Category Archives: Legal

Programming is a Duty of the Local Station Board

Posted on by webweaver2
My voice mattersBy Mara Rivera
Sometimes you will hear that the Local Station Board (LSB) has no role in programming.  This is not true.
 
The Local Station Board is supposed to keep an eye on programming, and has done so in the past by means of the Program Council, which consisted of representatives of paid staff, unpaid staff, and listeners appointed to it by the Local Station Board.  The Program Council was  destroyed by our opposition, Save KPFA, which refused to reconstitute a democratically representative Program Council, but wanted it to consist of department heads (paid staff administrators) only – or none at all. They appointed a Program Director who now makes these decisions unilaterally (with the participation of her cronies).   A Community Advisory Board is also mandated by the Community for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to have a role in the process.
 
Here’s the complete list of the powers and duties of the Local Station Board.  Item G covers programming.  For a indexed copy of the entire by-laws, click here.

Article Seven, Local Station Boards
Section 3: Specific Powers and Duties

Each LSB, acting as a standing committee of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, shall have the following powers, duties and responsibilities related to its specific radio station, under the direction and supervision of the Foundation’s Board of Directors:

A. To review and approve that station’s budget and make quarterly reports to the Foundation’s Board of Directors regarding the station’s budget, actual income and expenditures.

B. To screen and select a pool of candidates for the position of General Manager of its respective radio station, from which pool of approved candidates the Executive Director shall hire the station’s General Manager.. The LSB may appoint a special sub-committee for this purpose.

C. To prepare an annual written evaluation of the station’s General Manager.

D. Both the Executive Director and/or an LSB may initiate the process to fire a station General Manager. However, to effectuate it, both the Executive Director and the LSB must agree to fire said General Manager. If the Executive Director and the LSB cannot agree, the decision to terminate or retain said General Manager shall be made by the Board of Directors.

E. To screen and select a pool of candidates for the position of station Program Director, from which pool of approved candidates the station’s General Manager shall hire the station’s Program Director. The LSB may appoint a special sub-committee for this purpose.

Radio EquipmentF. To prepare an annual written evaluation of the station’s Program Director.

G. To work with station management to ensure that station programming fulfills the purposes of the Foundation and is responsive to the diverse needs of the listeners (demographic) and communities (geographic) served by the station, and that station policies and procedures for making programming decisions and for program evaluation are working in a fair, collaborative and respectful manner to provide quality programming.

H. To conduct “Town Hall” style meetings at least twice a year, devoted to hearing listeners views, needs and concerns.

I. To assist in station fundraising activities.

J. To actively reach out to underrepresented communities to help the station serve a diversity of all races, creeds, colors and nations, classes, genders and sexual orientations, and ages and to help build collaborative relations with organizations working for similar purposes.

K. To perform community needs assessments, or see to it that separate “Community Advisory Committees” are formed to do so.

L. To ensure that the station works diligently towards the goal of diversity in staffing at all levels and maintenance of a discrimination-free atmosphere in the workplace.

M. To exercise all of its powers and duties with care, loyalty, diligence and sound business judgment consistent with the manner in which those terms are generally defined under applicable California law.

United for Community Radio Members Propose Resolution to KPFA to Improve Local Community News Reporting

Posted on by Webworker1
Black Lives Matter members speak at NAACP event on race, equity and gentrification. Over 200 people attended. KPFA did not cover the story.

Black Lives Matter members speak at NAACP event on race, equity and gentrification. Over 200 people attended. KPFA did not cover the story.

 

United for Community Radio (UCR) member Andrea Pritchett proposed a resolution to the KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) to build a powerful news and public affairs network that is broad based and well coordinated.

Carol Wolfley, a member of the KPFA Community Advisory Board, worked with KPFA listeners,  members of local organizations and with Andrea to develop the Resolution below. This Resolution has been presented to the LSB, and is scheduled to come up again at future LSB meetings.

UCR and its candidates believe we need to speak truth to power. We want community-sourced, local, daily, prime-time programming—where we are making news together. For example, the NAACP recently had a community forum on race, equity and gentrification (see photo above). We at UCR believe this type of event should be covered by KPFA.

Local, community sourced programming would address issues of profiling and violence directed at people of color, and discrimination based on race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. It would cover what people are doing in the face of police militarization, and housing, health, water, economic, educational, and environmental depredation. We need programs that tell these stories, locally, regionally and globally.

PROPOSED RESOLUTION:
The Local Station Board asks that KPFA General Manager and staff work with community members to develop a coordinated station-wide plan for providing local news and public affairs programming in alignment with KPFA’s mission to cover local events and topics with a depth, insight and broad signal range that no other station can do.

This may plan may include exploration of possibilities to:
Increase access to information from the community such as:

  1. Organize an electronic bulletin board to share and utilize news and public affairs information resources from the KPFA community, local organizations and the public
  1. Establish a list of people involved with social justice, political, economic and environmental issues from our local geographical areas who we can invite to contribute to local news and public affairs programs as citizen journalists
  1. Expand recruitment and training of program interns for news and public affairs. Articulate requirements for becoming an intern and make these requirement broadly known and available on our website so that volunteers outreaches can assist in finding volunteers.
  1. Develop and communicate a system for programmers to be able to receive and use recorded segments from community members for news and public affairs programs.
  1. Utilize Twitter, Facebook and live stream channels to get up to the minute information for news and public affairs programs

Coordinate a station-wide system for providing local news and public affairs programming

  1. Create daily programs or parts of programs that focus primarily on local community news and public affairs at predictable and regular times during the work week
  1. Coordinate KPFA programming in relation to topics to avoid repetition from one program to the next.
  1. Increase programming that includes listener phone in time.
  1. Develop a protocol that clarifies when/how to cover breaking news in our signal range and to pre-empt programming in significant and emergency situations.
  1. Expand use of video channel and live streaming channel to cover local news and public affairs and cultural events.

Communicate regularly with listeners and viewers about local news and public affairs.

  1. Develop outreach materials to let people know about station coverage of local news and public affairs programs and feature it on the website, the video channel, Twitter and Facebook. Include information about all the station resources including KPFA, KPFB, KPFA video channel, KPFA Facebook, KPFA Twitter, KPFA on You Tube and kpfa.org with program archives.
  1. Post written local news and public affairs stories on the KPFA website so that they can be accessed easily through computer searches
  1. Increase (through training and recruitment of volunteers) our capacity to provide responses to emails and calls that are received at the station.

LIBERATE MEDIA TOGETHER!!!

VOTE FOR ALL UCR CANDIDATES IN THE UPCOMING ELECTION TO THE KPFA LSB

More photos from NAACP event:

NAACP President Mansour Id-Deen and VP Barbara White

NAACP President Mansour Id-Deen and VP Barbara White

Community members at NAACP forum

Community members at NAACP forum