-Caveat Lector-
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Important Pacifica news from FAIR
Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2000 12:23:25 -0800
From: Peter Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
MEDIA ADVISORY:
PACIFICA MANAGEMENT MOVES TO UNDERMINE WBAI'S INDEPENDENCE
Free speech may be issue in firing of long-time New York station manager
December 1, 2000
In a move reminiscent of last year's attack on Pacifica station KPFA in
Berkeley, the Pacifica Foundation told WBAI-New York's long-time general
manager Valerie Van Isler that it is removing her from her position. On
Tuesday, November 28, during what was supposed to be a routine evaluation,
Pacifica's executive director Bessie Wash informed Van Isler that she was
being reassigned to a newly created position in Washington, DC. Van Isler,
who has been at the helm of WBAI for 10 years, said she wanted to remain at
the station, and was told that she would therefore be fired.
Pacifica, a network of community-supported radio stations, has long been
torn by charges that its national board is bent on taking the network in a
more timid, ratings-driven, commercialized direction. Listeners, as well as
staff at some stations, have organized protests against the board's
continuing centralization of power.
Van Isler had been told to report to her new position, "executive producer
of national programming," in Washington, DC, in January. Though she had
recently brought WBAI into the black, Van Isler had locked horns with
Pacifica management over the airing of a speech that Cuba's Fidel Castro
delivered in New York on September 8.
According to a station insider, Van Isler was also upbraided by Pacifica
management for WBAI's coverage of the Palestinian Right-of-Return March in
Washington DC on September 23. According to the source, Pacifica management
admonished Van Isler after receiving a complaint from the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting (CPB), a presidentially appointed agency that provides
funding to the Pacifica Foundation. Van Isler had also clashed with Pacifica
officials recently over the network's treatment of Democracy Now! host Amy
Goodman.
Pacifica plans to replace Van Isler as early as Monday. WBAI management and
staff were shocked by the sudden decision, which Pacifica has yet to
formally inform them about. Pacifica has not yet named an interim General
Manager. [See attached letter from WBAI Management Team to Pacifica
Executive Director Besse Wash.]
Pacifica's latest move is reminiscent of the 1999 removal of KPFA's general
manager Nicole Sawaya, general manager at Pacifica's KPFA-Berkeley, which
led to protests by thousands of listeners and volunteers, the arrest of
staff and the closing of the station for several weeks.
The firing of Van Isler follows other attacks on Pacifica staff and
programming, including the transfer of Pacifica news director Dan Coughlin,
who like Van Isler was forced out of his position after airing a 30-second
headline about a protest against Pacifica. Pacifica has also recently
threatened to fire Amy Goodman, co-host of the network's flagship national
newsmagazine, Democracy Now!, who recently filed grievances against Pacifica
for censorship, harassment and gender harassment.
For more information, go to:
http://www.savepacifica.net
----
MEMO
To: Bessie Wash, Executive Director, Pacifica Foundation
From: WBAI Management Team
Date: November 30, 2000
Re: Actions proposed against station manager
It has come to the attention of the WBAI management team that Pacifica's
executive management is in the process of an attempted removal of the
station manager at WBAI. We find it incredible that you would even
contemplate such a move because such behavior is a clear contradiction to
the document that you authored and circulated throughout the network,
Pacifica in the New Millennium: Community Radio with Vision.
In this document you spoke forthrightly about the need to change the culture
of Pacifica as it related to personnel. You wrote:
"We intend to improve policies and procedures that assist employees to air
concerns and receive thoughtful, responsive and fair replies. We also intend
to put into place mechanisms that promote respect and teamwork. This
includes responsiveness, dialogue and better communications."
We saw these proclamations as a necessary and welcome departure from the
philosophy and actions of previous administrations and are anxiously
awaiting their implementation.
However, the actions you are now proposing are a direct contradiction to
what you told us you intended to do. We took you at your word and it appears
that you have violated our trust. We believed that we were headed in a new
direction and here we are back in 1998 - a time even the most inexperienced
observer would agree was a management and fiscal disaster that threatened
the very framework of Pacifica. Your proposed actions tend dangerously
toward a replication of that awful time.
Another reason we find your proposed actions unconscionable is because they
would destroy all of the hard-earned goodwill and positive energy that we
have built up with our listenership over the last several months. As a
result of what took place in Berkeley, we began to lose membership (and
income).
Our listeners began to lose faith in Pacifica. It was the efforts of this
management team that promised to repair that damage by renewing the trust
that was lost through no fault of our own.
Your non-consultative and ill-advised proposition to immediately install an
"interim manager" at WBAI is as untenable as it is procedurally out of
order, inasmuch as Valerie van Isler is--and we expect her to remain for the
foreseeable future--our station's manager. It is unclear to us whether you
have followed personnel guidelines in this matter, as well as in your claim
to be opening a "search" for the position. Even if it were your intention to
change management at WBAI at this inopportune time, any person sent here
under such circumstances would almost certainly be unable to function in an
effective manner, given the mistrust, the opposition, the community ill will
and the confusion implicit in your proposal.
This management team demands an audience with you regarding actions proposed
against our station manager and, therefore, against our station. This
meeting should take place as quickly as possible. We are proposing Friday,
December 1, 2000, in our conference room. We are sure that you wish to get
beyond this precarious moment as much as we do. So, please respond as
quickly as possible.
----------
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