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

[Cindy Swan]

Mr. Steffen:

Thank you for
Can you also clear up
just why Dave Brooksher was fired?

 From a distance,
he appeared to be doing a
level headed and
very professional job.
IMO, as a long-time
community print-media journalist,
and one well-aware of the challenges
associated with truly providing
objective information
in the face of an emotionally-charged
bandwagoneer political climate.

Of note: his very objective coverage
of weekly Board of Supervisors' meetings. . .
and development, in association with
Terri Klemetson, KMUD News Director,
of Community Journalism
training workshops -
held in Philo, Willits, and Round Valley.

He was quite kind and helpful
to our fledgling
all-volunteer run station

and even came, at my invitation,
all the way
to Round Valley . . .
along with Terri Klemetson, KMUD News Director
and Joseph Orozco, KIDE (Hoopa Tribal Radio)

to spend a weekend - his "days off"
to work with/train
30 of our local volunteers here
in how to do a professional interview
+ recording/editing techniques.

We were humbled by his youth, yet
his ability to work with people
of all ages and backgrounds,
his passion for community radio,
amazing radio voice, strong sense of ethics
and his technical/teaching skills.

Many of us looked forward to
participating in future workshops
and developing our own skills . . .
to the point where we could
reciprocate, in kind, by producing
professional-quality news, worthy of
inclusion in his daily, 30-minute KZYX Newscast.
(Just as a few of us have done for KMUD News,
as a result of Terri continuing
the Community Journalism Project,
—with the enthusiastic support of her Board.)

He also assisted in developing an agreement
between KZYX and KYBU
to re-broadcast KZYX News on our station
as a "teaching tool" - so our listeners
and volunteer programmers could get a clearer picture
of what "local, community radio news" was all about.

His approach was hardly radical, single-issue oriented
or "hand-wavy"; but strictly
"just-the-facts" and stressing the need to
do the necessary research and keep
one's objectivity and integrity intact.
A real pro, trained at HSU's
excellent radio journalism program
and even interned w/NPR ?

Then, suddenly, he was
"laid off" due to "budget cuts".
And KZYX News became
5 minutes of Paul Lambert reading press releases.

Looking at the budget posted on KZYX's website
I could not help but notice that, while
the $30,000/year News Director position
had been cut "due to budget constraints"
(out of a $500,000/annum budget)
—yet $20,000 had been added under a new line item
called "News Consulting".

When I asked John Sakowitz
just who the "consultant" was
all I got was . . .  <crickets>

Perhaps, as KZYX Business Developer,
you can answer this question?

Sincerely,
C. Swan
37 year resident of Mendocino County,
(Covelo, as well as Mendocino, Caspar, Albion "back in the day")
KZYX listener, since its inception in 1990 . . .
15 years Owner/Editor "The Round Valley News" (retired)
Founding Member, KYBU • "Round Valley Community Radio"



On Feb 14, 2014, at 12:40 PM, David wrote:

> Once again we have revisionist history at work here.
>
> I will resist any invitation to go into the quality of any  
> newsperson’s writing and reading skills or personal agendas. I will  
> however set the record straight on other issues.
>
> No-one had a plan to raise the $40-50,000 needed to bring on an  
> additional full-time newsperson. Raising $4000 is laudable but what  
> if there is no additional money? The person is laid off again 6  
> weeks later? Secondly, the financial health of the station did not  
> improve the moment lay-offs occurred. The debts were still there.
>
> To my knowledge there was never any harassment claimed by her  
> toward me. To the contrary, I informed the General Manager that I  
> refused to have any more one-on-one meetings with the newsperson  
> due to her harassment of me. I would meet with her ONLY if there  
> was a third party in the meeting to observe. In addition, I have  
> never spoken with anyone outside of KZYX about any issues  
> associated with any current or former employee. Anyone claiming any  
> other knowledge is clearly lying.
>
> It’s interesting how people who have no knowledge of any of these  
> events always have something to offer.
>
> David Steffen
> KZYX Business Development
> (707) 895-2324 office
> (707) 322-9895 cell
> (707) 895-2451 fax
>
> From: kzyxtalk-bounces at lists.mcn.org [mailto:kzyxtalk- 
> bounces at lists.mcn.org] On Behalf Of nsi at mcn.org
> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:58 PM
> To: kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org
> 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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