[Kzyxtalk] The crux of the biscuit.

[Tim Gregory]

mm wrote:

--'So I say this time wait to pledge money, until something changes. How is that
threatening to you?'

not to me, marco, i'm just disappointed. you don't bother to connect the dots
between now, and your ideal. cutting off the head, to save the body is not good
prognosis to me.


--'And of course I'm going to say it during pledge
week. When else would it make more sense to say it?'

it will make more sense to us as analysis/future planning when you are not
monkey-wrenching at the same time.

mm, you more than most understand team play in radio [even if you do have a whole
station in your suitcase]. but your 'love of radio' has obvious qualifications and
DISqualifications at this point.

so i ask you in return, aside from therapy--what GOOD will come of giving your
anecdotal experience to legitimizing sako's legal and verbal assault on mcpb? [Doug,
same question.] do either of you think sako would win another term if he were
running this time?

the 'starve-the-budget' tactic is very Republican to me. sandbagging,
sabotage...whatever you want to call it, it's neither loving nor helpful.
---


(K.C. Meadows, I’m sorry. I’m trying, but despite all my newspaper and radio
experience I’ve never been much of a traditional editor. The more time I spend on
cutting things like this, the longer it gets, and then I start over, and then I look
up and it’s three in the morning and I haven’t started my real work. I have to stop
now.)

(Here, if you can use this, use it. If you can’t, don’t. It won’t make me mad; I
know you have space constraints.)

The Crux of the Biscuit
--by Marco McClean

An open letter to the agitated KZYX people who clearly misunderstood what I wrote
about thinking it over before pledging money:

Read MCPB's financial statement. In 2014 KZYX' managers were paid in total over
$180,000. That's 3,600 $50 yearly memberships, when you only have 2,300 members.
It's as if the managers are taking the money out of all the pledge envelopes and
stuffing it in their own pockets, and then some. What am I saying? It’s not /as if/,
that’s exactly what’s happening.

Radio is cheap. It costs surprisingly little to run a radio station. CPB grants paid
$190,000 to MCPB in 2014; that's plenty to never need a pledge drive. And it is dead
easy to make radio that’s smarter and better than commercial stations; it doesn’t
require an all-powerful master deciding who enters and who stays and who goes-- and
continuing to kowtow to these masters because you're afraid to lose your show is
pathetic. And before you tell me /you're/ not afraid to lose /your/ airtime, try
bringing this matter up on the air on KZYX and see what happens. Try recounting on
your show any conversation you've ever had with anyone in the KZYX office. Try being
exactly who you are, on the air, and not cramping your style down because of how
Mary Aigner might view what you say and do, and see what happens.

And “the members control the station” is a lie. I was talking with Doug McKenty last
week; he told me about arguments he had with Stuart
Campbell, where Stuart said, "Members do /too/ control the station. They elect the
board." But then the board transfers complete control to John Coate and Mary Aigner,
neither of whom pay the slightest attention to what station members might have to
say. And when you write to the board, using the form on the website, they don't even
receive it. It doesn't get to them; and they don't care. They /like/ being as
insulated from the members as they are from the general public.

Just for comparison, KNYO-LP in Fort Bragg has microphones, mixers, music players, a
broadcast booth with a microwave oven and a bathroom, an STL link of sorts, remote
studios, a transmitter, and even a
storefront performance space downtown. The only operating difference between KNYO
and KZYX is in maximum allowed transmitter power. KNYO’s manager’s real tasks are
the same as the combined real tasks of all the managers of KZYX, but he’s paid
nothing; he does it because he loves radio. Anyone who wants to do a show on KNYO
can do it. When problems crop up they get solved. KNYO doesn’t get any tax grant
money; every donated dollar goes to run the station. And radio is a thing that
anyone can do if he isn't prevented from it by oppressive gatekeepers like the
managers of KZYX. You don’t have to go to school for it; you just have to have a
radio hero or two to emulate until your own style emerges. Or even just have an
idea.

Everyone who has a show on KZYX would still have his or her show if the managers who
insist on being paid like kings all went away, which is what I suspect they’d do if
their salaries were yanked, because they’re not in it for radio. People who are in
it for radio would replace them. That would be an improvement.

Without the people on top sucking all membership money and underwriting money out of
the system, just the federal grant money would easily maintain KZYX, because that’s
what it’s doing now, and what it’s been doing for 25 years of this.

So I say this time wait to pledge money, until something changes. How is that
threatening to you? And of course I'm going to say it during pledge week. When else
would it make more sense to say it?

Marco McClean, Albion
memo at mcn.org
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com







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