From: Carol Spooner --
I attended the Pacifica Board meeting in Washington DC June 9-11. The report pasted below is accurate and is posted at the SavePacifica website www.savepacifica.net.
A disturbing discussion that is not mentioned in the report below did occur during the board technical committee meeting on Saturday. A company called "AudioBasket.com" made a presentation to the board proposing to enter into "Content Partnership with Pacifica" -- a licensing or revenue sharing agreement to make Democracy Now! and the Pacifica Network News available to their users, bundled with other news and information programs. AudioBasket's revenue comes from "5-7 minutes of advertising every hour of audio content, sold based on user demographics." As Pacifica makes the transition to new technologies and moves up onto the web, the allure of abandoning Pacifica's commitment to listener-sponsorship and independence from commercial influence on program content will be insidious and strong.
Another interesting development is that Pacifica's new executive director, Bessie Wash (former station manager at WPFW Washington DC) has a new public relations consultant -- Phyllis Shearer Jones of Elan International, LLC. Ms. Jones is a former White House "Public Liason" in the office of U.S. Trade. This may shed some light on the thinking behind WPFW's refusal to cover the A-16 demonstrations, and the very sparse coverage by PNN.
The theme of Bessie Wash's "vision statement" to the board, repeated several times, was "LET'S DO GREAT RADIO!" I was hard pressed to find any vision in her statement -- but she does want Pacifica to get "our share of CPB Future Fund money." This is the money CPB might provide for new national programming, provided Pacifica "tones down" its "radical bias" and does more "balanced programming."
Finally, the crude ostentation of holding Pacifica board meetings at the pricey Washington Hilton & Towers was offensive to me. What a disgusting waste of our money.
_________________________