For Immediate Release Pacifica Launches Nationwide Emergency Fundraiser to Save WBAI in New York Sandy Destroyed Studios, De-Railed Fund Drive, Threatens Existence of Iconic Broadcaster
National Pledge Drive to Save WBAI Thursday, November 15th, from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM Eastern. You Can Listen to KPFK 90.7: www.kpfk.org Or Go to: www.wbai.org NEW YORK-When Superstorm Sandy hit WBAI, it trapped seven of the station's staff in studios on the 11th story of a building with seawater up to the second floor. Today, the building's wiring is still unusable, and the station's facing a second disaster: because the storm knocked WBAI off the air in the middle of a fund drive, and the station has no way to resume fundraising, it faces the prospect of laying off its entire staff and going dark for good. That's why Pacifica, the non-commercial network that owns WBAI, is combining the signals of all its radio stations to broadcast a nationwide emergency fundraiser to save WBAI on Thursday, November 15th. The network hopes to raise $150,000 to move WBAI into a temporary studio that the station can use to resume regular coverage and resume doing its own fundraising. "This is precisely the time when New York needs a Pacifica station. WBAI needs to be reporting on the suffering of people who've been neglected by relief efforts, how the city's treating residents of public housing, the incredible grassroots organizing of groups like Occupy Sandy," says Summer Reese, Interim Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation. Currently, WBAI is mostly broadcasting archival material. The national emergency fundraiser will include contributions from across the network, and a special broadcast highlighting Superstorm Sandy coverage by Democracy Now!, a program birthed at WBAI and now broadcast on over 1,100 television and radio stations. Part of the Pacifica Network since 1960, WBAI pioneered the freeform radio format, served as a cornerstone of the counterculture, took precedent-setting free speech fights with the FCC all the way to the Supreme Court, has delivered cutting-edge coverage of generations of social and cultural movements, and helped launch the careers of some of America's best-known broadcasters, from NPR's Neal Conan, to RadioLab's Jad Abumrad, to Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman. The Pacifica Foundation operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 100 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio. www.MitchelCohen.com <http://www.MitchelCohen.com%0b%0b%0b> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
