Save KPFA

A flood of emails arrived from listeners last week after KPFA and Pacifica managers issued a gag rule against staff talking about problems at the network. Here’s just one:

“What are you doing to KPFA?” wrote UC Berkeley professor Richard Walker, “KPFA is the heart of Pacifica, yet you are at war with us. What madness is this? You won’t let the dispute between KPFA and Pacifica be discussed on Mitch Jeserich’s show? You won’t accept $60K in pledges to restore the Morning Show and the brilliant Aimee Allison? This is pig-headedness raised to an art form.”

Many also raised objections over the $30,000 of KPFA’s funds that Pacifica has spent on anti-union lawyers. “I’m furious that the hundreds of dollars I’ve donated to KPFA this year could potentially be used to injure the station’s workers,” listener Kristen Burlington wrote. “We don’t have time for this. There is quaking and melting and oppression in this world….We want the Morning Show back. We want John Hamliton back. We want our right to free speech back. We want our hard earned money to go to the propagation of truth and justice. And we want no more evasion and manipulation from you, Arlene.” | MORE LETTERS

She’s referring to Arlene Engelhardt, Pacifica’s executive director. On March 17, KPFA News interviewed the station’s local board treasurer as well as Engelhardt about the details of Pacifica’s $30,000 expenditure to fight KPFA’s union.

NEWS CLIPS | Matthew Lasar: What is “professionalism” in community radio?

In what appears to be a potential case of institutional identity theft, an outside organization has sent a series of deceptive emails to subscribers purporting to be from KPFA.

The “KPFA Morning Mix” emails listeners received February 28 and March 7 advertised upcoming guests on the controversial morning program. The slick emails appeared to be from KPFA and feature station contact information and a soothing photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. However, the emails were actually sent by Media Alliance, a third party organization controlled by Pacifica National Board member Tracy Rosenberg — one of the architects of the removal of the Morning Show.

Listeners trying to reply to what they thought was an official kpfa.org email address were instead directed to a gmail.com address. Other source code (click on the first URL in this screen shot of the email) directed recipients to Media Alliance’s email database, where their link viewing or subscribing activities were recorded.

TO LODGE A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE DECEPTIVE EMAILS AND MISUSE OF YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION, write to Salsa Labs, the marketing company that Rosenberg used, at support@salsalabs.com, and please cc votesavekpfa@gmail.com. Send Salsa Labs a copy of the email you received (if you still have it), tell them you never signed up to receive it, that you would like to know where they got your name, and point out that the email is not KPFA email. You can demand that Salsa Labs drop Media Alliance for such conduct, or at a minimum, block it from sending any further emails. You may also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, which prohibits the sending of fraudulent emails.

Rosenberg has admitted sending the emails, but has not yet answered how she obtained access to KPFA subscribers’ email addresses. KPFA’s local station board will discuss this misuse of the subscriber list at its April meeting. The location will be announced here.

Morning Mix-up

So, what’s Tracy Rosenberg been promoting via her support of the Morning Mix? Shortly after reports emerged that Japan’s Fukushima reactor was melting down, listeners of that program got an uncritical interview with a “market risk analyst” who heavily promoted nuclear power. A week later, they got to listen to a wealthy Haitian art collector bash exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on the day of his return to Haiti.

On March 18, an Alameda County Superior Court judge issued an injunction against Pacifica after it voted to unseat SaveKPFA-affiliated station board member Dan Siegel. The court rejected all of Pacifica’s contentions and ordered Siegel reinstated to both the local KPFA and national Pacifica board seats he holds.

Following Jean Quan‘s historic election as Oakland’s mayor, KPFA board member Tracy Rosenberg claimed that Siegel’s long-standing relationship as an informal advisor to Quan constituted a “political appointment” that disqualified him from serving KPFA or Pacifica. Rosenberg then used her position on the Pacifica national board to manipulate that board into stripping Siegel of his board seats. That action prompted a majority of KPFA’s local board to file suit against Pacifica.

This is the third legal victory for democracy at Pacifica, following two other injunctions in December and February against attempts by Pacifica to manipulate elections.