[Kzyxtalk] David Brooksher

[nsi at mcn.org]

This is crap Tim. John Coate didn't "lay off" Christina. That's just
how he couched it when he promised her she'd be rehired as soon as
the finances improved.  
What he really did, was take the first step towards shutting down the
News Department as an independent entity; an entity with the
contractual right to negotiate its budget. And which had control over
the content. 
I'm not even sure now that cancelling the news department and
replacing it with 5 minutes of press releases and recitation from the
Press Democrat was really within his purview And if so, what a
mistake. Where was the Board oversight? 
David Brooksher was canned because he resisted Coate's interference
in his news gathering, which began to be an appropriately focused
attention on the struggle over the extension of the Marine Sanctuary
zones in our region.
 What David did at KMUD was put together and train a team of local
correspondents. In other words: Bush Radio. 
--Which is what Christina wanted to do at KZYX/Z. Mary Aigner, in all
the years she has been there, has yet to recruit and train a bilingual
public affairs team. And has done nothing to replace the local
programming we once aired re. Native American culture and issues. You
are out of your league here and either manufacturing information or
intentionally deaf to what went on. And continues. 
As a first step: you need to do a reality check with Christina before
you throw her name around. --beth bosk
From: "Tim Bray" 
To:
Cc:
Sent:Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:59:21 -0800
Subject:Re: [Kzyxtalk] David Brooksher

Congratulations David!  I hope he succeeds.

 As for his tenure at KZYX, this is my understanding:  He was hired
on a probationary basis (6 months, I think)  At the end of that
period, his performance was evaluated, and the GM decided not to
offer him a permanent position.  John Coate regards personnel
decisions as confidential matters and never discloses the reasons in
public, so we will probably never know exactly what led to that
decision.

 I will say, however, that I personally was disappointed in Mr.
Brooksher's performance, and wrote to the GM to express my concerns
and my desire for improvement in the news broadcast.  Other
listeners told me they were similarly disappointed.  It did not
surprise me when he was not retained.

 Dave is a nice guy and I think he might do much better as a
writer.  I wish him all the best.

 Tim

 p.s. Christina, as you well know, was laid off because the station
could not afford two full-time news reporters.  Even she admitted at
the time that it was the right thing to do.

 On 2/11/2014 12:11 PM, sako4 at comcast.net [1] wrote:

  Please join me in congratulating former KZYX news director, David
Brooksher, on his new job as a Staff Writer at The Union, which is
owned by SWIFT COMMUNICATIONS, INC.  

-- 
Oak & Thorn [2]
 Facebook: Oak and Thorn 

Links:
------
[1] mailto:sako4 at comcast.net
[2] http://oakandthorn.wordpress.com

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