Joe W: Could you name a program or two that would be your example of "amateurish, ranting radio"?
Sasha Lilley (SL) asked: "Why is it that you see professionalism as the polar opposite of “ artistic, creative non-conventional, non-commercial culture”? Professionalism does not in any way preclude radical, innovative, engaging radio –- in fact, it can facilitate it. What intrinsic relationship does decent sound quality and probing, analytical programming have to commercialism? Doug’s program on WBAI is a case in point. Or take Joe Frank’s unsettling “tales from the darker side of the urban jungle” –- it’s both highly professional and enormously creative. There is nothing inherently progressive about shitty sound.
Joe W: The issue of 'professionalism' was central to the debates around Pacifica in the 90s, and professionalism was the mantra and the trojan horse of the would be hijackers. I invite you read this passage from John Whiting seminal essay on Pacifica which places your (and Doug's) calls for 'audience expansion' and 'professionalism' in historical context:-
http://www.ringnebula.com/folio/Issue-1/VINCULA.htm
With the new tricks came delusions of grandeur. In 1992 A Strategy for National Programming was confidentially circulated which set forth a "five year plan" (its own unfortunate phrase) in order to "draw large audiences and generous subscribers". This was to be accomplished by scrapping an increasing number of locally produced programs which would be compulsorily replaced by "expand[ing] national programming from one half-hour nightly news program in 1993 to 28-30 hours by 1997".
The power structure of the American networks, which had motivated the creation of listener-sponsored local radio, was now to serve as its model. Like Moliere's Bourgeois Gentleman, Pacifica was at the mercy of its new servants. Media professionals who genuinely admired what the stations represented were prepared to work for half what they had been paid in the commercial world; awkwardly, this was still twice the salaries of those already there. A gulf appeared between those who managed the money and made the decisions, and those who produced the programs and went on the air.
This was exactly what Lewis Hill had set out to avoid. In one prospectus after another, he had expounded the principle that the people behind the microphones should be collectively responsible for what they said and should all be paid the same salary:
The people who actually do the broadcasting should also be responsible for what and why they broadcast. In short, they must control the policy which determines their actions.... Whatever else may happen, we thus assign to the participating individual the responsibility, artistic integrity, freedom of expression, and the like, which in conventional radio are normally denied him. KPFA is operated literally on this principle.
But that policy was abandoned during a power struggle in the early nineteen fifties, and the way was open for the gradual centralization of power in the hands of the board of directors. For years the board steered with a relatively light touch; but as the pros moved in, they brought their modus operandi with them. Like all managerial cliques, their first priority was their own survival. Usually the conflict of interest between new administrators and old producers appears with the first adjusted paycheck. But Pacifica had an enormous pool of dedicated amateurs (in the original sense) who gave their time and talents for nothing. (William Mandel, a world authority on the former Soviet Union, conservatively estimates that he has given Pacifica a million dollars worth of his services.) Since half of nothing is still nothing, they were prepared to work for greatly reduced salaries.
But half of nothing saved is nothing earned, and so other sources of income had to be explored. Pacifica's home base, KPFA in Berkeley, California, had long been housed in a hippie heaven of crumbling studios and deteriorating equipment. What better symbol of the new Pacifica (and magnet for money) than a new state-of-the-art center of operations, paid for by contributions from those grateful survivors who over the years had turned to KPFA for moral, intellectual, and artistic sustenance? Even those who had stopped listening in the seventies, when the station became a struggle pit of competing special interest groups, were prepared to contribute to the erection of a suitable memorial. So on September 26, 1991, KPFA moved into an attractive, modest (by commercial standards) new building with unobtrusive but effective security. They would need it.
Once housed in its mausoleum-with-a-mortgage, the administration had to take an even sharper look at ways of raising its operational income. Following their natural bias, the pros from the real world consulted the hour-by-hour ratings charts, extracted the figures for KPFA, lined them up against the daily schedules, and called in spin doctor David Giovannoni to turn their wheel of fortune. After a short day's examination of the programmers' entrails, he delivered his verdict: More pop music. No speeches. More chat. No big words. Same programs every day. Go down market. The minutes of the meeting reported: "Giovannoni thinks that in general for many listeners politics is not as important as being entertained." He submitted a hefty bill and departed.
The administration set out to follow his advice. The first to go, the bellwether of the flock, was William Mandel, who had been on the air for thirty-seven years. Ignoring the bullets whizzing about his ears, he had carried on through one palace revolution after another until, having dared to stray outside his narrowing brief, he suddenly found himself sacked in May for insubordination.
Mandel's supporters immediately rallied to his defense; articles appeared in the press and pickets appeared outside the door. Alexander Cockburn devoted a whole column in The Nation to Mandel's cultural-revolution-like ritual humiliation. As angry letters flooded in, the station followed up its hand grenade with a bombshell. In July, it announced that the rest of the Golden Oldies were to be forcibly retired without even a handshake. Out on the street, Bill Mandel now had a lot of company, including Phil Elwood, one of the greatest jazz critics and presenters in the world, who had also been around from KPFA's beginning.
Amateurish, ranting radio does not serve the cause of the left -– it alienates all but those who already agree with your point of view. And if our goal is to build a radical left, which I hope it is, then we need to be able to move beyond preaching to the converted.
>From: Sasha Lilley <sashalilley at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: Lew Hill on Pacifica Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004
>23:15:32 -0700 (PDT)
>
>"Joseph Wanzala" <jwanzala at hotmail.com>
> > Doug, all you ever do is rag on Pacifica, even
> > though you have a program on
> > Pacifica's New York station WBAI > >
> Indeed, your recent
> > statement that Pacifica needs more
> > professionalization not less, flies in
> > the face of the type of artistic, creative,
> > non-conventional, non-commercial
> > culture that Lewis Hill was trying to cultivate.
> >
> > Joe W.
>
>Why is it that you see professionalism as the polar
>opposite of “ artistic, creative non-conventional,
>non-commercial culture”? Professionalism does not in
>any way preclude radical, innovative, engaging radio
>–- in fact, it can facilitate it. What intrinsic
>relationship does decent sound quality and probing,
>analytical programming have to commercialism? Doug’s
>program on WBAI is a case in point. Or take Joe
>Frank’s unsettling “tales from the darker side of the
>urban jungle” –- it’s both highly professional and
>enormously creative. There is nothing inherently
>progressive about shitty sound.
>
>Amateurish, ranting radio does not serve the cause of
>the left -– it alienates all but those who already
>agree with your point of view. And if our goal is to
>build a radical left, which I hope it is, then we need
>to be able to move beyond preaching to the converted.
>
>
>
>=====
>Sasha Lilley
>Producer, Against the Grain
>Pacifica Radio's KPFA
>510 848-6767 ext 209
>www.againstthegrain.org
>
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