The purges continue. The lunatics have taken over Pacifica
Doug Henwood (his superb show on WBAI was killed last week)
The idiots and maniacs who are now running Pacifica have decided to lay off the entire staff of the excellent KPFA Morning Show and to take it off the air: The show is the station’s most popular, and its best fundraiser. But its quality comes at a price: much of the staff actually earns a salary, with benefits.
KPFA faces serious budget problems, but the union has proposed a way to deal with them. It looks like a faction of the local board has won the ear of the network’s executive director, Arlene Engelhardt. Their dream is to turn the station into an all-volunteer “community” station, which means an endless revolving door of amateurs who have no idea what they’re talking about.
Among other things, this means rants by those who says HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, deeply round the bend conspiracy theories, junk science – and virtually no intelligible political coverage. (Amy Goodman runs her own show and is separate from Pacifica)
I’ve about had it with the whole Pacifica scene. It’s going down—and Engelhardt & Co. are helping.
Yet the stations are probably worth several hundred million. I smell a rat.
Say I’m a right winger with bucks. And I want to get Pacifica off the air. What do I do? I could try a legal angle … I could attack it politically … or I could just buy off insiders or pay to skillfull convince them about bad ideas.
Anyone who’d like to hear some good radio and find out what is happening, can listen to the Morning Show’s dramatic cast online: http://kpfa.org/archive/id/65233
You can also learn more at these two websites:
http://www.SaveKPFA.org
http://www.KPFAworker.org
SaveKPFA is sending out important updates, so sign up for their mailing list to stay informed. Lots and lots of listeners will be fighting these crazy changes! Please join us.
Exactly. Also the five stations in Pacifica are in major metro markets and are worth tens of millions, at least.
Given the unhinged nature of some at Pacifica, it wouldn’t take much to push everything into chaos.
The new management at WBAI is doing so much damage to the station financially that they are hurting the entire network.