Please know that the opinions expressed here belong entirely to me. My Radio Survivor colleagues Eric, Jennifer, and Paul bear no responsibility for what follows. Any and all outraged responses should be sent to the email address listed in my profile below (expressions of agreement are also welcome, of course).
Update, November 7, 5:20 pm: It appears that the shuttered staff of WBAI in New York City has gotten a judge to order the local operation back on the air. I am disappointed, but still impressed. If ‘BAI’s staff were as good at broadcasting as they are at filing lawsuits, Pacifica radio would be lending money to NPR stations. The linked article says that the Pacifica National Office will appeal the decision.
After a twenty year extended vacation from competence and sanity, forces within the Pacifica Foundation and its network of five listener supported radio stations have taken the first crucial steps towards rescuing the organization. I do not know whether they will succeed. I do think that they are on the right track. Or, to be more accurate, the right two tracks.
Here they are, Tracks One and Two, with my assessments.
Track One: By-laws reform. A group of Pacificans have proposed and are distributing a desperately needed revision of the foundation’s excruciatingly democratic by-laws. I cannot bring myself to say much more about these monstrous governance rules than I already have over the years. Following the Big Pacifica Blowup of 1999-2001, the survivors created a board system of over 120 people, elected by the network’s listener subscribers and staff. We are literally talking about a cast of thousands governance system that has cost the organization between three and four million dollars to keep in the idiotic manner to which it has become accustomed. And, as any high school student vice-president could tell you, its girth has paralyzed the organization time and time again.
In its place, the reformers propose a far leaner eleven member Board of Directors. Six will be chosen by the Board; five will be elected by the respective listener-subscribers and staffs of the network’s five radio stations. You can read the proposed by-laws yourself. Some of the by-laws team members helped create the current board system and appear to have learned something from its shortcomings. I like many things about the draft, especially its exclusion of station programmers from the Board, an obvious conflict of interest.
On the other hand, I am not crazy about the continuation of listener-subscriber/staff elected Directors. I anticipate that most of the candidates for these positions will be, at best, ignorant about the other four stations. I expect a bunch of crazy hotheads to front load the contests with noxious blather. And I wager that most listener-subscribers will cheerfully ignore the elections, as they do now.
But at least the elections will be decided by Ranked-Choice Voting, rather than its annoying and dysfunctional cousin, Single Transferable Voting (STV), or IUV as I call it: Incomprehensible Unexplainable Voting. Pacifica’s current ballot counting method, STV, seems to be obsessed with making sure that every wing nut gets their day. I remember a Pacifica board member I experienced as particularly bonkers asked some years ago to explain STV. “I don’t know how to describe it,” he candidly replied. “But without STV I wouldn’t be sitting on this board.” That was the best description of STV I have ever heard.
In contrast, in a straight up Ranked-Choice contest, the candidates who win will more likely be those supported by a critical mass of the station community. Not the best way to pick Directors, but hardly the worst. Bottom line: these proposed governance rules are so much better than the current Pacifica by-laws that there is no comparison. The organization desperately needs governors who can make decisions relatively quickly, especially now. So if you are a Pacifica station listener-subscriber or staff member, please endorse these by-laws (as have I) so they can replace the current monstrosity as quickly as possible.
Track two: WBAI. As everybody who pays any attention to Pacifica knows, last week Pacifica’s Executive Director took over Pacifica station WBAI-FM in New York City and replaced its schedule with network programming. You can read the CIA coup version of what happened over at The Nation magazine. My favorite line: “All of this occurred without a vote of Pacifica’s National Board.”
Regrettably, Pacifica does not have another two decades to deliberate over the future of WBAI (see my Track One comments). To my amusement, I now find myself in agreement with someone with whom I have been at odds for most of the recent Pacifica past: Carol Spooner (she once compared me to Glenn Beck). As a member of the aforementioned new by-laws team, Spooner notes that as of September 30, 2017, WBAI was in hock to Pacifica and the rest of the network to the tune of $4 million. “WBAI’s total net deficit as of that date was ($6.6 million),” she wrote in a recent letter to the National Board, “including $2.36 million in accrued rent.” (Spooner’s whole letter is republished at the end of my comments).
This loadstone comes in the context of a huge and, in my opinion, very ill advised $3.25 million loan that Pacifica took out in April of 2018. Facing a terrifying court decision allowing a WBAI transmitter landlord to flush out Pacifica’s exchequer in pursuit of millions of dollars in back rent, the organization should have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Instead, Pacifica borrowed from Peter to pay Paul. “That loan is secured by everything Pacifica owns, and it comes due in full on April 1st, 2021,” Spooner warns. “So far, there is no clear plan to come up with the funds to pay.”
And she continues:
“The rest of the network did the best we could to help WBAI . . . We (the rest of the network) sold the National Office building (paid for by KPFA listeners as part of the mortgage on the KPFA [in Berkeley, California] building). We (the rest of the network) loaned them money. We (the rest of the network) picked up as much of the slack as we could with national expenses and increased Central Services payments. We (the rest of the network) got them a new transmitter. And, finally, we (the rest of the network) mortgaged the KPFA, KPFK [in Los Angeles], and KPFT [in Houston, Texas] buildings (and everything else we own, including intellectual property at the Archives, all our furniture, fixtures, equipment, etc.) to get the loan to payoff Empire State and break the lease.”
Sorry folks, but enough is enough. The Executive Director in question, John Vernile, told The New York Times that he wants to “rebuild” WBAI, rather than sell the station license. “We are not out of the woods yet,” he said, “but this puts us in a place where we have a shot at bringing everything back in full.”
Is this the best strategy for community radio in the USA? I do not think so. To my mind, Pacifica should declare bankruptcy, sell WBAI’s frequency license, transfer the remaining Pacifica stations to local non-profits, and let the history of listener-supported community based radio migrate to new leaders who hopefully have learned something from the mistakes of the last 25 years.
But I believe that Vernile, Carol Spooner, and their colleagues are sincere in their intent. I think that the by-laws team and Pacifica’s latest management team are serious about trying to rescue the organization, more or less as it is. They have demonstrated that they intend to make the very difficult choices necessary to accomplish that goal.
Please, listen to their voices before you buy into the hysteria – or those who pontificate that “something had to be done, but not this.” Something had to be done which was at minimum this. I see these efforts as significant and hopeful. For the first time in a long time I am encouraged.
Here is Carol Spooner’s statement to the board, republished in full:
“Dear PNB Members,
I urge you to vote to support John Vernile’s very painful, difficult and courageous actions at WBAI last Monday.
I believe the best hope for Pacifica now is strong and stable executive leadership with a cohesive board to back him up. The lender (on the $3.25 million loan) is watching Pacifica carefully, and very worried about their loan, I am sure. Seeing that strong action has been taken to stop the bleeding at WBAI, and seeing that the board supports that action, would be reassuring to them. Then, I believe John Vernile would have a reasonable chance to negotiate with them about extending the term of the loan. Without that, I would not be surprised to see them foreclose on their loan (as is their right under multiple conditions we have not been able to fulfill so far).We, the whole network, have done our best for WBAI. It wasn’t enough, and has exhausted the reserves and resources that are necessary to get the rest of our stations on a better footing.The audits tell the story, and I’m sure the lender carefully reads them. As of the last audited financial statements (9/30/17) WBAI owed $4 million in inter-division payables to the National Office and the other Stations. That included unpaid Central Services and other funds advanced to WBAI to cover expenses. WBAI’s total net deficit as of that date was ($6.6 million), including $2.36 million in accrued rent. You can see for yourself here: https://www.pacifica.org/finance/audit_2017.pdf
Ten years before (as of 9/30/07) WBAI’s interdivision payables were $502,389, and they had a net deficit of ($99,603). See for yourself here: https://www.pacifica.org/finance/audit_2007.pdf
That is a total loss of $7.1 million over the past 10 years at WBAI. The individual station info is in the “Supplemental Information” at the back of the audits.Both Hurricane Sandy and the Empire State lease took a terrible toll on WBAI.
The rest of the network did the best we could to help WBAI … the national office cut everything they could, and more. I say more because for a couple of years there they didn’t have the staff or money to do critical things like do the audits (the 2017 audit was filed 2 years late!).We (the rest of the network) sold the National Office building (paid for by KPFA listeners as part of the mortgage on the KPFA building). We (the rest of the network) loaned them money. We (the rest of the network) picked up as much of the slack as we could with national expenses and increased Central Services payments. We (the rest of the network) got them a new transmitter. And, finally, we (the rest of the network) mortgaged the KPFA, KPFK, and KPFT buildings (and everything else we own, including intellectual property at the Archives, all our furniture, fixtures, equipment, etc.) to get the loan to payoff Empire State and break the lease.But our financial condition continues to deteriorate across the network. Listenership and donations continue declining. We have to change. We have to keep WBAI on the air with programs from elsewhere, while we strengthen the rest of our stations. Then, if the lender gives us a couple more years, we can reinvest in WBAI and bring back local programming … stronger and better I hope.
So, again, I strongly urge you to support John Vernile. Our lender is watching. It is important for any negotiations with them that John have the strong backing of his board for stabilizing Pacifica and turning things around. Without that, I really do fear that all will be lost.
Best wishes and many thanks, ~Carol Spooner (PNB Member 2002-2004)”
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