Friends,
Peter Goodman's most recent article on WBAI is below. Goodman has reported that Leid has added new programs on Africa. If she has, it's news to the staff. Further, Leid has functioned as the self-appointed Program Director since the coup. She unilaterally makes programming decisions--mostly to fire staff--without authority and without process. At WBAI, the General Manager has never interfered with programming. Until now.
In a further attempt to mask the political gutting of the station, Leid argues she wants to better serve communities. The question remains: if the now-gutted *Wake-Up Call* didn't serve communities, why did it win so many awards? What kind of outreach has Leid done to ascertain just what communities need? What kind of input from listeners, from staff, from the LAB? Leid seems to promote the increasingly top-down, corporate model that now marks the network, where decisions are made at the top by an increasingly corporate few. If you want to hear what toothless progressive reporting sounds like, and possibly WBAI in the future, you can stream Pacifica station KPFK in Los Angeles.
Just before the coup, the station had it's best fund-drive ever on the back of the *old programming.* Informed sources suggest this last drive, under Leid's guidance, did not meet these goals. Finally, the previous leadership at WBAI--Samori Marksman, Valerie van Isler and Bernard White were not white, and did not promote a European perspective. And Deepa Fernandes, recently taken off the air as producer of *Behind the News,* is a producer of color who covered stories from around the world and from many disparate cultures. Note that according to Goodman's reporting, Leid and Wash are still aggressively playing the race card--a very old trick for the New Pacifica.
Following the Newsday article, is a letter from author and economist Ed Herman, responing Leid's shameful use of Lew Hill.
Lyn
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April 2, 2001 RADIO WAVES WBAI Management Defends Itself, Finally Newsday, by Peter Goodman
'I WILL NOT SELL any of our stations," said Bessie Wash, executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, pounding on the breakfast table for emphasis. "Nobody on the board has asked me to look into it . . . If they had, I would have told you, and I wouldn't have this job." Last week, for the first time since a pitched battle erupted for control of Pacifica's listener-supported WBAI/ 99.5 FM, amid a larger fight over control and direction of the community-oriented, five-station foundation itself, Wash and members of the board thrust themselves publicly into the debate.
Last Monday, Wash broke into a broadcast of the morning program "Democracy Now" to decry the dissidents' efforts. Wash, board chairman David Acosta and Garland Ganter, general manager of Pacifica's KPFT/90.1 FM in Houston, spoke five times that day over WBAI. On Friday, Pacifica arranged some New York interviews for Wash, who until then had not responded to three months of requests.
So this column is about Pacifica's defense, in the face of accusations that a new, corporate-oriented board is trying to move the foundation away from its original, pacifist, frequently leftist direction.
Wash said she was speaking out now because "two female employees have been attacked in the past two weeks, and I draw the line when it comes to violence, particularly when it is upon women by men." She was referring to allegations of assault during a demonstration in Houston and during an altercation between general manager Utrice Leid and program host Ken Nash during a live broadcast at WBAI. Both allegations have been strenuously denied. The one involving Nash occurred when Leid entered the studio and interrupted his program, "Building Bridges," which she later canceled.
But there are deeper issues involved, and Wash defended herself vigorously.
Pacifica's goals have not changed, she and Leid said; the nation itself has changed. "We are serving different communities today from 50 years ago-from 10 years ago," she said.
Leid indicated she wanted WBAI to expand its involvement with New York's immigrant communities, particularly African, Asian and Caribbean. The station has always had programs directed at those peoples, but "they were English-speaking." She has added new programs on Africa and the Caribbean, is considering expanding the role of Barbara Nimi-Aziz, a Muslim-American, and of "cross-pollinating," so that hosts from different shows appear together.
The implication was that previous regimes at WBAI saw the world from a white, European perspective. There was a tone of racial anger in both Wash and Leid's positions. "The reason that individuals have an agenda to destroy Pacifica is because they cannot get their way," Leid said. "They want to run it the way they want to run it, and resent the idea of Pacifica being in the hands of a capable black woman." Both Leid and Wash are African-American. Yet a significant number of fired or dismissed staffers, and many of their allies, also are black. But the Pacifica turmoil began before either of them was in authority. An eruption two years ago at KPFA/94.1 FM in Berkeley, Calif., came while Lynne Chadwick-a "European female," in Leid's phrase-was executive director.
"The opposition then was principled and rational," Leid said. "It missed the mark, but efforts were made to ascertain the facts." On the other hand, Leid's own relations with the press have been strained and uncomfortable. Until last week, Wash had been uncommunicative, although she said she had been in New York for considerable periods in the past three months.
Perhaps she is correct, and Pacifica is trying to grow and improve working conditions for its staff without compromising the goals of founder Lew Hill.
Still, for an organization dedicated to communication, Pacifica has been extraordinarily clumsy, which only feeds suspicions the foundation itself planted.
Peter Goodman's e-mail address is peter.goodman at newsday.com.
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March 27, 2001 28 Fairview Road Narberth, Pa. 19072
Ms. Utrice C. Leid WBAI
Dear Ms. Leid:
As a station contributor last year, I want to inform you that I will contribute nothing whatsoever this year, given the change in management and the tactics and policies of the new management.
Also, two pieces of advice--if you don't want "disrespect" don't systematically do things that earn yourself disrespect, as you have been doing to an exceptional degree.
My second piece of advice is this: in your next fund-raising letter, do not refer to the "vision of Lewis Hill," speak a bit more honestly instead about the "market-oriented vision of Bessie Wash and John Murdock" and your own desire for personal advancement and showing some of your former peers a thing or two. This may protect you from a possible Federal Trade Commission prosecution for misrepresentation in advertising and promotion.
Sincerely yours,
Edward S. Herman