solidarity

Can Pacifica cope with young peeps? The Red Wave slate for the WBAI Local Station Board

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Red Wave gets the Gezi penguin of approval from PacificaWatch

Can Pacifica cope with the youfff, here we’re talking about people under 35?

We’ll soon find out, because something’s happening in New York. The organisation that benefited most from #feeltheBern was the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, a middle-of-the-road social democratic group. They grew perhaps tenfold, & much more in terms of active members. It’s become the principal home in the US of anti-capitalists who aren’t anarchists.

The DSA’s largest chapter is NYC. And they’re in WBAI. A weekly one-hour, drive-time programme, 5pm Tuesdays, Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), is usually hosted by two members, Jack Devine & Lee Ziesche. In fact, it seems to be de facto proprietary – and I’m not talking Pacifica:

NYC-DSA now has a weekly radio program, Revolutions Per Minute on 99.5 WBAI. If you are interested in getting involved come join! There’s room for everyone, no experience necessary!

https://www.socialists.nyc/events/2019/3/21/revolutions-per-minute-monthly-meeting

Seems becomes definitive, the statement heading RPM’s Twitter page:

*The official* radio show and podcast of NYC Democratic Socialists of America @nycDSA. [my emphases]

https://twitter.com/nycRPM

There is no mention of this on their WBAI webpage: https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=306

That page was augmented today, three links, & a pretty logo.

One link is to the RPM website, which archives the weekly programmes. The inaugural broadcast was M7Jan this year, & it carried an interview with State Senator Julia Salazar, a DSA member, impressively 27-years-old, & more impressively said to be the first socialist in the Senate for well on 100 years (35:31): https://revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com/episodes/january-7th-noamazonnyc. RPM do outreach, having had their first monthly public meeting in March; they also publish a weekly newsletter. The three links: RPM website, http://revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com; their nest, https://twitter.com/nycRPM; & http://bit.ly/rpm-newsletter. [UPDATE: as of Tu27Aug, the logo & three links have been deleted, without explanation, from the programme’s WBAI page. Quite odd.]

Not surprisingly they’ve got a slate of candidates, the Red Wave, in the current WBAI Local Station Board elections.

They have seven listener-candidates & two staff-candidates, here in ranked order: Safia Albaiti, Michael Mordowanec, Charlotte Albrecht, Rosa Palmieri, Simone Norman, Jez Zerbe, & David Torcivia; Jack Devine, & Amy Wilson. (As for the competition, there are 26 verified candidates for the nine listener-seats, & four for the three staff-seats, so Red Wave will win at least one of the latter.) “We’ll have a website up soon with a detailed platform and vision”, in the meantime, https://www.facebook.com/RedWaveWBAI/ & https://twitter.com/RedWaveWBAI (luv the Pisa transmitter, non-Stalinesque socialist realism, in the honest sense). https://airtable.com/shrnu59exwc0rRKad (gives the rankings, & also has a form for email updates from the Red Wave Collective)

A to-&-fro between WBAI listener-candidates featured four of their number, Cdes. Albaiti, Albrecht, Palmieri, & Zerbe. They acquitted themselves well, especially Cde. Albaiti (she is indeed, astutely, ranked #1 on their listener-slate). The video was published this Thursday, 22Aug, on the YouTube channel of National Elections Supervisor Renee Penaloza, & on her website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpYa0DhFGB4 & https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wbai-forum-stephen-finkelstein-david-andersson-dee-dee-halleck-jack-de-palma-jez-zerbe-william-heerwagon-safia-albaiti-rosa-palmieri-charlotte-albrecht/ (snappy URL – it’s ‘Heerwagen’ too). All nine candidates, bar Cde. Palmieri (perversely so, as she’s an actress), have a vid of their one-minute statement at the two sites.

Oddly, not one of their statements mentions that they constitute a slate, nor do they mention each other. Demonstrates they’re new to electioneering. https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wbai-candidate-statements/wbai-listener-statements/ & https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wbai-candidate-statements/wbai-staff-statements/

It’s also surprising that no statement stresses that the candidate isn’t a grandparent or great-grandparent, making the slate a fresh broom for WBAI. This isn’t to be ageist, simply drawing attention to perhaps the biggest persuasive plus they have: voters, one suspects, don’t plumb so much for candidate politics as they do for personal characteristics, & with everyone knowing that Pacifica is getting even older, lots of voters will be pleased that under-40s, even those in their 20s, are running. Letting voters know this will certainly not harm their chances.

If word of their slate spreads, with the positive message that they are part of Pacifica’s & WBAI’s future, they have every chance of getting at least five elected. They really need to hammer home their comparative advantage. The recent past shows that a listener can get elected at WBAI with what seems to be little campaigning. Eve Moser did so with nine votes in the first round of the 4Jan2016 election, out of 920 voting (election report, pages 2 & 56), winning out only in the penultimate round of redistributing the votes (p. 56). https://mega.nz/#!3rxxjAAa!WX4Jz65LkNJC3NYFQyArJwptK1dGX8USofVIq4qRCxM (this substitutes for the public link, broken without notice, presumably by NES Penaloza, c. Mar-June this year, http://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2016/01/UPDATED-13Jan-16-WBAI-Listener-Results-Certification-LetterSimply-Voting.pdf)

Then on 5Mar this year (results certified 18Mar), Hazel Pinder did the same with three such votes, out of 830 voting (other low achievers, likewise getting elected, were Dacio Quintana with five; Michael White, nine; Jim Dingeman, 12; Carolyn McIntyre, 13; & King Downing, 14). You see how even being a parent comes in useful? Remarkably, our Hazel was then elected in the second round, the only candidate to do so, having picked up 88% of Errol Maitland’s 198 redistributed votes! So, sadly, all down to the slate, not Hazel’s magnetism. The first & last rounds of the nominal 2018 pseudo-election: https://mega.nz/#!yz4lEChK!AzaYP0_nv9b30hYQGb3xr3O71DnY7msBracGaajIkhg & https://mega.nz/#!6zxxHajY!J2dOgxN6paySjOENYqugm8A2hMBAdwkXKjY0lnxaCaM

Redistributed votes. The Pacifica voting system meant that March this year, for the WBAI listener pseudo-election, once one got 60 votes one got elected, be it the first round, the 25th round. (For the staff, it was 17 votes.) And how many in the NYC chapter of DSA? . . . “5 500+”. (At the 19Nov2018 ‘record date’, there were 6 806 WBAI listener-members & 177 staff.) https://www.socialists.nyc/ & https://mega.nz/#!fyAwGICZ!-4uWYMHZW3CHxt6yCOITu006SVZ4AyNPjT9bWw6csb0 (Election Final Report 2018, pp. 7-9, 9, 1, 19; in Stalinist style, no longer publicly available on a Pacifica site – with Pacifica, its pervasive & entrenched anti-transparency culture, integral to its unthinking common sense, download written records whilst you can!)

On Monday, 19Aug, Red Wave had an intro to Pacifican morality, having to issue a denial statement because the dastardly Steve Brown had put their candidates as endorsers on one of his mailers. A leopard never changes its spots; a slug never loses its slime. Did he ever know Jeff, one may wonder? https://www.facebook.com/notes/red-wave-wbai/red-wave-statement-on-the-stephen-brown-endosement-mailer/113899156636566/

Red Wave have set things up nicely, giving the WBAI members a test. How will they respond to the shock of the new, the shock of the youfff?

Will the Red Wave sweep all before it? Or will it be dammed, reduced to a ripple?

Can WBAI cope with this injection of youfff?

Or will WBAI carry on, undisturbed, confirmed & contented in its alienation, as if #feeltheBern never happened?

WBAI is fortunate to be presented with this opportunity, for Red Wave to bring a two-generation shift to the LSB. But will it be a step too far for the WBAI members?

This is a test of Pacifica’s capacity to change with the times, to embrace a harbinger of the future.

What transpires will be a portent, evidence of Pacifica’s capacity to re-new.

Whither Pacifica?

And the Gezi Park penguin graffito? There are very few green spaces, let alone parks, in much of Istanbul, population c. 20m, especially in the built-up retail areas. Gezi was to be destroyed, turned into shops & a barracks (where’s the surprise). People protested. When the rioting police moved in at 1am, Su2June2013, CNN International covered the attacks live; CNN Türk carried on showing their documentary, Penguins: Spy in the Huddle, starring 50 spycams. (Would have brought a smile to the face of Gil Scott-Heron.) Penguin graffiti ensued, along with a popular chant, responding to a police supply problem: ‘the people demand the old tear gas’.

Pacifica’s strategic plan: Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, ‘The Comedy of Terrors’ allegory

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. . . Pacifica has its peculiar way of surviving: the necro-economics of the golden corpses . . .

✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞ ☦ ✞

The Comedy of Terrors. Vincent Price plays an undertaker; Peter Lorre, his assistant. Business is slow; creditors at his door. The Vladimir question: what is to be done? Bingo! Increase demand: raise the death rate. So Vince & Pete take to the night, murdering. Then, being in the neighbourhood, they offer their services to the bereaved. Problem solved.

Pacifica is a radio network. Income evaporating, having halved over the decade; creditors at its door. What’s saving Pacifica is corpses. Golden corpses, the bequests. But there can never be enough, can there? Especially with cashflow being so acute.

So have a heart. Think of others.

Do your lil bit for the network.

Auto; assist. Same-same. It’s all good.

Do it for The Mission.

Do it for Lew.

Trailer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ARUKfGB6wc; full film, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7MOFfqxBvk (the ESRT moment, 7:56; the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee moment, 12:25; the plan is implemented again, applied to the ESRT problem, 30:20; the Pacifica premiums scam moment, 53:52). Putting an end to interminable fund-drives: pacific termination with extreme prejudice.

Remembering that Pacifica has lost its sense of humour: Twit Wit Radio

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From the weeks leading up to the Trumpanzee taking the crown, probably the first of two:

. . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . . tweet . . .

No explanation has ever been given for the unforgivable axing of this programme, the funniest on Pacifica.

The complete absence of a sense of humour also meant that the KPFA admin excised this multi-year programme from the archive. Satire never loses its bite. So a back-handed compliment – one we could do without.

(Apologies to TR: please consider it a re-twit.)

Leak of $3.7m loan contract with the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC

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The Pacifica advocates of the loan from the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC, have presented it as a good Samaritan, doing it out of the kindness of its heart. In fact, FJC is in a competitive market as a manager of donor-advised funds, a sector of the charity industry. One of its money-making operations is running a fund that lends at prime-plus, the Agency Loan Fund, ALF. Donors to FJC can lodge money with ALF, as can outsiders, all hungry for those extra percentage points of interest earnt.

FJC had been having problems finding borrowers for these prime-plus loans: only 46% of ALF had been converted into loans at 31Mar2018, the very time of the 2Apr Pacifica loan (its latest auditor’s report, year-end 31Mar2018, page 20; page 22 of the PDF). So, of course, Pacifica was welcomed with open arms. Sentiment this was not. http://fjc.org/uploads/user-uploads/image/FJC%203-31-18%20FINAL.pdf

The greatest aid to Pacifica transparency, on this or any matter, has not come from the National Board, the PNB. No, this came with the documents leaked W26June2019 on a Facebook group, then co-moderated & -administered by Grace Aaron. She was then, as now, Chair of the Pacifica Foundation. Most of the documents concern the loan from FJC. https://www.facebook.com/groups/PacificaRadiowaves/permalink/1264765520345396/

There are 18 unique documents (one is a copy):

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/e1lo0t30pd4wc/ (the original drop)

https://mega.nz/folder/EdtSkCDZ#oJZi7rkbk2KcI6DtzIudXw (convenient one-click download of the folder; also ‘preview’ allows reading online)

The ‘root’ contract, called the “loan agreement”, 2Apr2018, signed by Pacifica Interim Executive Director Tom Livingston & FJC President Lorin Silverman:

https://mega.nz/file/AI0iUYga#QzMtaBd0iRTZJ_YNmh2KZ1xKu7Qh_hQ6IcPMVkGWX94

There’s also an advertising (underwriting) contract as part of the loan, signed 23Mar2018 by iED Livingston; please see below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The $3.7m loan was reduced to $3.265m loan when Pacifica was unable to collateralise the KPFK transmitter site lease, at Mount Wilson. This was because it’s federal land administered by the Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service, & they wouldn’t give the necessary permissions. (The documentary evidence is contrary to the story being told in 2018 by Grace Aaron et al. that the attempt was to collateralise the transmitter, not the site lease – please see the loan agreement, Sec. 2.1(d); p. 5.)

What did the Pacifica National Board (PNB) commit the members to when it accepted FJC’s offer of the money?

  • the signed loan agreement is dated 2Apr2018, & it has a three-year term;
  • significantly, Pacifica directors agreed to a contract that details only two ways to pay the principal by 2Apr2021: selling as many broadcasting licences & station buildings as it takes: “a swap or sale of one or more radio licenses or a sale of other Pacifica owned assets” (Recital B; page 1);
  • annual interest at three percentage points above US prime rate (Section 2.2; p. 5). (So, an annual 7.75% when the loan started; 8%, effective 14June; 8.25%, 27Sep; 8.5%, 20Dec2018. [UPDATE: 8.25%, effective Th1Aug2019; 8%, Th19Sep; 7.75%, Th31Oct; 7.25%, W4Mar2020; 6.25%, M16Mar.] The three-year interest charge, with the coming recession dragging down the rate, will be less than $800k.);
  • the default rate, such as after a late payment – not least the paying of the principal on time (Sec. 8.1; p. 13) – is the lower of either 18% a year or the maximum under law (Sec. 1.1(10); p. 2);
  • Pacifica directors, with no public discussion, agreed to carry advertising, & on 23Mar2018 signed a contract with an advertising broker, F. Y. Eye, Inc.; FJC chose to make Pacifica do this “in lieu” of its “origination fee” (Sec. 3.1(2); pp. 6-7), & you may wonder why – details below; &
  • FJC never waits for a loan to default: it sells the loan on when it’s only “potentially impaired”, to the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation; details below.

Link to the loan agreement again:

https://mega.nz/file/AI0iUYga#QzMtaBd0iRTZJ_YNmh2KZ1xKu7Qh_hQ6IcPMVkGWX94

Pacifica’s immediate future is structured more by this contract than anything else.

~~~

PACIFICA’S $37 000 ADVERTISING CONTRACT with A FJC ‘DAUGHTER’ CORPORATION

As part of the FJC contract, on 23Mar2018 iED Tom Livingston signed an underwriting contract on behalf of Pacifica, for it to carry advertising. This hasn’t been acknowledged publicly by any Pacifica body, not least the Pacifica National Board (PNB). The details now follow.

Appended to the loan agreement, signed by Pacifica & FJC, is an unsigned underwriting contract (pp. 25-7). It is “substantially in the form” that Pacifica has agreed to sign with the NYC advertising broker, F.Y. Eye, Inc. (Sec. 3.1(2); pp. 6-7 & 25-7) – a corporation founded by its president, Lorin Silverman . . . yes, the President & Treasurer of FJC, and President & Treasurer of the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation (of which, more anon). And, yes, it was Lorin’s signature that lent the money to Pacifica.

The language here is odd because IED Tom Livingston actually signed an advertising contract a week earlier, on 23Mar2018. The contract is with F. Y. Eye, Inc., & it’s dated 2Apr2018 (linked below). Signing for the latter was its President, Lorin Silverman (yes, a busy guy). Pacifica has publicly issued no document demonstrating that Livingston had been authorised by the PNB to do this. Likewise, there is no public Pacifica document showing that the PNB had agreed to advertising via the FJC loan. Such is the life of a secret society – moreover, one funded directly by the members, members who were never consulted on this matter. Moreover, members who have never shown any evidence, at any time in Pacifica’s 73-year history, of being enamoured to advertising on the Pacifica airwaves. Such is the anti-democratic disposition of the PNB majority. Shameless authoritarians. Eat yer heart out, Lew.

https://mega.nz/file/ZZ8gFSJD#VnNgdE2R4ap3_e0hMI2ma4RVssZSGek7tLWMle10zRM

And F. Y. Eye’s VP Strategy & Operations? Allison Silverman. Lorin’s daughter.

~~~

FJC SELLS “POTENTIALLY IMPAIRED” LOANS TO THE MARTY & DOROTHY SILVERMAN FOUNDATION

FJC doesn’t let a borrower default: they sell the loan, without suffering a discount, to the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation. FJC’s auditor refers to these loans as “potentially impaired” (emphasis added). This FJC policy is disclosed in any of their auditor’s reports & IRS form 990’s – the latest: pp. 10-11, pp. 12-13 of the PDF, http://fjc.org/uploads/user-uploads/image/FJC%203-31-18%20FINAL.pdf; & Schedule O, p. 90 of the PDF, http://fjc.org/uploads/user-uploads/image/file/990%20FY17%20-%20For%20Distribution.pdf).

Full details of this FJC arrangement are here:

Has FJC sold the $3.265m loan? Is the owner the Marty & Dorothy Silverman Foundation – or have they in turn sold it on?

Welcome!

PacificaWatch2 Comments

“Excellent!”, exclaimed Mr Burns . . .

[Please note the convenient tabs at the top of each page of this blog: the blog feed (replicated vertically, top right of each page); sources on Pacifica & its operating environment, with many links; annual auditor’s reports, covering the period from 1Oct2004 to present; &, lastly, details of the $3.7m loan from the Foundation for the Jewish Community, FJC, taken out on 2Apr2018.]

Welcome! This blog started Th18July2019. This was the day the Pacifica ‘leadership’ told the world they’d blown it – again. They’d discarded an executive director, Maxie Jackson, who had been trying to give the radio network a sound foundation, & therefore the possibility of a sustained future, rather than being in perpetual firefighting mode, quenched somewhat by the occasional shower of a bequest. Listeners, after all, can only take so much ZR, Zombie Radio. And they deserve so much better. Pacifica needs its renaissance. Bio-economics, not necro-economics.

Please also note the pages at the top. One is Sources on Pacifica, carrying links to documents that are usually forgotten about – or some wish didn’t exist at all, & certainly not spoken about. You’re welcome to add links or make suggestions (please either make a comment to any post – it’ll be held as pending – or send an email, even with end-to-end encryption, to pacificawatch@tutamail.com).

https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/sources-on-pacifica/

When I can make the time, I’m adding, as context, older material that I’ve written. Most of that comes from the blog of Chris Albertson, a former station manager of Pacifica’s WBAI in NYC, https://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/. Sadly, Chris died in April this year. He was a gentle man, kind, and decent. This blog is dedicated to him.

. . .

Spreading knowledge to improve transparency & accountability – all too often a conceit, a pious hope even. Many know what’s best but refuse to act. But when one cares, other than trying, what else can one rationally do? This is steadfastness, sumud.

So, yes, it’s often banging one’s head up against a brick wall, or the breakfast table. And, yes, given that normal people are quite limited in their incompetence & cock-ups, & for how long they let things go before seriously addressing what’s going wrong, one occasionally does have the sneaky suspicion that just a tad of Pacifica’s dysfunctionality might be intended, simply left to fester, making it easier to break up the network to the benefit of any station happening, against all the odds, to be making an operating surplus. Yes, Mr Burns is the metaphoric elephant in the studio.

This blog will assemble mostly publicly available info on the Pacifica radio network, known legally as Pacifica Foundation, Inc. The info will be commented upon, particularly for the gaps, &, importantly, a special striving will be made to ask the most illuminating questions, especially about what is not being said by decision-makers & the documents.

Pacifica entered a new, critical, phase in its history on 2Apr2018 when it signed the largest loan in its history, with the Foundation for the Jewish Community, known legally as FJC. The loan was $3 700 000 (albeit now reduced to $3 265 000), pretty onerous for a now annual $11m organisation that last made an audited annual net income in fiscal 2006. Yes, 2006. That run of consecutive losses, through fiscal 2017 (the latest statements), has totalled at least $12 745 968. (‘At least’ because the 2017 auditors refused to declare whether the statements were materially accurate: they found insufficient supporting evidence.) Pacifica last had audited net assets at 30Sep2012; & last had audited net current assets (that is, liquidity) at 30Sep2009. Yes, 2009. Not surprisingly, to get the loan, it had to give FJC as collateral all its property, every chair & coffee cup, besides the station buildings used by, not owned by, KPFA, KPFK, & KPFT (those in Berkeley, LA, Houston).

Pacifica decision-makers come & go, but the institution is noted for its obdurate & deep secrecy culture. Nevertheless, the co-signed loan contract between Pacifica & FJC was leaked on W26June2019, published with other documents on a public Facebook group, co-moderated & -administered at the time by Grace Aaron (she chaired her first public Pacifica National Board, PNB, meeting on Th9May this year). As an aside on the matter of info flow & speech advocacy, supposedly Pacifica values, my application to join that FB group, thereby acquiring the right to comment, has remained “pending” for three weeks now; two FB messages have gone unanswered, even unacknowledged; as context, this year just six people have joined. https://www.facebook.com/groups/PacificaRadiowaves/permalink/1264765520345396/ [UPDATE: the remaining gatekeeper let me in M12Aug, as if I’d wandered up the same day – rather than almost 50 days before.]

The leaked documents are linked from the original FB post, plus here: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/e1lo0t30pd4wc/ (the original drop); & https://mega.nz/#F!PloCiSqJ!9rLejSkttE7gCVCCq3q86g (convenient one-click download of the folder; also ‘preview’ allows reading online)

Pacifica power is now even more concentrated because Grace Aaron became the executive director on the evening of F5July: yes, Maxie Jackson left his job that day, “resigning”, according to Aaron’s statement, ‘Executive Director Transition’, at the Th18July PNB (13:18, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb190718/pnb190718a.mp3). Committee meetings M8 & Tu9July had quietly disclosed, without using his name, that he had been disappeared. The most contemptuous was from director Mansoor Sabbagh, a KPFK staff delegate, to the PNB Finance Cttee: “we have got rid of our Executive Director” (44:46, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/finance/190709/finance190709b.mp3; unbelievably, R Paul Martin, WBAI’s stalwart treasurer, didn’t seem to know that Maxie had gone). With Pacifica being Pyongyang, without word from The Dear Leader this must have been unrestrained hubris. Quite pathetic, really, coming from Pacifica’s Uriah Heep. Yes, all human life, & much more, is found in PacificaWorld.

Well, be that as it may. The Personnel Cttee’s ED evaluation had stitched Maxie up M1July; the next day’s private PNB gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse; & Ken ‘I-can’t-help-it-if-I-sound-like-an-associate-of-Jimmy-Hoffa’ Aaron did the rest.

And being Pacifica, for over two weeks, no public announcement of the dismissal. No press statement. No statement to staff. No statement to listeners. Nothing on the website, https://pacifica.org/ (except ‘Contact>Foundation’ had a change, “Interim Executive Director”, but then gave “Bill Crosier”, which was true upto 23Jan2018 – still there as of F19July; no surprise, as the latest item in the ‘News’ section is dated 25Feb2015). And even now there’s no explanation. Contempt for listeners & staff alike. A complete lack of manners. Just milk them for cash. Last night’s words, or lack of them, an insult. The behaviour, cowardly. A board of directors, lacking in integrity. But what’s new?

The Pacifica ‘leadership’ had a real opportunity with Maxie, but didn’t seem to recognise this, & now they have blown it. Despite their repeated words of receptivity, they actually couldn’t cope with the prospect of change, fundamental change. In two posts I have examined what happened & why, & what it means for Pacifica’s future: https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2019/07/24/maxie-jackson-pacifica-the-politics-of-technique-a-tragedy-for-both/ & https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2019/08/01/administrative-measures-not-open-discussion-the-pacifica-way/

Pacifica’s inability to cope with an ED determined to bring industry norms to the network, comes on top of all five Spring Fund-Drives failing, & cashflow becoming seriously more acute than usual in June. Unable to generate an annual net income since FY2006, & now with the added burden of the c. $300k annual FJC interest charge, Pacifica now finds itself descending into necro-economics: relying on rich corpses to offer up bequests.

Pacifica, through its actions, & inactions, is faced with declining & ageing listenership, declining membership, declining listener-fundraising, & grants cut off through lack of listeners & audited financial statements (the FY2017 auditor made things worse Th27June by refusing to declare that the statements were materially accurate, having no alternative given the acute lack of supporting financial records). To cap it all, the PNB majority has now driven out a moderniser & technician, ED Maxie Jackson. He was behaving in a completely, not just un-Pacifican, but anti-Pacifican way: trying to raise standards, trying to lay the basis for Pacifica to improve its competencies, structures, & processes in broadcasting, programming, community involvement, fundraising, bookkeeping & accounting, & governance.

This was never going to end well. Being told home truths, & pushing for best practices rather than the same-olde-same-olde, just ruffled too many feathers, just upset too many people. The whiff of NPR-lite. The ED simply didn’t understand Pacifica. The ED simply had to go.

So what’s the plan? “[The] Pacifica Foundation is in the process of hiring a highly qualified radio, television, & multimedia professional to hold the interim position of executive director. More information will be forthcoming. A formal search for a permanent executive director is already in progress” (‘Executive Director Transition’, Th18July PNB; 14:00, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb190718/pnb190718a.mp3). Sounds reasonable. The sort of thing a normal radio network would say. But what are the prospects?

Consider the evidence. There were seven ED’s 2004-2009; since then, with Aaron, there have been another nine. So 16 in 15 years. Maxie lasted nine months. How many other outsiders, since 2009, have lasted longer than Maxie? One: Arlene Engelhardt, 2009-2012. Pacifica is so toxic for outsiders that there were only two others amongst these nine: John Proffitt, five months; Tom Livingston, eight months. Maxie was the second-choice: Numero Uno, at the last minute, decided to tune in to a PNB livestream. He immediately withdrew his application. Today, as yesterday, which media professional will risk their career with Pacifica?

So much for the current goings-on. This blog, in an attempt to give context & coherence, will begin with posts of work written in 2018 & 2019, corrected to remove the few errors pointed out to me. They were kindly published by Chris Albertson, a former station manager of WBAI, at his longstanding blog, https://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/. Sadly Chris died in April this year, & his blog cannot be added to. He was a gentle man, kind, and decent. This blog is dedicated to him.

But first I post the materially objective quantitative starting point, the annual auditor’s reports, here those covering the period from 1Oct2004. (These don’t include the reports by the pensions’ auditor, which I have been unable to obtain.)

Readers are heartily invited to comment, of course, & it would be even better if you also submitted posts & shared ideas on what should be covered & discussed. Please email me at pacificawatch@tutamail.com, a provider that allows end-to-end encryption.

For convenience, the main longer pieces I’ve written are downloadable as PDF’s here (I had sent them to all delegates of the five Local Station Boards on 16Nov2018): https://www.mediafire.com/#mr2t6dtdeknsd