Subject: KPFK concerns
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 09:11:52 -0500
From: Leslie Cagan
To: lesliecagan@igc.org
During this past week I have received several hundred messages from
folks in the KPFK listening area. Some of you wrote to me earlier as
well, but most have been new messages. I have read each of your
messages, but do not have the time to send personal responses. In
addition, most of you are raising the same questions and concerns and so
I hope this message will address the issues you are most interested in.
If after reading this you have other questions or felt I did not
adequately address things please feel free to contact me again.
You will see this message from me has three parts. The first section
answers your most pressing question. The second part provides some
background to what is going on right now. And the third part is a
response to a Jan. 14 a report on the recent meeting of the Interim
Board of Directors of the Pacifica Foundation that was posted on the
Friends of KPFK web site. While the report is not signed it speaks to
many of the issues your emails have raised, and so I thought it might be
useful to respond to it.
While these comments are mine own and not an official statement of the
Board of Directors of the Pacifica Foundation, I know the new Board
majority shares the perspectives articulated here.
Leslie Cagan
Chair, National Board
-----------------------------------------------
IMMEDIATE QUESTIONS
a) Yes, we are committed to re-structuring Pacifica’s finances so each
station controls its own money. This is the way it used to work and it
was the previous Board leadership and national staff that consolidated
all of the finances against the wishes and interests of the stations.
The first steps in this process have already been taken, as operating
accounts directly controlled by station management have been set up for
KPFK, KPFA and WBAI.
b) As I understand it, for a few hours the phones at KPFK were turned
off. The check to pay this bill had been sent, and we are trying to find
out from the phone company why the phones had been shut off at all.
c) The new leadership of the National Board is committed to returning
control of the stations to the communities they are based in. We are
working closely with the Local Advisory Boards, as well as station staff
to develop ways to undo the direction previously set - when station
self-control was systematically undermined.
d) No, the new National Board is not interested in controlling program
decisions at the stations. We did take an unusual, but we believe very
needed, step and directed all of our stations to return Democracy Now!
to its usual times slots. While KPFK’s management has returned the show
to its previous 6 am time period we are upset that they are still
refusing to run it in the 9 am slot as they used to.
BACKGROUND
For the past few years the Pacifica Foundation has been in crisis. As
more people right out of the corporate world took seats on the National
Board there was a noticeable new direction taking hold. For instance,
(a) more decisions were being made by fewer and fewer people as the
Board’s executive committee decided things usually in the hands of the
full board, (b) discussion of possibly selling one of the station’s
licenses surfaced, (c) the legitimate role of the Local Advisory Boards
at each station was undermined, and (e) the national news show became
weaker and weaker.
A crisis erupted at KPFA in the Bay Area in 1999 when the national
leadership fired a popular station manager, dragged programmers out of
the station and suspended live broadcasts for three weeks. For many
listeners and programmers around the network the KPFA crisis was the
culmination of what they saw at their own stations as programming lost
its cutting edge commitment to diversity. Instead of a wide array of
programs speaking to a broad range of communities, we began to hear more
music and more track programming.
In addition, a decision was made a few years ago to centralize all of
the finances of the Foundation. This meant that each station would no
longer have control over its own money. The finance office (which had
always been in Los Angeles) was moved to Washington, DC to become part
of the business office, which had been moved out of Berkeley in the
middle of the night two years ago. The way these decisions were made
–without Board consultation, without LAB consultation – were just as
alarming as moving everything to Washington, DC where our staff would be
vulnerable to greater pressures from agencies like the FCC and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
It was in this context that three law suits were brought against the
Pacifica Foundation: one by listeners, one by members of four of the
Local Advisory Boards, and one by dissident members of the National
Board (with a legal action by other dissident Board members in support
of that). At the same time, listener groups around the country formed
and organizing against those leading the Foundation in the wrong
direction gained momentum.
The nationwide struggle to reclaim Pacifica, to recommit the Foundation
to community-based, free speech, corporate free radio reached an
important turning point just a little more than a month ago with the
settlement of the lawsuits. It was this settlement that created the
newly formed Interim National Board of Directors, which first met by
conference call on Dec. 29, 2001 and then last weekend in New York City
for its first full session.
The Interim Board has a mandate to review and revise the Foundation’s
bylaws and to return the power of the Local Advisory Boards to the
governance structures of the Foundation, to develop guidelines and
ensure elections for the Local Advisory Boards, and to address several
pressing, immediate issues. Critical in all of this is the fact that
those who used to be the dissidents are now in the majority of this
Interim Board. At the first meeting of the Interim Board (12/29/01) we
elected new officers: myself, Leslie Cagan, chair; Carol Spooner,
secretary; Jabari Zakiya, treasurer.
In addition to everything else, this new Board – and the new staff it is
putting into place – has been given a debt of $3 million. Under the
previous leadership, the national executive director was allowed to hire
extremely high priced lawyers and public relations firms, stay at
expensive hotels, waste money in countless ways. At least 85% the
Foundation’s money comes from the listeners in our five listening areas
and yet they had no voice in determining how their money would be spent.
Just this week we have, for the first time, had a chance to begin to
look at the books and see what we must deal with.
I realize this was a bit long, but without the background it is hard to
understand what is happening today. There are, as you might imagine,
many more details.
-------------------------------------
RESPONSE TO THE REPORT OF THE NATIONAL BOARD MEETING ON THE FRIENDS OF
KPFK WEB SITE
A) The report says the Board has refused to address the KPFK financial
crisis, that none of the network’s finances were discussed and that a
finance committee was not convened, etc.
The new Board did set up a finance committee and did discuss in an
overall way the financial crisis of the Foundation. We were delighted to
accept a donation of $20,000 to hire an independent accounting firm to
take two solid weeks to dig into the books and give us a thorough report
– which we will make public. That process began this week and we are
expecting the report by Jan. 31st. Based on this report and what we are
learning just by being in the national office and having access to
financial records, we will be able to develop a plan for handling the
massive debt.
B) The web site’s report says that the Board did not address the need
for KPFK to finish its transmitter and antenna project.
In fact, the station’s general manager gave a very detailed and much
appreciated report on this pressing issue. We are looking into what
happened to money raised specifically for this project. A top priority
for this new Board is to make sure this project is completed as quickly
as possible and that all monies related to it are fully accounted for.
C) The report of the meeting claims this new Board took actions that it
was not mandated to make, such as firing the general manager at WBAI,
the station in NYC – and that this was done for political reasons.
Yes, the Board did fire WBAI’s general manager, but not for the reason
this web site report states. On Dec. 22, 2000 the locks on the station’s
doors where changed in the middle of night, the manager was fired, and
the next morning the program director and a producer were both fired
without cause. Over the next 13 months almost 30 people were removed
from the air and "banned" from the station. Most of those people were
not paid staff, but they all had long histories with the station. What
they all had in common was their refusal to abide by an arbitrarily
imposed "gag rule", their outspoken opposition to the corporate
leadership of the National Board, and for their commitment to diverse
programming with strong progressive politics.
As people were being taken off the air, the listeners in the New York
area heard more and more race-baiting and anti-left rhetoric. The
climate at the station changed as the LAB was no longer allowed to meet
there, as listeners were no longer welcome to drop in, and as tensions
and hostility was expressed in hate filled language both on and off the
air. (The on air attacks and race baiting are all on tape if anyone
wants to hear for themselves.)
It was clear to the new Board majority that action – swift action – had
to be taken. While the hiring and firing of station managers is usually
in the hands of the Foundation’s executive director, we felt the unusual
crisis at the station compelled us to intervene. The Board does have the
ultimate responsibility for oversight of the five Pacifica stations and
inaction on our part, in this case, would have been a gross abdication
of our responsibility.
d) The report claims that the new Board ordered the staff at WBAI to
affiliate with a specific union.
This is simply not true. What we said was that until there is a new
contract signed that the terms of the old contract should remain in
place – which we, as management, will abide by those terms. We do
recognize that the old union contract has a major difference with the
new union. AFTRA (the new union) will not include non-paid staff in the
bargaining unit, which the previous union did. We do recognize AFTRA as
the new union of the staff at WBAI and we have had direct contact with
their representative.
e) The web site report says that we conducted a 3 day long search
for a new executive director of the Foundation.
It is true that the executive director search committee set up during
the 12/29/01 meeting had planned to move very quickly to hire a new
executive director. But before this past weekend’s meeting that
committee had already realized it has to slow the process down. (If
anyone is interested in applying for this position, please fax your
resume to Joyce Snowden at our national office: 202-234-7488.)
f) The report says we appointed a new acting executive director without
regard to the criticism of him made by a union representative at the
meeting.
We are delighted that Dan Coughlin was available and agreed to step into
the position of acting executive director. The network faces tremendous
problems – including but not limited to the financial mess the old
"leadership" left us. We are confident that Dan’s long experience with
Pacifica, his many skills, and his commitment to the mission of Pacifica
will serve the organization well. The statements made by the union
representative about Dan were outrageous, not based in fact and could
only be seen as inflammatory. We stand by our decision to bring Dan on
as acting ED – and we thank him for taking the position. In this initial
week he has already done tremendous work!
g) The report goes on to claim that with a "a certain arrogance and
smirk" I announced that our next Board meeting will be in Los Angeles.
I have no idea what this is referring to. The new leadership of the
National Board is committed to returning to the former practice of
rotating our meetings amongst the five listening areas. It has been
several years since the Board met in Los Angeles and that is why we are
going there the weekend of March 8-10th. All of our meetings are open
and as the details become available to will make sure the information is
widely shared. We hope you will be able to join us for all or part of
that weekend!
h) The report claims that we new Board leadership is not interested in
the audience of KPFK and does not recognize the growth in audience and
income at the station of the past few years. It says we are willing to
write off you, the listeners if KPFK.
This could not be further from the truth! We are deeply committed to the
vision of listener sponsored radio laid out by Lewis Hill when we
started Pacifica more than 50 years ago. The challenge is to hold on to
listeners as new programs reach out to other communities. The task we
face as an Interim Board is to develop new mechanisms for greater
listener involvement in the governance of the stations (through
strengthening the Local Advisory Boards, for instance).
We are not interested in attacking KPFK. Rather, we seek to rebuild the
national organization so it better serves the needs of the local
stations.