More on NPR Programming — Don’t Let This Happen to Pacifica!

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Webworker1

Chrissie Hynde

NPR Music did an interview with Chrissie Hynde about her new book. The interviewer asked Hynde to read from her book, and she replied:

“Can I just not repeat stories that I’ve already said in the book? Can we talk about things outside of that? Is that possible?”

But, the NPR host couldn’t get out of his ordinary NPR mindset — he had prepped by reading her book, and most authors will just tell stories from their books. So, apparently thinking “must talk about stories in her book, even though she just said she doesn’t want to talk about stories in the book” he tries again, and Hynde slaps him down, like the real artist and rebel that she is.

“No! I’m not going to tell you stories that are in the book!”

The NPR host really can’t understand Hynde’s zeitgeist, which steps outside ordinary bourgeois boundaries. There is something so insipid about the NPR zeitgeist, something so timid. When Hynde states: “I don’t care what a lot of people want. I’d rather say, ‘just don’t buy the book’… I’m just telling my story” — he is speechless, and the interview immediately cuts away.

We need boldness and courage to face the challenges ahead of all of us — not just radio listeners, but the whole world. We need less certainty about the correctness of our views, and more willingness to listen.

And within Pacifica and KPFA — we need radio that is willing to allow the people to speak. We need radio that trusts the intelligence of its audience to listen and make their own decisions about what is true. As was so eloquently discussed on a recent KPFA Project Censored show, there has been a winnowing of what is considered legitimate discussion, a subtle self-censorship that is occurring in film, books and general dialogue. Censorship does not just happen by government intervention, it happens when NPR can’t allow Hynde to be who she really is; or when NPR can’t understand the facts about Syria.

Protect Free Speech Radio — Vote for UCR in the upcoming election!

photo credit: The Pretenders Day on the Park via photopin (license)

UCR Says “No” to the NPR-ization of KPFA

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Webworker1

By: UCR Candidate Sharon Adams

UCR’s opponents were in control of the Board of Directors when John Proffitt was hired — a man who spent 25 years as general manager at an NPR station prior to coming to Pacifica. Because UCR’s opponents have a majority on the Pacifica Foundation board that hired Proffitt, one can assume that our opponents support the NPR model of public radio.

Today, I listened to Morning Edition on NPR, and once again realized how very lame the news and analysis is on NPR.

The issue was Syria, with a shown entitled: “Did Russia’s Entry Into Syria’s Conflict Take the West By Surprise?” Well, Russia’s entry into Syria didn’t take me by surprise, since Russia publicly announced its intentions prior to going into Syria. Nevertheless, the NPR story delves deeply into spying, technology, and the remnants of the Cold War in an attempt to figure out if the West and/or Obama knew about Russia’s plans. Not once, did the so-called “expert” mention that Russia had made numerous public statements about it plans.

For example, on September 18, Russia stated that it will provide troops to Syria, if asked.

On September 27, Russia publicly released information about an intelligence sharing agreement between Russia, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

On September 28, at the UN General Assembly, Putin announced Russia’s intention to provide military assistance to Syria and Iraq:

“Today, we provide military and technical assistance both to Iraq and Syria and many other countries of the region who are fighting terrorist groups.”

The facts show that Russia’s plans were not secret. Thus, the entire premise of the NPR story was false. The NPR story is simply misdirection — talking about something completely irrelevant to the story (spying? the Cold War???), while ignoring the real issues.

We at UCR demand real news and analysis, and that’s part of what we intend to support and promote at KPFA.

Vote for UCR — LET’S LIBERATE MEDIA TOGETHER!

Lack of Diversity and Corporate Dominance Characterize NPR

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Webworker1

By: UCR Candidate Sharon Adams

A recent article by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, Inc.) shows the heavy corporate presence and lack of diversity at National Public Radio (NPR) both in the NPR boardroom, and on its airwaves.

Lack of Diversity and Corporate Dominance Characterize NPR Board Members
Seventy-five percent of board members at NPR’s most popular member stations have corporate backgrounds. As shown in the graph, one New York station has a whopping 90 percent corporate representation on its board.

Graph showing corporate dominance in NPR boards. Graph courtesy of FAIR.

As the FAIR article succinctly states:

“the inevitable consequence of this is to put legal control of what is supposed to be public radio into the hands of a tiny, highly privileged fraction of the population.”

In addition to the lack of economic diversity, the FAIR study showed a lack of ethnic and gender diversity on the NPR boards. Seventy-two percent of NPR board members are non-Latino whites, and 66 percent of board members are male.

NPR Airwaves Dominated By White Males
Another FAIR study found that, among the regular news commentators, 79 percent were men, and 92 percent were non-Latino whites.

KPFA Must Remain Free of Corporate Control
We at United for Community Radio (UCR) are committed to increasing diversity in the KPFA boardroom and on the airwaves. The upcoming election for the KPFA Local Station Board gives us an opportunity to do this. UCR’s platform specifically opposes corporate influence, and supports a mix of community-sourced, local programming.

We at UCR believe the NPR approach is the wrong approach. This is in contrast to our opponents running in the upcoming election. Our opponents suggest that KPFA should become “more like NPR”. The opposition’s desire to make KPFA more like NPR will lead to exactly what is happening at NPR — an increased corporate zeitgeist that will control the news and views expressed on KPFA.

LET’S LIBERATE MEDIA TOGETHER!!!

Keep KPFA free from corporate control and influence.
Vote for the UCR Candidates in the upcoming election for the KPFA Local Station Board.

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

Posted on August 31, 2015 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.

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:

Organize an electronic bulletin board to share and utilize news and public affairs information resources from the KPFA community, local organizations and the public

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

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.

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.

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

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

Coordinate KPFA programming in relation to topics to avoid repetition from one program to the next.

Increase programming that includes listener phone in time.

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.

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.

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.

Post written local news and public affairs stories on the KPFA website so that they can be accessed easily through computer searches

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

Community members at NAACP forum

UCR Supporter Diana Bohn Explains Why “Save KPFA” Can’t Be Trusted

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Webworker1

By: Diana Bohn

Diana Bohn at UCR Garden Party/Fundraiser
August 9, 2015

KPFA Local Station Board (LSB) elections are coming up soon. I’m a proud supporter of the candidates running on the United for Community Radio (UCR) slate. UCR has a great platform, and a strong candidate lineup. In fact, I support UCR so much that I have been working to help UCR candidates win in the upcoming election. As shown in the photo to the left, I volunteered at the recent UCR Garden Party/Fundraiser.

Imagine my surprise when I recently discovered that my name is listed as an “Endorser” of the opposition, Save KPFA (SK).

As shown in this screen shot from the opposition’s list of endorsers, taken on August 13, 2015, my name is listed as a “Listener Endorser” of SK:

This caused me to look at other so-called “endorsers” of SK, where I learned that at least one of these so-called endorsers, singer Jon Fromer had actually passed away back in 2013. I’m not sure how many other “endorsers” of SK are incorrectly listed, as I was.

Lesson learned: take everything you read on the SK website with a grain of salt.

I’m trusting UCR candidates in this election, and voting for all of the UCR candidates: Scott Olsen, Sharon Adams, Don Macleay, Virginia Browning, Jeremy Miller, Janet Kobren, Mario Fernandez, T.M. Scruggs, and Marilla Arguelles.

You can learn more about the UCR candidates on the UCR website: http://www.unitedforcommunityradio.org/.

Hands off Frank: Open letter to the KPFA Local Station Board

Posted on May 20, 2015 by webweaver2

To the KPFA Local Station Board (LSB):

I am appalled by Brian Edwards-Tiekert and Mal Burnstein’s insults to KPFA Apprenticeship Co-Director and LSB staff representative Frank Sterling during the board’s last meeting.

Frank Sterling, right, on the air with the KPFA Apprentices’ “Full Circle” radio hour.

Frank is the heart and soul of KPFA at this moment in time. Not only because he is trying to lead the station, kicking and screaming, into the new Web-based media universe, but also because he donates so many hours to the Apprenticeship Program and engages with the KPFA community that is trying, against all odds, to stand up to perpetual war, climate catastrophe, and plutocracy’s fierce determination to own and control every last dollar and resource on the planet.

These “leave it all to the professional manager” and “the board is just there to fundraise” mantras are equally huge insults to KPFA’s listener community. Continue reading →

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