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NY Times, Mar. 15 2014
Pacifica Radio Fires Its Executive Director
By BEN SISARIO
The Pacifica Foundation, a community radio network that includes WBAI-FM
in New York, has dismissed its executive director, the latest tumultuous
step for an organization that has been plagued by financial problems and
acrimonious turnover among its management.
Summer Reese, who was named executive director in November after doing
the job on an interim basis for more than a year, was fired by
Pacifica’s national board on Thursday. In a brief statement on Friday,
the board confirmed the move and thanked Ms. Reese “for her service to
date,” but gave no explanation.
Ms. Reese’s dismissal is the latest in a series of changes in recent
years that have destabilized Pacifica and its five stations. In August,
WBAI, which operates a powerful signal at 99.5 FM but is millions of
dollars in debt, laid off 19 of its 29 employees, including the entire
news staff. The station, which is supported almost entirely by listener
donations, has since been through two program directors and struggled
publicly with its fund-raising.
Last fall Pacifica solicited proposals from other broadcasters to lease
WBAI’s frequency. It received 10 proposals, according to Tracy
Rosenberg, the board’s treasurer. A decision has not been made, but with
the arrival of new board members this year the matter of a lease or sale
of assets is expected to be taken up again.
The reasons for Ms. Reese’s termination were unclear. Heather Gray, who
voted against the motion, said that no cause was given during the
board’s meeting, which took place by conference call, and that the
decision mystified her.
“Summer has done a lot to clean up the mess left by previous executive
directors,” Ms. Gray said. “She has vision; she has energy. She is young
and enthusiastic.”
In a news release on Thursday that still listed Ms. Reese as a contact,
Pacifica announced that it had fulfilled its severance obligations to
the WBAI employees laid off last year.
Margy Wilkinson, the chairwoman of Pacifica’s national board, said in a
telephone interview on Friday: “The board took an action that it felt
was reasonable and necessary, and we’re not in the business of
disclosing information about personnel issues to the public.”
Ms. Reese said in an interview on Friday that she believed that her
dismissal violated the terms of her contract, which guaranteed her
$315,000 over three years. She said she was worried for the future of
Pacifica, which in addition to WBAI includes stations in Washington,
Houston, Los Angeles and Berkeley, Calif.
“A unique, progressive and radical outlet for information is being
undermined and damaged by people who are making decisions for its
destruction without any legitimate reason or stated purpose,” Ms. Reese
said.
Ms. Wilkinson said the termination did not violate Ms. Reese’s contract.
Pacifica, founded in 1946 by conscientious objectors from World War II,
became the first radio network to dedicate itself to listener support.
With dedicated groups of volunteer producers, its stations have become
mainstays of liberal commentary and community-level arts and public
affairs programs.
But critics of the organization, including Matthew Lasar, the author of
the book “Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio’s Civil War,” contend that
Pacifica’s elaborate governance structure, with multiple boards and
frequent elections, has left the network in a near-constant state of
conflict among warring factions.
“If Pacifica radio had a coat of arms,” Mr. Lasar said, “it would be a
turnstile.”
---
With no clue how to address the network’s declining listenership and
slide towards bankruptcy, and with total disregard for Pacifica’s 501-C3
non-profit status, Ms. Reese is now turning our airwaves over to
“Doctor” Gary Null whose miracle cure “products” are unregulated and
whose fraudulent credentials have been exposed as mail order diplomas by
the independent consumer watchdog website run by medical professionals,
Quackwatch.com.
Gary Null is a private corporation. His annual revenues are $12.2
million. Should Pacifica become Gary Null’s private Home Shopping
Network offering dubious products over our airwaves under the guise of
fund raising? His fraudulent claims have certainly turned away a lot of
our thoughtful and ethical listeners and I am personally disgusted when
desperate terminally ill people are conned into spending money on
expensive and unproven vitamin cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s.
“Doctor” Null actually claimed Patrick Swayze would be alive today had
he taken his products. And then there are the young men who died
following the advice of this HIV denier that Gary Null’s products could
cure AIDS. So much for the hollow claim made by the “peoples” radio that
we don’t take money from corporations. Meanwhile our non-profit
foundation status is being placed in jeopardy from the FDA, the IRS and
the FCC.
So I suppose it should be no surprise given Summer Reese’s and Gary
Null’s similar backgrounds of scamming gullible folks by distracting
them with right wing anti-government dogma as they fleece them, that
these two are working hand in glove. And while Gary Null is already on
all the other Pacifica stations except Berkeley, the reason he did not
participate in KPFK’s latest fund drive was because he is leveraging his
position to get on prime time at KPFK and to make a better deal in the
next fund drive so that he will be in a position to control the network
before it goes into bankruptcy.
full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/01/14/alarming-pacifica-developments/
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