Jan Goodman Changes Her Mind: She Now Suggests Vote Yes On The Proposed Pacifica Bylaws

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You may know that I do a weekly politics show with David Feldman on Pacifica. It would be great if the non-profit network were running smoothly and effectively. I asked a friend of mine, Jan Goodman, to explain the current fight over the bylaws.


Vote Yes
by Jan Goodman

As you can imagine, I have been worrying about Pacifica, the proposed bylaws changes and the real likelihood that Pacifica may go down the drain within a year or so, if something major and positive doesn't happen soon.

After observing what is happening to Pacifica, its finances and what is going on nationally, and pondering this matter for months now, my thinking on the Bylaws has shifted, and I’ve now decided to support the Bylaws changes.

How to Vote?

If you contributed to KPFA, KPFK, KPFT, WBAI, or WPFW last year, you should have gotten an e-mail late last month (February 23), regarding voting from. If you can’t find your ballot but donated during 2019, click here to request a paper ballot, replacement e-ballot or new e-ballot. The voting deadline is March 19. Don’t wait until the last day to vote, though! Also, if you already voted, but want to change your vote, the deadline to request a changed ballot is March 12, 2020 click on that same link and explain on the form (in the blank for the last question, for other information) that you need a new ballot because you want to change your vote, so your previous ballot should be reset/cancelled.

Many people have asked me my position on the bylaws, and until pretty recently, I have been opposed to these changes. The major things that I don’t like about this set of changes is that there would be no staff or affiliate representatives on the board, and another is that they replace the Local Station Boards with Community Advisory Boards. (The best things about the new bylaws is that they provide for direct election of National Board Members for 3 year terms, they will provide for “At Large” Board members who can bring additional skills and experience, professional contacts, non-profit experience, and national perspective that the station representative haven’t tended to have--to the Board, all of which it seriously needs-- and the bylaws will reduce the size of the board-- all of which should improve the ability of the board to help give sustained, high quality, leadership and financial acumen to Pacifica.

As time has gone by, and Pacifica’s finances and listenership are continuing to go from bad to worse, and I see the governance of Pacifica becoming less and less functional, with no plan being followed to seriously improve Pacifica, or its finances. Thus, my thinking on the Bylaws vote has shifted. Below is an article by Michael Hiltzik of the L.A. Times about Pacifica, detailing some of the great history but also financial, and other woes that might also help you make up your mind. Maybe you might even read it first, if you haven’t already.

The Present Bylaws

The present bylaws seem to be a model of democracy-- a sort of democratic centralism: Local members elect local leadership, in the form of Local Station Boards (LSBs), and that local leadership elects the National Leadership-- the Pacifica National Board (PNB) those 20 PNB members elect 2 more “affiliate representatives”, for a total of 22 members on the National Board.) The term of each PNB Director is only one year. All elections are based on the concept of “single transferable voting”, a variation of “ranked voting.” The PNB’s job is supposed to make policy decisions regarding the network and to s/elects the Executive Director, who is supposed to run our multi-million dollar network. It sounds perfectly wonderful, and I have been proud to be a part of this system.

The Reality: Our Governance System Isn't Helping

The Reality is that this system just hasn’t worked. The PNB is constantly inserting itself into local affairs that the ED’s and staff should be doing. For instance the Pacifica network has been in continual flux and change since these Bylaws have been in place-- about 17 years, and during that time we have had 17 or so permanent or interim Executive Directors. This continuous change in leadership has been a major cause of the notorious dysfunction of Pacifica. Whether the bylaws have caused this turnover or exacerbated it, I don’t know-- but they certainly haven’t stopped it.

I could go on and on about all of the large and small problems which Pacifica has had and continues to face, but I will try to cut to the chase: I don’t know how to solve the problems, but I do know that if we are to have any chance of surviving, we have to have a bold, professional Executive Director (ED) who is committed to our mission, and is an experienced Professional, who knows media, radio and fundraising, with a track record, willing and able to make changes in our programming, sound and network to help us rise up, expand our listenership and bring in money to support our precious network. We have had a couple such Executive Directors, but as soon as those EDs started making changes, some group of PNB members got riled up, and before you know it, that ED was gone and we were on the search for a new ED. We’ve also gotten rid of ED’s who don’t make changes that some board members think should be made. Alternatively, EDs have left because they are overwhelmed by the tasks and/or the Board. Any firing/resignation might be justified, but the pattern is there. Similar stories can be told about our Chief Financial Officers (CEOs), and many of our Station Managers.

We Are About To Go Broke

Michael Hiltzik of the L.A. Times describes our situation best: “In recent years Pacifica has lurched from financial crisis to crisis. But more recently the problems have coalesced into an all-encompassing emergency amounting to what then-interim. Executive Director John Vernile called in September “an existential threat.”

Exacerbating our situation, and perhaps even worse than the fact that we are in huge financial trouble, when anyone tries to take any major step to do anything about it, one group or another on the either the local or the National Board usually stops the changes from taking place.

What The New Bylaws Will Do

• The new bylaws will reduce the size of the national board from 22 to 11 directors-- There will be 5 “Station Representative Directors” elected directly by the Members at each station, and there will be 6 “At-Large Directors” elected by the Board as a whole.
• Eliminate the Local Station Boards-- The current 24-member Local Station Boards at each station, which have proven to be ineffectual breeding grounds of factionalism, will be eliminated. Current members will be encouraged to join their station’s Community Advisory Board, which is mandated by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• Recruit more qualified Board Members-- Because the members at each station will directly elect their “Station Representative Director” to the Board of Directors, candidates will have to present themselves, their qualifications, skills, and experience to the voting membership instead of the current system of 20-60 people running for 24 positions on the Local Station Board The members will have a much better basis to evaluate them and choose the most qualified person to represent their station. And the Board can recruit and choose the remaining 6 “At-Large Directors” for skills and experience needed on the Board. It is hoped that the At-Large members and the 3 year terms on the board will stabilize the board.
• Reduce the number and cost of elections-- under the new Bylaws there will be a total of 5 elections in every 3-year period-- members at each station, with both listeners and staff voting together, will elect one “Station Representative Director” every three years for a 3-year term. To provide continuity these elections will be staggered through the stations over 3 years so that all director seats do not turnover at once, with elections at 2 stations in year one, 2 stations in year two, and the fifth station in the 3rd year.

Currently, there are a total of 20 elections in every 3-year period-- a staff election of 3 “Delegates” to the Local Station Board, and a listener election of 9 “Delegates” to the Local Station Board at all five stations in 2 out of every 3 years.

The current system is chaotic and costly. For example, the 2018 Delegate election report details 10 separate elections (Listener-Members and Staff Members at 5 stations) involving 123 candidates and conducted over nine (9) months from September 2018 through March 2019. If you’re interested you can read the report on that election here.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is this: Something major has to be done, or there will be no Pacifica in two years. It is basically about as simple as that. If there were no visible precipice approaching we could just limp along and just hope for the best, and make incremental improvements. But sadly, we don’t have time for that. We have two choices: Keep the ones we have which we know are not working, or try the new ones, which at least have a chance of working.

Behind The Crisis At Public Radio Icons Pacifica And KPFK
-by Michael Hiltzik
Business Columnist
  Feb. 7, 2020

As host of the political talk show Background Briefing on the Los Angeles listener-funded radio station KPFK, Ian Masters is used to delving into controversial, polarizing issues.

Lately, he’s been getting a lot of angry emails from listeners. But they’re not complaining about his choice of topics or even his progressive take on current affairs.

Rather, they’re expressing outrage at the amount of airtime KPFK is turning over to programs pitching alternative health and wellness nostrums and wild conspiracy theories, particularly during its ever-lengthening and ever more frequent fundraising drives.

That’s as concise a picture as you’re likely to get of the crisis confronting KPFK, which is now entering its seventh decade, and engulfing the Pacifica network of which it’s a flagship. Pacifica was founded by pacifists in 1946 and launched its first station, KPFA in Berkeley, in 1949.

Those stations and others in the Pacifica network have been suffering from declining audiences for years. The central board and managements overseeing the stations have tried to make up for shrinking listener donations by airing prepackaged programming.

Although those programs do bring in more money by offering gifts to donors, longtime hosts feel they may be driving away the stations’ traditional fans, exacerbating the long-term decline. The station broadcast 138 days of fundraising appeals last year; 10 or 20 years ago, says Masters, fundraising was limited to perhaps a week or so every six months. “We’re not fulfilling our mission through these premiums,” says Anyel Fields, KPFK’s general manager. Fields says that when KPFK made a fundraising pitch while airing political commentary following President Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday, it attracted about $500 in pledges. But some health-and-wellness programs will draw $3,000 to $4,000.

“We get addicted to that,” Fields told me. “But we lose the essence of who we are.”

The decline of Pacifica in general and KPFK in particular represents a squandered opportunity on the radio dial. Other public broadcasting, such as National Public Radio, has been accused of moving toward the political middle, while right-wing talk radio and Fox News seem to be on the ascendance in the media universe-- leaving Pacifica as one of the last progressive voices on the air.

Given that it owns the most powerful radio signal in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, KPFK’s listenership is strikingly small-- a cumulative audience of about 130,000 in an average week or as few as 1,000 listeners during an average quarter-hour, or 0.3% of the Los Angeles radio audience or less at any given time, according to Fields and the Nielsen survey. The KPFK transmitter’s rated power of 110,000 watts is strong enough to reach from Santa Barbara to San Diego. By contrast, public radio powerhouses KPCC and KCRW, with signals about one-tenth KPFK’s power, have as much as 10 times the audience.

The Pacifica Foundation, which comprises five FM radio stations-- including WPFW in Washington, D.C.; KPFT in Houston; and WBAI in New York-- has been in the forefront of progressive broadcasting for most of a history that encompasses landmark battles over free speech and politics.

In 1957, KPFA won a George Foster Peabody Award for programming critical of Joseph McCarthy. The network supported protests of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and in 1970, its KPFT was forced off the air when the Ku Klux Klan blew up its transmitter tower.

WBAI was the original broadcaster of comedian George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” routine, drawing a reprimand from the Federal Communications Commission in 1973 that was later narrowly upheld by the Supreme Court.

In recent years Pacifica has lurched from financial crisis to crisis. But more recently the problems have coalesced into an all-encompassing emergency amounting to what then-interim Executive Director John Vernile called in September “an existential threat.”

The threat partially reflects dysfunction on Pacifica’s board of directors. With 22 representatives elected by “members” of the local stations-- defined as anyone who contributes $25 or more in a year-- the Pacifica National Board is regarded by experts in nonprofit governance as too large to provide effective leadership, especially since members seem to spend as much time on internal squabbling as on the immediate problems facing the network.

The directors also have been accused of micromanaging the local stations, creating confusion among the staff. The extent to which the board is “involved” in management decision-making is “more than anything we have experienced,” the National Educational Telecommunications Assn., which provides administrative services to public media licensees and has been assisting Pacifica, told directors late last year.

Management turnover has been unrelenting, with 19 executive directors or interim executive directors having served since 2003.

Pacifica’s financial prospects lend new meaning to the term “dire.” In his September presentation to the board, Vernile-- who lasted only a few months in his position-- pointed to a “spiraling cash flow crisis.”

That’s merely the latest manifestation of a long-term decline. In fiscal 2000, according to an audited financial report, the foundation had assets of $8 million; it operated in the black, with revenue of $11.5 million from listener donations, grants and other sources and expenses of $10.9 million.

By fiscal 2017, the network had accumulated an operating deficit of $4.6 million. It owed a total of more than $8.2 million, which swamped its depleted assets of $3.7 million. The auditors said the foundation’s condition raised “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”

The chief drain on Pacifica’s resources has been WBAI. As Vernile told the board, the New York station had been derelict in its financial support of the network’s overhead and had been unable to meet its payroll, forcing the other four stations to make up the difference and drain their own coffers to keep WBAI operating.

WBAI was also the source of the most pressing challenge then-- and still: a $3.25-million emergency loan Pacifica received in 2018. The loan covered Pacifica’s back rent (plus interest) to the owners of the Empire State Building for the broadcasting antenna of WBAI, which had been perched atop the landmark Manhattan skyscraper.

The loan, which was advanced by …, a nonprofit lender to charitable organizations, allowed for interest-only payments until this June-- at a floating rate that is currently 7.5%. After that the foundation will have to start paying down the principal as well, a total of $73,000 per quarter, followed by a balloon payment of the remaining balance in April 2021. The auditors said in 2017 that it was “not entirely clear” how the loan would be paid off. It’s still unclear. In October, Vernile attempted to stem the outflow of funds to WBAI by laying off virtually its entire staff, canceling its local programming and substituting feeds from Pacifica’s national programs. But those steps were blocked by a state judge, [prompted by a suit instigated by WBAI members]. Vernile was subsequently overruled by the board and left his post.

Vernile observed that Pacifica has numerous options to meet its financial demands, none of them palatable. The foundation owns the studios of KPFK, KPFA and KPFT, properties that could be worth about $11 million total on the real estate market. (KPFK’s studio is on Cahuenga Boulevard in North Hollywood, hard by the 101 Freeway.) All three properties are pledged as collateral for the loan, however-- raising the possibility that the stations might become homeless if the loan isn’t paid off or renegotiated.

Pacifica’s most valuable asset may be WBAI’s spot on the dial-- 99.5 FM, in the band in which commercials are permitted; frequencies below 92.1, such as KPFK’s 90.7, are reserved for noncommercial broadcasting. WBAI’s frequency could be worth as much as $15 million if swapped to a commercial broadcaster, according to some estimates, but Vernile ruled that out, since completing such a transaction might take years and would deprive the station of part of its identity. “No one who loves and supports Pacifica should even consider selling, swapping or leasing our frequencies,” he told the board. The governance problems at Pacifica originated, as it happens, with a movement in 2000-01 to make the board more “democratic.” Under the new rules, “members” at each flagship station elected boards of delegates, which in turn appointed four national directors; Pacifica’s more than 150 affiliate stations appointed two more.

Critics of the board say that because the vast majority of members don’t vote, the process has been co-opted by self-interested groups that have stacked the board, resulting in factionalism and dysfunction.

They’ve started a movement for new bylaws that would cut the board to 11 members and give it a majority of radio and broadcasting professionals. “We need a board that can attract donors and refinance the loan,” says William G. Crosier, a board member from Houston who is one of the leading insurgents. “Our governance doesn’t seem to be able to deal with these things.”

Incumbent directors dispute that. “The board has been very functional,” says Grace Aaron, a director representing KPFK. Aaron also maintains that WBAI has been “scapegoated” as the cause of the current fiscal crisis “because it’s running at a deficit.”

Aaron acknowledges that the foundation’s disorganized leadership has contributed to its financial issues. Because Pacifica hasn’t produced an up-to-date audited statement, she says, it’s ineligible for grants from the federal Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which deprives the foundation of as much as $1 million a year in funding.

Aaron also defends the proliferation of independently produced health and wellness programming on the Pacifica airwaves. “Because we don’t accept corporate underwriting, we’re free to speak our mind,” she told me. That includes criticism of the “pharmaceutical industrial complex.”

She says “alternative medicine is anathema on most other media but people crave information about it-- some alternative medicine is wacky, but some is rational information about nutrition, and vitamins and minerals. We’ve found that to be very popular.” Yet Pacifica’s offerings sometimes cross the line into anti-vaccination claims that have been decisively debunked by scientists as well as other dubious advice.

Can KPFK be saved, or even revived? Fields says he wants to position the station as “a public and community media platform” focused on local, regional and national issues.

That would come a lot closer to the ideals of its founders, and arguably the concerns of its listeners, than health and wellness pitches. But Fields will be in a race-- can he put the station back on the road to growth before its owner’s financial problems blow it to smithereens?