<http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/support-wbai-and-my-show/>
Support WBAI, and my show
WBAI is fundraising, and I’m doing my major stint from 4-6 tomorrow
(Thursday). If you like the show, and you’ve got some spare change,
please make a pledge during my time slot.
I’ve got some good news about WBAI, for a change. The station was been
under a mix of toxic and ineffectual leadership since the death of
Samori Marksman in 1999. Morale sank, listenership dwindled, the
airwaves were filled with drivel, and fundraising sagged badly. The
station fell months behind on studio and transmitter rent. It was
years behind on its payments to Pacifica, the network that owns the
license, and threatened to drag the whole five-station network down.
Finally, Pacifica’s new executive director, Grace Aaron, decided it
was time to intervene. She fired the station manager, Tony Riddle, a
likable fellow who nonetheless did next to nothing, and suspended and
banned from the air the dreadful program director, Bernard White.
White’s politics are a crude sort of black nationalism, and he’s been
surrounded by a gang of acolytes calling itself the Justice and Unity
Coalition (JUC), who’ve dismissed any criticism of White’s disastrous
reign as racist. (Among its many offenses, the JUC is in tight with
the Workers World Party.) White and some of his JUC cronies denounced
their critics as “pieces of fecal matter” and “CIA agents” on the air.
Aaron decided there’d been enough of this, and has essentially taken
control of the station. The JUC hacks are on the run, and it’s a
beautiful sight.
Enough internal politics. The bottom line is that this is the most
hopeful thing that’s happened at WBAI in at least a decade and there’s
a real chance of turning the thing around. Which is why I feel much
more enthusiastic about fundraising tomorrow, and why I can urge
everyone reading this to contribute generously. You can pledge online—
and be sure to mention “Behind the News” as your favorite show—but
it’d be best if you called in a pledge during my time slot, between 4
and 6 PM Thursday, NYC time, and tell them how much you’d like to hear
more. Assuming you would, of course. The pledge line is 212-209-2950._______________________________________________
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