Pacifica

KPFA exceeds funding goals, but isn’t out of the woods yet

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bannerKPFA’s staff report the station beat its Summer Fund Drive goal by a tidy $10,000. (If you didn’t get a chance to give, you can still do so online). But with Pacifica’s financial problems intensifying, KPFA’s budget could be threatened.

KPFA’s fundraising success over the past year is partly a result of former manager Andrew Phillips‘ decision to buck Pacifica and put former Morning Show staff Brian Edwards-Tiekert and Laura Prives back to work in the mornings, producing UpFront, along with KPFK’s Sonali Kolhatkar. UpFront has consistently been the station’s biggest fundraiser since the first day of its existence. According to an analysis by KPFA staff, the total pledged during fund drives increased by $220,000 in the 12 months following the introduction of UpFront — all without adding a single day of fundraising.

The better fundraising means KPFA’s Local Station Board (LSB) was able to approve a budget for next year that starts to roll back cuts begun in 2010. The LSB-approved budget restores some funding to KPFA’s Apprenticeship Program, sets aside money for the professional development of KPFA’s unpaid staff, and invests in long-term off-air fundraising strategies, so that the station can shorten its fund drives. The budget passed last Saturday’s LSB with an overwhelming, cross-factional majority — but one KPFA board member voted against it.

Who could that be? The sole vote against approving KPFA’s budget was from Tracy Rosenberg, who also happens to be Pacifica’s treasurer and is at the heart of the network’s mismanagement. KPFA’s budget still needs approval by the Pacifica National Board. Rosenberg and some of her allies participated in a boycott of the LSB’s last budget meeting in an attempt to deny the LSB a quorum.

ACTION ALERT: Sign this petition supporting KPFA’s budget

Last year, under similar circumstances, Rosenberg unilaterally made changes to KPFA’s budget in her role as network treasurer AFTER local board approval. “We can’t let that happen this year,” said Local Station Board member Jack Kurzweil. “KPFA is not the network’s piggy bank. Our listeners give money to keep our local station strong.”

IF YOU AGREE, PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION to the Pacifica National Board demanding that Pacifica respect local control and approve KPFA’s budget in the form adopted by our KPFA Local Station Board — with funding increases for the Apprenticeship Program intact. SHARE the petition with friends, and ask them to circulate it. Together, we can protect KPFA.

If you’d like to listen to the audio of August 10 Local Station Board meeting where the KPFA’s budget was discussed and voted on, you can find it here: part 1 (public comment, manager’s report); part 2 (budget discussion)

Pacifica in crisis: WBAI on the brink

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wbaigraphicThis week, Pacifica management laid off two-thirds of the staff at KPFA’s sister station WBAI in New York. The station will no longer have a local newscast; it’s unclear whether it will have any paid programmers at all. Pacifica’s interim executive director Summer Reese broke the news over WBAI’s airwaves, reports the Pacifica Evening News (2 min audio).

WBAI has long suffered from poor management, severe deficits, and the high costs of operating in New York City, as shown in Pacifica’s latest audits (to find out how this is connected with KPFA, read the last story in this newsletter).

Former WBAI and current KPFA programmer Doug Henwood delved into WBAI’s history for the New York Observer. Radio historian Matthew Lasar gave his perspective in Radio Survivor. Other coverage included Democracy Now!, the New York Times,  the Village Voice and Fishbowl NY.

Last fall, Superstorm Sandy flooded WBAI’s studios. KPFA’s staff spearheaded a network-wide emergency day of fundraising for the station — clocking over $185,000 in one day — enough to help WBAI move to temporary studios, but not to pull it out of its downward spiral. WBAI slipped further behind on the $50,000-per-month rent payments for its transmitter site on the Empire State Building, and in May began missing payrolls for its workers.

KPFA’s “on leave” interim manager transferred to WBAI 

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Reese has transferred KPFA’s interim general manager Andrew Phillips to WBAI as its new program director, and both spoke for 2 hours on WBAI’s airwaves last Friday, saying the majority of WBAI’s daytime lineup would be replaced by pre-recorded programs. Reese said WBAI was one of four financial units within Pacifica that don’t have the money on hand to make their next payroll. Over the past year, Pacifica has borrowed money from KPFA several times to pay expenses elsewhere in the network.

Appointing Phillips to program WBAI is a turnabout for Reese. In April, she placed Phillips on leave over the objections of KPFA’s local board and staff, pending the outcome of an investigation into unspecified allegations. His new position seems to indicate that either Phillips has been vindicated, or Reese never cared about the allegations in the first place — she just wanted him out of KPFA.

In a revealing interview after Reese removed him, Phillips indicated KPFA should return a Morning Show-like two-hour program — that’s something that would not go over well with Reese’s supporters on Pacifica’s board, like Tracy Rosenberg, the architect the of decision to cut the Morning Show in the first place.

KPFA’s budget in the black; challenges remain at Pacifica

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KPFAclockKPFA is doing well right now, with an upcoming budget under consideration by the Local Station Board (LSB). But problems elsewhere in the Pacifica network continue.

Financial support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for all five Pacifica stations is being withheld, after the network was cited in an audit for “insufficient accounting practices, misreported revenues and failure to comply with CPB rules on open meetings and financial transparency,” according to Current, an online magazine covering public broadcasting published by American University. At the same time, CPB ombudsman Joel Kaplan published a series of two reports (here and here) about questionable fundraising practices at Pacifica’s New York station, WBAI.

In our last issue, we reported that Pacifica’s interim executive director Summer Reese, who also serves as chair of the Pacifica National Board (PNB), had unilaterally put KPFA’s interim general manager Andrew Phillips on leave, even after KPFA’s elected LSB passed two resolutions overwhelmingly objecting to her actions, and hundreds of listeners signed this petition.

Radio historian Matthew Lasar interviewed Phillips, who makes it clear that Pacifica’s move to oust him is thoroughly political. “For about a year, remembering that I was employed by Arlene Engelhardt at Pacifica, I basically did her bidding,” Phillips told Lasar, saying he “realized over time that what she’d expected and what she implemented was the wrong strategy.” He explains why in this frank and revealing interview.

Pacifica’s Reese, whose supporters currently control the PNB, is also refusing to initiate this year’s bylaws-mandated elections, in what appears to be an attempt to prevent members from exercising their right to elect new leadership. Listeners have been signing this petition, initiated by Grassroots KPFK, urging that the election process be started immediately.

Meanwhile, layoff notices went out to all staff Pacifica’s WBAI in New York City last month. The station has long been running huge deficits, a situation compounded by unwise changes in programming and a declining listener base. “The status of Pacifica’s ability to cope with the situation is unclear,” writes Matthew Lasar in his RadioSurvivor blog. The cuts, which must be negotiated with the staff union, AFTRA, are expected to save $900,000 a year, according to Current.

In better news, the Pacifica Radio Archives, a separate unit at the network that preserves historic recordings, has won a $128,000 grant from the National Archives and Records Commission to save over 1,600 tapes in a project called “American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982.”