WPFW Column

Leigh Hauter

(548 words)

In Washington the friction between WPFW's management and the Local Advisory Board continues to escalate.

In June five members of the Alliance for Progressive Radio were appointed to the board over the strenuous objections of the acting station manger, Lew Hankins. At that time Mr. Hankins promised to investigate the new members and to find out a way from getting their appointments overturned.

Apparently failing in his attempt to overturn the new appointments, Mr. Hankins then banned the LAB from meeting at the station. Citing "security threats" as the reason for his action, Mr. Hankins threaten to have the LAB members arrested if they tried to meet at the station.

The LAB was forced to move its meeting on two day's notice to a local police station.

At the moved LAB meeting, Mr. Hankins was repeatedly questioned why he banned the LAB from the station but he would only make vague references to "threats made against me and my volunteers." When questioned about what sort of threats were being made, he would only say that they were being investigated and that he felt he was being attacked by the entire line of questioning.

After refusing to give any information about the mysterious "threats," Mr. Hankins then went on to give his state of the station report. WPFW now has, Mr. Hankins’ claims, a listenership of more than 200,000 people, "the largest of any Pacifica station".

Frank Wagner, one of the new board members, questioned the demographics of this increased audience "Are you trying to build a station based on progressive political views, or are you trying to increase the listenership with people that don't share Pacifica's values?"

Lew Hankins responded that he didn't know what Mr. Wagner was talking about. "We are aiming at the over 30 year old market because the give the most money."

Dick Van den Heuvel, another new board member, asked that wasn't that in contradiction to Pacifica's often stated policy of trying to reach a younger audience. "isn't that one of the reasons Mary Berry has been so critical of KPFA, that its listenership is allegedly older"?

Mr. Hankins said that he didn't know about that but everyone knew that "12-25 year old market were a throw away audience."

When asked several more questions about the audience Mr. Hankins said he wasn't going to talk about it anymore.

He then stated that WPFW was developing several new programs but when asked what sort of programs he told the LAB members that it wasn't any of their business. "They are secret."

This elicited a number of questions about programming decisions and his statement that they were secrets from the LAB. At that point Mr. Hankins left the meeting saying that he didn't have to put up with be "attacked."

In other WPFW LAB news Ken Ford, a Pacifica board member reported that he intends to set up Pacifica committees with LAB representation. He said that Pacifica is hiring a consultant to teach LAB members how to do needs assessments.

Ford also reported that he believes Bessie Walsh, Pacifica's acting director, is "incompetent" and should be fired and he has many problems with her ability to perform her job. When asked why she hadn't been fired he said that he was "still working on it."

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