KPFA Manager's report part2

& whoever you are for making available these videos of the KPFA Local Station Board meeting,
Up until now, the only way to find out, in a timely fashion, what's going on with the LSB, was to actually attend the meeting.
The minutes are months late getting approved & posted to their site, & it's claimed that because of legal concerns, draft minutes (unapproved minutes) could not be posted to KPFA-LSB's website, but some other website would have to be found (actually there is a KPFT website that I think does this for other stations as well).
I've urged them to use the monthly LSB radio program on KPFA to inform
us about controversial board matters, but so far the programs continue to be run by the more staff/less listener power oriented faction, with little or
no addressing of current issues.
We listeners struggled to avert the hostile takeover of our station, & we not
only won it back, but won representation & decision making powers in the various boards & committees of KPFA/Pacifica Foundation, in order to insure that forces hostile to listener supported radio & the Pacifica mission statement would never be able to steal it again.
So now to carry out our new democratic governance we need "transparency & accountability". We need to know what is going on in station governance. We need to know what our elected representatives & others are doing; for example, how do we even know who to vote for as our
LSB reps if we don't know what the issues are & see how our reps are performing ? This was clearly a problem for many in the last LSB election.
(As it must have been at WBAI NY where an undemocratic faction got a
majority, probably through many "splitting" their votes to give all a voice,
resulting in another kind of hostile takeover.) The percentage of listeners voting could fall beneath the threshhold needed & the election would be invalidated.
That's why I'm so excited about this video coverage of the LSB meeting,
& hoping it continues.
Unfortunately, since not everyone has access to these videos on IndyBay, we still need timely minutes, meaningful reports to the listener, letters to
the folio when we get one, town hall meetings & forums like the Peoples' Radio forums, websites like PeoplesRadio, newsletters like Enteen's Struggle & Win, & hey! this is a radio station with investigative news reporters -- how about some of the NEWS programs (Flashpoints, etc. included) doing reports on what's happening within Pacifica & KPFA???
Ain't that news???
ps Thanks to IndyBay for putting these on the features page; could they now get posted (also) to Indymedia instead of Labor?

I'm sorry. All of the internal goings-on at KPFA are not interesting to the overwhelming majority of its listeners. People want to turn on their radio, hear their music, news or arts programming and turn it off when it's over. Just as the overwhelming majority of people who get into their car want to turn the key and make the thing go. They don't care that turning the key fires the ignition, which starts an air fuel mixture going which fires the pistons and so on and so on. Now some mechanical types do, the overwhelming majority don't. For most, that kind of technical detail about the inner workings at KPFA is booooring. The governance of the station is its engine. It holds no interest whatever for the vast majority of listeners. The mechanical types have no business trying to get all this technical information on the air, where it just isn't wanted or needed. It is highly unfair to the rest of us who just want to listen to our station. If you want technicality pop the hood and take a look at your engine or something. Leave KPFA to those who like listening to it.

Those who are not interested in KPFA/ Pacifica governance, don't have to check it out.
Some of us are. In fact, 1500 people turned out one day to save the governance of the station by the community, in the largest Berkeley demo since the Vietnam War.
We won the Pacifica network back, & wrote new bylaws giving the listeners & staff a say in decision making at the network & stations.

However, the ones who want corporate control of the station have not given up. Neither have those who want a democratic KPFA/Pacifica network.
Now we vote for our representatives on the governing boards, & give them
our input. For an election to be valid, at least 10% of the listeners must vote. Those of us who care & have the time & circumstances, need to know our reps, the issues, etc, More people would vote if they knew these things.
So what we may think most listeners do or don't care about is not relevant
here. If you don't care, why get in the way of others caring?
No one is interested in all the programs at KPFA. The programs meet the needs & interests of diverse communities. No one is interested in all the news items. Those who want to know what's going on with our station are entitled to be informed about it; in fact we need them to be so.

I've heard it said that "we have to become the change we want" so many times, it now rings in my head like a mantra. The analogy drawn by one commentor comparing the internal workings of KPFA to the innards of a car is more apt than perceived. If you can justify the continual use of the internal combustion engine, knowing its devastating impact on the environment, then I suppose you can justify fist fights, sexual harrassement, managerial incompetance and programmer misbehavior and arrogance at the station that is supposed to fundamentally stand against these very things. It's easy. You can't stand for something then fail to exemplify that in your personal and professional life. The Bush Administration provides daily examples of that to a global audience. We progressives harken to a higher calling. We must practice what we preach or it's bullshit, pure and simple.