[Kzyxtalk] Fwd: Re: [MCN-Discussion]- David Brooksher

sako4 at comcast.net sako4 at comcast.net
Thu Feb 13 16:16:06 PST 2014


Although I have no proof of this at this time, I'm willing to bet Coate has sabotaged Christina Aanestad's job search by either failing to provide a reference or providing a negative reference. And why all this recrimination? Why? Because Christina wanted to do an in-depth piece killer piece on the Emerald Cup? Because she wanted to do serious investigative journalism, like looking into the two deputy suicides in the MCSO North Sector? 


Concerning Christina's job performance as a new anchor at KMUD -- first-rate all the way. Totally. I now get my Humboldt-Mendocino news by listening to the KMUD webstream. 

----- Original Message -----
From: nsi at mcn.org 
To: kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org 
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:57:52 PM 
Subject: [Kzyxtalk] Fwd: Re: [MCN-Discussion]- David Brooksher 




----- Original Message ----- 


From: "" <nsi at mcn.org> 

To: Tim Bray <tbray at wildblue.net> 

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] 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 

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