[lbo-talk] KPFA Agonisties

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Jul 19 11:08:10 PDT 2005


Nathan Newman wrote:


>In the case of public radio, should the staff always get to decide
>what goes on the air? If management is elected by the listenership,
>they may better reflect those interests than the staff.

There are a lot of complicated issues here. How do you define the listenership? Are there residency requirements? The kind of programming the station features will, to a large extent, determine the listenership. What if that programming is so weird and marginal that the listenership dwindles to a hardy band of weird, marginal survivors? Are they the constituency? What if the electorate is domianted by the oddballs who have nothing better to do with their lives? How can that listenership, however defined, understand who the candidates are, and what the issues are? The actual practice of current Pacifica governance, however it sounds on paper, is pretty screwed up.

Doug



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