than responding to them. Responses would repeat the message of the critics and might not be believed by some listeners.

They believe that the number of people knowledgeable of what goes on inside KPFK is very small and the number who read LA Indy Media, viewed the listener forums, or read KPFK related web sites and blogs is even smaller. Even if some of them decided to have a listener's strike during fundraising, the loss of contributions would be small.

The best strategy is therefore stonewalling, they believe.

Recently among KPFK board members, few had heard of the ongoing coverage of KPFK on LA Indy Media. Few knew that KPFK even had listener web user forums when they heard that management had turned them off.

One observer thought that over the years slate mailer leader Grace Aaron has read too many Nixon books. However, she missed the central lesson that stonewalling was what ultimately brought him down.