I appreciate Matthew Lasar's wealth of information and insight into radio, however even Lasar has a degree of denial when it comes to Pacifica that is difficult to fathom. I can only surmise that it is because he feels so very close to Pacifica, since it is our own foibles that are hardest to see.

Lasar praised the PNB for hiring Sawaya and then added: "Sawaya made it clear during her interviews that she wanted to do radio, not spend her days putting out office politics fires. That the board responded favorably to this stance gives LLFCC hope, even now."

I don't see it that way. If Sawaya really "made it clear" that she wanted "to do radio" instead of organizational management, then she was the wrong person for the job from the get-go and should not have been hired. If she wanted to do radio she should have applied for program director or for the KPFA Sunday morning slot.

The failing of the PNB has consistently been denial of the outrageous problems with management at all five stations. The PNB suffers the illusion that the executive director and station managers, but most importantly the ED, should be a radio people. This denial by the PNB has led to the hiring of the wrong people to lead Pacifica beginning with the hiring of Dan Coughlin, who despite his few good points led Pacifica into the badlands of management protecting managers who were accused of theft, sexual harassment, coverups of physical violence at stations, etc.

The EDs and station managers at Pacifica have failed or done poorly in communicating and working with the elected governing bodies. Instead of working collaboratively and educating the PNB and the LABS with the management problems at the stations and the national office, the managers have covered up and glossed over the issues or worked actively together to conceal the issues.

The crappy atmosphere at Pacifica flows from the top. And the ED is the top of management. When the ED protects the station managers instead of telling them to do their jobs fairly and evenhandedly, then nothing can be accomplished to change the atmosphere at the stations. The PNB needed to tell Sawaya, and any new ED, that "you are not being hired 'to do radio', but to clean up the organization's management practices."

But just as importantly, the PNB is the top of governance, and the PNB is so much in denial of the problems at the stations that they are running the foundation into bankruptcy. The PNB's denial is what allowed them to hire Sawaya who, according to Lasar, was full of denial about the need to put out the prairie fires of mismanagement throughout Pacifica.

The directors on the PNB should be ashamed of themselves, first for hiring Sawaya (if she indeed said that she wanted "to do radio" instead of put out fires) but most importantly for their own disorganization and buffoonery in office. You know there is a vein of denial running deep and wide when they would rather argue over the agenda than deal with the mismanagement at the stations where funds and equipment are purloined, staff and volunteers are physically threatened and battered, people are sexually harassed, and there is no accountability with managers being allowed to go unevaluated (just to mention a few of the concerns). As another example, the PNB has allowed the CFO to continue when he should have been fired before his first year was up for failing to provide adequate, useful, and intelligible information about the corporation finances and has misled the PNB about the financial difficulties at WBAI that now threaten to sink the whole Pacifica ship.

In 1999 we saw a Board of Directors who were insulated and self selecting running the foundation into the ground. We saw four constituencies: Governing board, management, staff and listeners. At that time, the listeners were out of the equation except for providing funding. The Board became hostile to staff and the listeners came to the rescue. We created an organizational structure that allows the staff and listeners to democratically elect the governing boards who in turn will select the management. However, now at most stations, there are cliques of management and staff who have allied together to keep out any listener influence that would threaten the status quo of current employment of those staff and managers. This unholy alliance is supported by listeners on all the governing boards, including the PNB, who are jeopardizing the very existence of Pacifica, rather than dealing with the real problems of management and staff at the stations.

All along, those listeners who are not close to the stations' political fires only hear what is on the air. From this, they either decide everything is fine because they like the programming, or that everything is hopeless because ths same poor programs continue. In either case, the listeners are not informed enough about what is going on to make them informed enough to vote on real issues. When real issues are presented to the listeners, the management with the support of the PNB finds one way or another to shut it down or neutralize it in favor of the status quo, once again choosing denial over dealing with fires.

So I say, a happy good-bye to Sawaya, who apparently was in denial about what is needed, and I say to the Pacifica PNB, get your act together and your heads out of your rear-ends of denial and hire an ED who isn't interested in "doing radio" but who is interested in managing a multi-million dollar national nonprofit corporation by applying best practices and fair and honest policies and procedures.

If it were not so desperate, it would be funny. Calls for accountability at Pacifica, where no destructive action is ever announced, discussed on air, or punished. Where an iron gag rule protects every staff person.
Despite the tone of last minute desperation, the recommendations I read all have to do with political moves. The 900 pound gorilla is still tiptoed around. The listeners are still to be treated with supreme contempt except for those occasional fund raisers, at which time they are courted with earnest protestations of how central their participation is. Fine if they buy it, but make sure no listener is ever allowed to express a single thought on air without some staff person's thumb on the cut-off button. We all know how smart and independent and capable the listeners are but be sure they never can use that intelligence on the radio.
If Pacifica goes down in flames, it won't be because of external hostility (a real but convenient excuse) but because arrogant "leaders" ran out of "followers". I stopped contributing years ago because of my own treatment by staff. I doubt that I am alone.

Anyone could have told her there is no way for an ED to spend most of her time on radio.

Pacifica is one big office fire right now.

Still I am sorry she stepped down. She may not have been successful in bringing Pacifica back to health, but it was worth a try.

I don't blame Nicole for quitting. But it is bad for Pacifica, which is collapsing and desperately needs a strong ED to take control and put it back on its feet. Pacifica will not survive another year of floundering and mismanagement, and the outrageous & irresponsible politicking on the PNB in support of certain managers and staff members holding protected sinecures here and there around the network.

The next Pacifica ED must tell the PNB that they will take the job on the following conditions:

1) That the CFO be immediately terminated for presenting false, misleading, inaccurate and late financial reports, and for failing to take corrective measures at bankrupt WBAI back in 2004 when its financial slide first became obvious. The CFO position will report to and work under the supervision of the Executive Director, and the board will approve the ED's hiring and firing recommendations as to that position.

[The August financial reports projected WBAI would end the fiscal year on 9/30 with an operating surplus, when in fact WBAI was deeply in debt to the National Office and was using restricted grant monies for operating expenses -- all of which was known to the CFO or should have been.]

2) That the WBAI General Manager and Program Director will be immediately terminated and an outside management firm will be brought in to restructure and turnaround that station.

3) That the Washington Bureau Chief position will be immediately terminated. Pacifica cannot afford the $80k+ salary and the headlines service being produced is not carried by Pacifica stations and by very few affiliates.

4) That the corporate counsel will be immediately terminated for compromising Pacifica's required neutrality in the elections and for encouraging, aiding and abetting the PNB and the National Elections Supervisor to violate the bylaws, state laws, and the required neutrality of the elections, as well as for mishandling the investigations and lawsuits for sexual and/or racial discrimination and harassment around the network -- particularly at KPFK -- exposing Pacifica to hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential liabilities.

If the PNB will not agree to all of those conditions, then Pacifica will go down, and swiftly, and any ED is doomed to failure.

On the other hand, if those measures are taken and sanity and fiscal responsibility are imposed, then it may still be possible to rescue Pacifica and make it a credible and significant alternative media organization -- which is desperately needed in this country at this time.

Carol Spooner