Thursday, February 26, 2015


 
Musings and wonderings continue :
 
That there is no further discussion heard now about Summer Reese nor has an actual legitimate replacement been put in place to oversee and properly run Pacifica and it's local stations is a blank space that breeds suspicions. Especially in those who have loyally for decades Paid up every time the same plea for desperate funding is incessantly broadcast on air, instead of the regular programming. The silence might seem all is in order and is nice but provides  actual Valid Information - what is going on anyhow    
 
It seems that there is no hope, no positive improvements.  no possibility ever for  KPFK input, and no transparency of what occurs in those dark secretive halls & rooms - so that leaves us just writing, worried, commenting to the ether , tho recorded here  and very few online sites taking extreme sides.  The writing is for us from us...few...of us. 

no info on Summer Reese events can be found on Google. Is it elsewhere hidden away from the biggest NSA participant too ?  If so how do we stakeholders of both KPFK & Pacifica find out ?  Is there a lawsuit pending ? for what amount ? how much is this going to cost 'us' all from what $$$ would otherwise be spent on station 'needs'..as Eva won her suit that was less obviously a contract denied and retracted than Reese's was ? 

Why do we, the radio station sustainers, pay out their hard-earned cash $$$  for the hideous infighting and neglect that occurs in administration or staff interactions? 

Why so much malfeasance and bad behavior in stations that Claim To Be Above the fray of other corporations, government, and everyone else but themselves ? 

Anyone who doest like the malicious only info Ian Masters posted everywhere about Reese - that is no longer needed as he no longer sees his job earnings in danger now - has not heard nor read about all the others  at KPFK or Pacifica PNB, iED, etc.   All those who have not been so 'exposed' or maligned openly  - but  who also have weird views, strange alliances, odd experiences and collusions and are not just the ordinary-normal-hard-working-joe's or jill's they present on air....  

G forbid their past connections and present lives were to be so exposed, including sweet-sounding-white-haired-men who sound so rational on image-air but then act out in fear and anger. No angels exist anywhere near any Pacifica studios, which is why they are also sometimes varied, interesting and present unusual topics  that different than other radios do.

If there is more info revealing Who these on-air hosts or staff are, including those in the current celebrity lites, this is one place too to link or share....not  the old hateful spews - but actual realities of  who are their influences,  what are the stories that relate to their work-life, and how they affect the -if any-future of KPFK or Pacifica stations existence. 

When silence prevails, --like in censorship, self-created or out of knowing others do same to counter-attack as one has done too --then decay and death has already set it.

And the continual angry nagging for more $$$ and more $$$ for months insures that many flee that station to one that is at least tolerable. Some are not of the same extreme persuasion as they were in 1960-70's tho much of the very same programing, voices, and themes are forever recreated endlessly, loopily at all Pacifica stations.

enough of the same outrage and hate already. Nothing else to offer? then it is ok to be gone, for many who formerly paid up constantly. gone .

still wondering what is happening to all the monies we have given many times each year and why what occurs inside the radio station's hollowed halls are main only inside while the Wizard of Oz's presentations on-air continue to leave us musing and wondering...if...only....

[another KPFK article reposted from laindymedia.com to update what is happening to our Los Angeles Pacifica radio station]

 

KPFK FUND DRIVE drives on and on and on .....Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015 at 11:51 AM


no end in sounds of repeat programming, desperate guilt ploys, and asking for money to save what may be a dying old radio station. sad. but may be time for real changes, any how, any time, on air time especially.
found this info at a recent KPFK staffer site:

"FUND DRIVE CONTINUES
Our goal remains at $850,000, reduced from regular goal but definitely definite. As of early Friday [ Feb  20 2015] AM we are at $342,750, with our most successful day being today with $28,700, so at least things appear to be going upward toward the end. No word as to whether we go into March or not. If you want to end it sooner, you know the number (818) 985-5735 and the website: http://www.kpfk.org"

                                         - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Yes, sad that what was so vital and educational for most of it's years on air, the same earnest and vehement voices have become shoutings and  demands.... and none of the ancient holder-on-forever to 'so-called' volunteer programer slots have given open space to more innovative nor
diversified opportunities for any changes. 

No changes ?  it is not because there is no money.  It is because the old timers hold on to their precious on-air slots refusing to allow different voices or opinions in. Not in their payola territory. No Way !

But outside the station, there are few who will pay to keep hearing same angry messages, mostly accusing 'everyone else' [all Others than the ones who keep paying a % of their livelihood ]  of bad faith, poor judgements, and  now deemed to lack all that is of value to a civilized political person.   

Wrong assessment, but one continually heard on KPFK and those from the superiorly-assumed at Pacifica stations ... all the while claiming to be 'for the people, the poor'  with the emphasis repeatedly being  limited to a small slice of the USA or even LA population.   
What is claimed as "mission" is misconstrued for KPFK insiders' convenience and cronies. 

Census says 9% of LA  [and about 14% in USA nationally ] are  identified as black self-described persons,  yet all the while KPFK demands 77% of it's alliances to be with this one group.

 A few others of all colors, religions, persuasions also  struggle for a limited voice on this station.....but listen in ....and find how much is solely devoted to pity-sympathy-identification with their chosen 'underdog' worlds - mostly Blacks.  Why this continued  exclusive alliance and dedication to one racial-cultural group ? 

How limited are the same "free radio" expressions  opened  for poor-underdoged Latinos, Vietnamese, Egyptians, Chinese, Peruvians, Burmese, Venezuelans, Aboriginals, Inuit, Mongolians  or even others like Indonesians ....plus any others also seen daily on news programs  who are  also suffering from droughts, ebola, malarias, food lack, poverty in all forms and no toilets.  

Those who do not reside in USA are not so worthy of attention or being revealed ?    So ?    Why the selective emphasis and selective ignorance? Wonder why KPFK doesn't get more $$$ funds ?  Could part of their pity-party story be the lack of inclusion and slanted version of their worlds as the worst- of worst-scenarios and the  only-righteous one ?   Doubt that view. 

While it's administration, program director and staff stay so continually limited and slanted to one group to support, emulate  and adulate...and given with a bit of saleswomanships of expensive  'alternative' [or unknown and understudied maybe ?] remedies ...and  then the repeated demands for $$$ for those old-new-age conference e-tie-ins to-promote-confidence promoting salesmen ?

Note how little of the  "you are soooo wonderful"- salesmen of these 'motivational talk' tie-ins have to put out  =[emails ? stream some more promos along with affirmative words found in any self-help book in every public library ? & also easily saved in audio books iin libraries too ]  ..
so why are these sales jobs so prominent and prevalent on this listener-sponsored radio station?  

Is it because they are cheap to give to $100-$250+ payees and cheap to advertise as valuable, when they are old and known self-help messages [from before 1970's and on and on, the very same ideas in varied speakers promoting their own stuff yet again..] and not  so valuable, not even actually very useful, but is it  all KPFK has ? 

Could that be the problem - KPFK people programmers are stuck in a rut...again ?  and in so many ways, stuck in the old, done, repeats, again ? 

And then the radio staff keeps asking  strangers to pay them to continue their  same limited views and advertising pitches ?  And also threaten that they will be off-air if all listeners dont send in their earned incomes to save the same-old from their same-old ways ? 

Surprised ? no.   dismayed ?  yes.   Ready to change ?   yep.

A loss of what once was - helpful, innovative, educational and expansive and has now become repetitive, repetitive, repetitive and limited, slanted and boring. 

So those who like to keep the ruins intact for a bit longer, may pay up and  never give up the hope for a return of what once was and no longer is a valued place to listen and learn.  

Too bad.  This world has expanded, opened in so many ways to get to what KPFK before had more exclusive access and now so much more can be found, dis-covered, revealed and gained...everywhere else. Pay to whom for what ?   That question is never asked openly on 90.7FM radio exhortations. What is fresh and not a repeat of same blames, same accusations, same hypocrisies since internal factionalizations are not different than any other organizations are at KPFK even more so. 

sad. 

[this is reposted from laindymedia.org that relates to KPFK local LA Pacifica stn]

KPFK and Pacifica still in moras, chaos, financial turmoil....why ?   

posted on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015 at 12:07 PM

KPFK is still losing money, begging daily and irritating all who have pledged $$$$ and are stakeholders who turn away from what seems endless fractionalized disorder. Some info from available sources about how the problems also emanate from 'the above' organziation's sludging on without any honest improvements or doing real elections to show the way....or stop requiring payments to this nat'l office that is killing off any local gains or attempts to reduce, never stop, the infighting.
excerpts from  http://www.unitedforcommunityradio.org/?p=2042  
as of Feb 17  2015...

attempting to give our local KPFK readers/listeners/stakeholders some reporting of what is occurring behind the secret doors, halls, elections, and maneuverings of it's umbrella parent: Pacifica....

these are partial excerpts here, more relevant to LA's own, vs all the other 4 stations with their own separate but allied and conflated problems and people who create problems for their own needs for power & control... 

there can be no other explanation for what has continued destructing, distressing, and ruining KPFK as well .... as the parent and siblings are dragging down the only station that may have a chance at survival...maybe.

           --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"'Pacifica has been trying to fill the position with no success for almost a year, after ousting the last executive director in March of 2014. The current chair of the board, Margy Wilkinson, a retired clerical worker, has been doing the job for most of the year on a part-time basis. She was briefly interrupted by former KPFK manager Bernard Duncan, who submitted a letter of resignation soon after taking the job citing a pre-existing plan to relocate to his native New Zealand. When the board finally selected a new executive director in January of 2015, the candidate, now identified as labor writer Bill Fletcher Jr, declined the position.....


'Instead of then turning to the second place candidate, who received strong support from many members of the board, the board of directors embarked on a brand new election, apparently unwilling to abide by the results of the first.  ....... 

'......opens the question of whether the board of directors as currently constituted is capable of performing the functions of a nonprofit board or if things have deteriorated beyond that point......

"Winter fund drives underway or recently completed at all of the stations were disappointing, with KPFT reporting $207,000 on a $280,000 goal and KPFA reporting $542,000 on a $630,000. Partway through their fund drives, the other three stations were reporting 10-30% shortfalls to date.

"The shortfalls will exacerbate the cash crunch of the past fall when $500,000 in expense reductions were mandated for the network’s two large California stations, KPFK and KPFA, both of which are now fundraising from dawn to dusk for more than 90 days per year or 25% of their total daytime airtime....

"Pacifica in Exile readers may write to the board at pnb@pacifica.org. They may want to suggest a year without an executive director is enough and it is time to make a legitimate job offer to a candidate who has now  been through three hiring processes between 2013 and 2015 and cease the shenanigans.

"In other news, Pacifica’s large pile of documents is due to the Attorney General of California in the correspondence audit launched by the Registry of Charitable Trusts on December 17, 2014. Among those documents will not be the long-delayed audit of the year ended 9-30-2013, which remains undone after 17 months. Auditor Armanino has declined to sign an engagement letter with Pacifica for the next fiscal year, which ended on 9-30-2014.....

also see article from Truthout here : 
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28824-crises-at-pacifica-

"Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio."
                              - - - - - - - --- - - - - - - - - - - -- 
so?

anyone who cares about KPFK's decent into money grubbing for over 25% of it's airtime and alienating any newer listeners and mostly it's already-paid-up-to-the-hilt stakeholders should get a phone call, an email, a visit even or some words not of comfort but of confrontation for why KPFK is allowing even this small 1//5th part of what once was valuable unique LA Radio to fall into nagging routines that alienate all, reducing any possibility of this station's getting it together...ever..at all.

sad story but what can be heard on 90.7 FM.
kpfk.org
tel 818 985 2711

dont just send in your last pennies, tell KPFK adm & staff how you feel about being bombarded by money guilt-trips to give even more and more and ask why they accede to what ails Pacifica without fighting back those who may want to sell KPFK or another station to pretend to save the failing ailing ones that will fall faster right afterwards.

or ignore it all and let another LA institution dis-appear, die off, and be done with all the trouble this non-conforming-to-laws non-profit org. has become. a skeleton of it's original prior self.
how sad.