If you're not...the controversy continues. I suspect lots of people stopped following the story after the restoration of the old order. But there are lots of smoldering controversies now around how the organization should be governed. Local boards? Elected? if so by whom? The answer is usually "the community," but no one ever asks how this community is designated and by whom.
The hottest controversy of all is the deal that Pacifica signed with Amy Goodman to do Democracy Now. Basically, they gave her all the intellectual property rights to the DN name, they'll pay her production company $400,000 a year to cover expenses, she's free to fundraise on her own - and they'll give her the Pacifica donor lists. In return, well not much of anything. She'll pitch on air during fundraisers, but she doesn't have to share her own donor list with Pacifica. A lot of people - including the hard core Free Pacificans as well as a lot of the WBAI staff - are mighty peeved at this one-sided contract. For a network in dire financial shape to sign away its principal national asset - and for AG to go off on her own after affecting a great solidarity with "the fired and the banned" at WBAI - is, um, pretty strange.
And now Pacifica's other hot property, the quack I mean alternative health guru Gary Null, has weighed in with an open letter. He's going to refuse to fundraise (and there's a rumor he's talking to lawyers about a possible suit). GN's letter follows.
Doug
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To the Members of the Pacifica Board:
I am not in New York at this time; I am on the road completing five investigative reports to be broadcast over the Pacifica stations, including "Fatal Fallout," a comprehensive look at the dangers of radiation. I have not reviewed the challenges to Amy Goodman's contract. However, I have enough information at this point to motivate me to make a statement. I am one of many producers, paid and unpaid, who have found this matter extremely troubling. It's not that I have a problem with Amy Goodman or her show. My problem is of a different nature.
Let me begin by saying that for 24 years I have pleaded to be paid a reasonable salary for doing my show, or at the very least, to have my production costs subsidized. I have been rejected by every station manager and program director, including those on the national level. Others have pleaded on my behalf-Samori Marksman and Andrew Phillips-and they have been turned down as well. It seems that because mine does not fit the mold of the standard Pacifica program, I am considered the anomaly, and I've never been given a reasonable explanation as to why others have been paid or subsidized, and I have not.
Consider that I have brought in the largest audience in Pacifica's history-virtually 40 percent of the entire listenership of WBAI has come through my efforts. There was a time-over a span of 17 years-when the ratings showed an astronomical spike in the noon-to-1 time slot, with hardly any audience before or after that. Virtually all of Armand DiMele's audience are holdovers from my show, and this is true for other shows that follow mine as well. Samori Marksman told me that he was going to build other programs from my audience, and he did so.
Yet when I was bringing in 30 to 33 percent of the funds at every drive, at BAI meetings they said that this was a problem. They called it "the Null concern," and what they meant was that they didn't like the idea that one individual had such a disproportionate influence upon the drives. So they took my ideas for health premiums and started Amy and others promoting health-related premiums earlier in the day, knowing that since my audience would buy only one health premium, by the time my show came on at noon, the listeners would already have purchased one. In this way, the impact of my program was diluted. Even so, I was able to bring in 20 to 25 percent. What's more, I had the highest pledge fulfillment rate of any program on BAI (with Democracy Now! having a very low percentage of callers actually honoring their pledges). And my high fundraising yield was in spite of the fact that the station was chronically months late in sending out the promised premiums, if they sent them out at all. Management seemed indifferent to the consequences of non-fulfillment; there would always be another fund drive, and they could always rely on Gary to do the bulk of the work.
My program this year has garnered at least 17 awards for investigative journalism in a variety of health-related categories. Official letters announcing these awards have been sent to WBAI. Yet no mention has ever been made of any of these awards on BAI, nor on any other Pacifica station. In the past seven years I have won over 100 prestigious awards, but again, it's been the same story-no mention. And in all the years of BAI's folio, there was never one single feature on my program.
I've been spending over $300,000 a year out of my own pocket to produce a program that honors the audience with new and vital information that can help change their lives. We know this is a valuable activity: We've received thousands of letters and website communications from people sharing their personal success stories of how they've improved their health with information from Natural Living, even overcoming life-challenging diseases. But there has been no acknowledgment of this from Pacifica.
For the past year and a half, Pacifica press releases and official announcements have made it seem as if there's just one worthwhile show emanating from the network, Democracy Now! It's as if no one else matters, and this is unfair-to say the least-to the other producers, many of whom do a lot of work to put out some very good shows. As I see it, the Pacifica network should be like an orchestra, where every single instrument is important to the sound we want to create. Now, though, we are becoming an orchestra with no musicians except the conductor. And the sound that emanates is one of shrillness.
Yet even during those many times that the station has fallen into gross disrepute, anarchy, and self-serving little fiefdoms, we at Natural Living have kept on course. Even when great programmers and producers-Eileen Zelist and Les Hixon, to name two-have been harassed and essentially forced to quit, only to be replaced by vehemently racist and anti-Semitic programmers, we have forged on.
Now, though, there's a new wrinkle, and one that I will not accept. So here is where I stand: It is time to truly, and for the first time, honor democratic principles by acknowledging the needs of every one of the producers, or, alternatively, acknowledging the needs of none of them. To allow Democracy Now!, a private program, to be subsidized by monies that I and others bring in, when none of our needs are being met, goes beyond anti-intellectualism and beyond grossly manipulative insider dealing. It is the worst management decision I have ever seen, and I will not tolerate it. I will not raise another penny in this framework, nor ask my audience to.
What I will do is continue to support the mission of Lew Hill. That is, I will strive to provide quality radio to an underserved audience, while guided by the ideals of intellectual honesty, personal integrity, and respect for divergent views.
Sincerely,
Gary Null