[Kzyxtalk] Replacing Media Matters

Sat Feb 22 17:56:34 PST 2014

Cannabis is indeed a forbidden topic at the station. 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patricia Kovner" <pkovner at yahoo.com> 
To: tbray at wildblue.net, kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org 
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2014 8:41:13 AM 
Subject: Re: [Kzyxtalk] Replacing Media Matters 

Doug makes such good points. From what I gather, cannabis is a forbidden topic at the station, and I wonder why, especially with the breakthroughs in CBD development, spearheaded by people in our area. Does management even know the difference between medical and recreational? 
-------------------------------------------- 
On Fri, 2/21/14, doug mckenty <dougmck at gmail.com> wrote: 

Subject: Re: [Kzyxtalk] Replacing Media Matters 
To: "tbray at wildblue.net" <tbray at wildblue.net>, "kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org" <kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org> 
Date: Friday, February 21, 2014, 10:38 PM 

Tim, 
I often find it strange when I hear the words 
coming out of the mouths of those who advocate for current 
station policy that have often come out of my own mouth when 
advocating for change. With all due respect, who is trying 
to force their views on anyone? Coate is a lefty 
politically, but he has chosen to program KZYX to cater to 
the center left and those who adhere to a worldview that is 
portrayed by NPR. He has taken a conservative tact 
believing it to be the right course of action in steering 
KZYX to financial stability. I believe he has made a 
mistake by excluding all those who are not center left, 
which surveys show to be at least half the population. 

All of those advocating for change are looking 
for a station that reflects the diversity of our 
community. 
I also believe Coate's management style to be 
conservative when he attempts to control the local news to 
the point of reducing it to next to nothing and eliminating 
all controversial topics. I feel it is also conservative 
to eliminate community input by ignoring, then suspending 
Open Lines, or placing barriers in the way of board members 
trying to establish a board access program or not helping 
facilitate the CAB or not implementing the PAC. 

I would also call it conservative for Coate to 
instruct local programmers to cover local news rather than 
produce local news programs himself. Local programmers 
should be treated as independant contractors. If their 
program description is approved by the PAC then management 
has no right to interfere with their production. I feel 
this attempted control to be just plain rude. 

When I have brought these thing up, nothing is 
done. Jeff Blankfort's show and Corporations and 
Democracy are used as the example that the far left should 
be satisfied and the rest of us are just a "small but 
vocal minority." What about a conspiracy theory show 
or a libertarian show or a Native American show or a 
communist show or a Green Party show or a .....(fill in the 
blank). I don't believe that advocating for diversity 
in programming and freedom of speech for all members of our 
community, including minority voices, is extremist. I 
believe that is what public radio should be all about. 

How is current programming helping anybody 
understand the issues from all sides? 
I cannot agree with you more than when you say no 
one has a monopoly on truth. That includes station staff. 
This is why I advocate for the implementation of the 
Program Advisory Committee designed to create a group of 
people from a cross section of our community working 
together making programming choices with consensus. 

Doug Mckenty 

On Friday, February 21, 2014, Tim Bray <tbray at wildblue.net> 
wrote: 

John Coate is on the extreme right, in 
exactly the same way that Barack Obama is on the 
extreme left: it 
only looks that way if you are an extremist yourself. 

It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic. This 
divisive and 
personal campaign against station staff is reducing 
the 
opportunities for real change, and making enemies of 
people who 
should be making common cause. 

John is a lefty himself, but he believes public radio 
should help 
people understand issues from all sides, educating and 
informing 
so people can make rational decisions, rather than 
simply 
reflecting their beliefs back to them. For this, he 
is castigated 
as a traitor to "the cause" by those who 
want this station to echo 
their own political agendas. He is also maybe a 
little more 
humble about his beliefs than those of you who seek to 
force their 
views on everyone else. 

We have a really diverse community in this County, and 
we should 
have a diversity of views presented on our community 
radio 
station. Nobody has a monopoly on Truth. 

Tim Bray 

Albion 

On 2/20/2014 2:06 PM, she-la wrote: 

Karen, 
The simplest answer is that, from John Coate's 
perspective, the stations news programs were one sided, 
leaning toward leftist philosophy. 
Since he, along with Mary was making the programming 
decisions it didn't matter what any of the members or 
listeners thought. This is one of the main difficulties with 
the station--the lack of inclusion of the public base. It is 
also the main reason why 1/5 of KZYX membership numbers 
(423) now donate to KMUD while only 44 people in Humboldt 
County donate to KZYX. The station ignores these statistics 
by having more pledge drives to bolster its membership 
numbers and make it appear as if a boycott of the station 
by dissatisfied listeners is not occurring. 
Of course, from where Coate stands on the extreme right, 
everything is left of his views. 

-- 

Oak & Thorn 

Facebook: Oak and Thorn 

-----Inline Attachment Follows----- 

_______________________________________________ 
Kzyxtalk mailing list 
Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org 
http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk 

_______________________________________________ 
Kzyxtalk mailing list 
Kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org 
http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/kzyxtalk/attachments/20140223/e43058d9/attachment.html 