[Kzyxtalk] Fwd: Re: [MCN-Discussion]- David Brooksher
nsi at mcn.org
nsi at mcn.org
Thu Feb 13 15:57:52 PST 2014
----- Original Message -----
From: ""
To: Tim Bray
Cc: discussion at lists.mcn.org
Sent: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:02:28 -0800
Subject: Re: [MCN-Discussion]- [Kzyxtalk] David Brooksher
Folks: I suggest you all go to the KMUD archives and listen to the
1/2
hour news coordinated by Christina Aanestad on Wednesday February
12.
Most especially you Tim.
It is representative of the possibilities John Coate threw away:
Exquisite sequencing, well trained community corresspondents, a
daily
spectrum of Mendocino and Humboldt County news.
The email you referenced on the Programmers listserv, TIm (sent
when? 2
years ago), was posted by Christina while she still believed John
Coate when he told her his intentions were to hire her back once the
stations finances were improved.
Coate by the way turned down a $4000 (and growing) pledged amount of
money collected on the coast by Meredith Smith in a matter of two
weeks to specifically continue Christina's employment in the new
department.
Such targeted monies have been accepted by the station before.
Coate turned that down! He wanted to be entirely rid of Christina,
but hadn't made that clear to her because he did not want her to go
public (and possibly to court) with the harassment she had
suffered
from David Steffen and Paul Hansen. Harassment about which she had
JUST
made a formal complaint to Coate.
Paul Hansen. Remember him. He flees the station roster right after
the AVA learns and publishes that Hansen was involved in some
sort of grift operation at the last station he worked for. And
indicted for. An indictment he had not disclosed on his resume.
Immediately after Paul's departure from KZYX, Christina applied for
the position of News Director. And Coate responds with a terse
content-based turn-down. . . . Then, casually disses her to Doug
McKenty.
Upon first learning (for the first time last month) that her
professional reputation was being openly besmirched by John Coate,
Christina sent an email to Doug expressing her outrage, and includes
a copy of Coate's curt dismissal for all to see for themselves and
judge. (She gave us both permission to post it on the discussion
listserv, which I did. )
This goes on and on. And if you want more, I'll do David Steffen
next.
Tim! Just listen to that newscast so you understand the extent of
Coate's terrible, terrible judgement.
"Management"! Is that what you think this is. . . . More like
living in a Failed State. --beth bosk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Bray"
To:
Cc:
Sent:Thu, 13 Feb 2014 11:17:22 -0800
Subject:Re: [Kzyxtalk] David Brooksher
In response to Beth's request, I went back and looked at the e-mail
Christina sent to the Programmers list. I don't think it will
violate
any confidence or privacy to share the relevant line to which I
referred
earlier:
"I was laid off not fired. John has done right the right thing in
this
process." [sic]
I wasn't her biggest fan, but she displayed some class in that
period.
That particular e-mail laid out a number of ideas for how KZYX might
survive the financial crisis it was facing, and prosper in the
future;
and several of those have since been followed up by the Board and
management. She did fault the Board for not doing more fundraising,
programmers for not making a clear enough case to listeners for
contributions, and management for not embracing more of her ideas.
There was some justification for all of that.
So there's your reality check; and it was Sako who threw her name
around
here.
As for Brooksher, he tried to develop a team of local correspondents
here. I remember a Programmers Meeting when he made exactly that
pitch,
explaining how easy it was to do and that he would train anyone who
was
interested, etc. He got a couple of people to do it - like Louis
Bigfoot - but not enough to make it work. That wasn't management's
fault, or even Dave's, but ours as a community. After Dave left,
John
asked the programmers to pick up some of the slack by covering more
of
the local events and affairs on their shows, and I think some have
done
so. It's too bad they don't seem to be getting any recognition for
that; all anyone wants to talk about is the lack of a half-hour
local
news program.
I may be out of my league, but I am not manufacturing information
(that
might be John S you're thinking of) and if I am deaf, it is not
intentional. KZYX is far from perfect and I have long been critical
of
many aspects. I think it has improved in many ways since I started
listening; perhaps your opinion differs. Since it is a matter of
opinion, neither of us has to be wrong.
Sincerely,
Tim Bray
On 2/11/2014 8:53 PM, nsi at mcn.org [1] [1] wrote:
> 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
_______________________________________________
Kzyxtalk mailing list Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org [2] [2]
http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk [3] [3]
Links:
------
[1] mailto:nsi at mcn.org
[2] mailto:Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
[3] http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk [4]
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
The Mendocino Community Network (MCN) provides the MCN Discussion
list.
Use of the list is subject to the terms of service at
http://www.mcn.org/email/dtos.html [5]
TO UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send an email to
discussion-leave at listsmcn.org [6] (To complete the process you must
reply to the email you receive in response)
For listserv technical problems please contact: listmanager at mcn.org
Links:
------
[1] mailto:nsi at mcn.org
[2] mailto:Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
[3] http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk
[4] http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk
[5] http://www.mcn.org/email/dtos.html
[6] mailto:discussion-leave at lists.mcn.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/kzyxtalk/attachments/20140213/ec8c6bc0/attachment-0001.html
More information about the Kzyxtalk
mailing list