[Kzyxtalk] KZYX-Z management volunteer, programmers be paid?

[Marco McClean]

Eric Sunswheat wrote:
 > Asking KZYX-Z MCPB management to volunteer, and requesting that KZYX
 > programmers be paid, other than perhaps a mileage stipend, seems to be
 > a canard or wedge issue, which may gather no steam and result in
 > unintended consequence of continued voter member election distortion. 


    Eric, I'm not sure what you mean by "voter member election 
distortion".  I don't trust the elections that Stuart Campbell runs (in 
the latest one I wasn't mailed a ballot, for example, until it was too 
late for it to count, and Stuart wrote to me that under no circumstances 
was I to construe that as an attempt to prevent me from voting)-- but 
let's say I trust him, and trust the count; even going by his numbers, 
only about 30% of the membership voted, and 63% of that 30% voted for 
the status-quo stonewalling candidates. That's one-fifth of the 
deliberately poorly informed membership. Hardly a mandate.

    I'm sure you know about the behind the scenes chicanery: in the 
latest election Stuart ran interference for the manager-favored 
boardmembers by keeping candidate contact information away from the only 
not-KZYX candidate on-air forum (MendocinoTV), crippling it, and limited 
the KZYX on-air forum to a single controlled, stilted, nearly scripted 
session with Mary Aigner at the controls. I know they didn't ask the 
questions I sent in. John Coate, who requires a compliant board for his 
continued sugar, stuck his tentacle into the election process to 
denigrate the really very moderate reform candidates, and then crowed 
about how the people who were trying to neuter him (!) should shut the 
fuck up now that they have lost so big, not that they will (as he put it).


Eric wrote further:
 > Fallout now underway could be, further discontinuation of volunteer
 > programmers, additional replacement of programmers by syndicated
 > content, and as has now occurred, part time paid staff imported from
 > out of county initially clueless about local issues, juxtaposed by
 > continued ramped up of extended promotional air time for advertising
 > sponsors. 


    So, more of the same, then. Those sound like pretty  good reasons to 
change out the management. But are you saying that holding their feet to 
the fire won't do any good because they've grown too powerful to 
dislodge and it just makes them increase the beheadings until morale 
improves around here?

    All they have ever had to do is to behave honorably, as if they're 
in it for radio and not for the money and petty power, and every day 
they get up and choose not to do that, and things only get worse, and 
they blame everyone but themselves for any trouble that arises. If the 
complaints about bad management had no merit, the FCC wouldn't still be 
holding up the license process.


And Tim Gregory writes [all ellipses Tim's]:

 >marco...running down, or just warming up your usual hyperbole?
 >do-nothing democrats meet do-nothing republicans to shriek about why
 >underfunding kzyx is the answer to why they aren't listening to 
themselves
 >on kzyx right now.
 >wondering if in the interim you actually attempted communication/exchange
 >of new ideas with non-disaffected board members...those other poor souls
 >lost to the borg...
 >i'm sure sako will be along to high five you, turn up the preening...


    Tim, I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat, and MCPB is not a 
government service; it's a corporation whose officers, like the officers 
of increasingly many other fake-charity corporations, suck all the money 
out of it for themselves.

    And I notice that you never answer any of my points. KZYX is in fact 
many times /over/funded. Just the CPB grant pays at least twice-over for 
all KZYX expenses and always has. The shows can all run. Your show can 
go on. The only reason KZYX needs money-money-money is for the CEO and 
his cronies to pay themselves and barricade themselves in their 
position. That's not a new idea at KZYX, it's been a constant since the 
beginning in 1989. I was there.

    And I have written to the board on many occasions in the last six 
months and never got a reply except from Stuart Campbell, who claims 
truculently that /he speaks for the board/ and-- odd, but every time, 
according to him, they agree on what he tells me, which is that he likes 
the way things are and nothing will change. Also odd: the board (Stuart) 
only replies to me when I copy what I write the board to the AVA. 
Otherwise, nothing.

    The public has no way of knowing or tracking whether he even passes 
along to the boardmembers what anyone writes to the board (through 
him!). I suggested releasing the email list. Stuart's answer: no. I 
suggested a regular show of on-air station business discussion. No. I 
suggested putting a station operation forum on the KZYX website. No. I 
pointed out that they're lying when they say the members control the 
station. Stuart replied that, get this: the members control the 
/philosophy/ of the station by voting for boardmembers who give all 
control to John Coate.

    So you see that I have tried to work with your system.

    And I've made it clear that I want to use the public resource the 
amply-tax-funded management of KZYX seems dedicated to defending from my 
use, and I'm qualified, and my long experience in teaching and 
publishing and broadcasting both teevee and radio, shows it. I waited 
years to start bitching about this, after applying again and being told 
by Mary Aigner that no-one was going to read my application. Airpeople 
offered for me to fill in for them when they had to be out of town; Mary 
hit the roof in anger that they even spoke to me. What do you see that I 
should have done that I haven't done, and how long did you want me to 
wait, Tim?

    I have things in mind to do with radio that need a countywide 
platform like the one I had for almost 15 years at KMFB. I'm being 
prevented from using KZYX by people who don't themselves want to use it; 
they just want to control it.


And Late Night Liz wrote:

 >I (professional broadcaster
 >since the '60's) am perfectly happy volunteering my time to spin tunes
 >on air. You gotta serve somebody. Bob Dylan said that.
 >Change is inevitable; it's the law. In my opinion, keeping the
 >station on air is more likely to bring about a melding of all our
 >various agendas than reducing KZYX to smoking rubble. During pledge
 >drive, whine not express your opinions along with your pledge of
 >support?


    Good idea, Liz, express opinions. Again, though, it's not an opinion 
but a fact that KZYX is fully funded by the CPB grant and only needs to 
run pledge drives to pay the few people at the top to mismanage the 
station so badly that it sprays $550,000 per year into the aether, so 
true support and true service would be to call the pledge line and 
express opinions that are not allowed on the air at KZYX and then 
politely make clear that you'll be holding onto your pledge this time 
until they are.


And David Steffen wrote:

 >I'm paid
 >about $15 an hour. Not really a living wage but higher than the California
 >minimum. But when you factor in the 50-60 hours that I work each week as a
 >salaried employee (i.e., no overtime), my salary is really about $11 an
 >hour. Earned in Mendocino County with poor roads, high prices, and no 
decent
 >public transportation.

     But all your business-underwriting-coordinatey efforts, such as 
they are, barely bring the station enough money to pay you. And lot of 
it is money the station would be getting if you weren't there at all, so 
what is the point of you? Meanwhile, a hundred other people are working 
at KZYX, and they aren't paid a cent. I understand the good serfs among 
them are happy to do it. If the ones actually doing the work of radio 
are willing to volunteer in this terrible economic climate of bumpy 
roads and expensive cheese and crackers, David, why is it beneath you 
and Mary Aigner and John Coate to similarly volunteer?


And Sharon Garner wrote:

 >It is really a shame that a handful of spiteful people are trying to 
take down
 >our county's public radio station. Just because a small station in 
Ukiah runs
 >on 19,000 a year, doesn't mean that it is of the same caliber as KZYX. 
I think
 >that all of this is a load of bull. My husband has been a programmer 
for more
 >than 23 years at KZYX. People who are running this station deserve to be
 >paid a "LIVING WAGE" to do everything that keeps it running. NOBODY
 >should have to work for free. The programmers volunteer a 2 hour 
stint. The
 >people who work 40 plus hours a week are not going to do it for nothing.
 >Somebody really needs to get their facts straight. To compare KZYX with a
 >small station in Ukiah is a load of garbage...just sayin.


     Exactly, Sharon. Nobody should have to work for free. The airpeople 
should be paid a reasonable stipend for their time and talent and work. 
And they shouldn't have to do pledge drives instead of their shows. And 
the ones who want to do something more than just play CDs and ID the 
station and chuckle with their three regular callers should be in 
control of their own shows and not not be constantly under threat. And, 
yeah, the managers should be paid, but by the hour for the hours 
actually spent on essential tasks. At KNYO in Fort Bragg, one man does 
the work of general manager, program scheduler, operations coordinator 
and underwriting outreach, and all that occupies a lazy afternoon per 
month. KNYO doesn't have countywide reach, because by law an LP 
station's power is limited, but everything that's required to maintain 
KZYX is required at KNYO. And Bob Young does it for no pay; he doesn't 
do it for nothing, he does it for radio. If KNYO could have KZYX's 
county-spanning frequencies, the difference would be nothing but a 
little more electricity; it wouldn't mean more work for Bob. And all 
three of MCPB's (KZYX, KZYZ, et al.) transmitters together cost only 
about $15 a day to run. That's really how little it costs.

    If the people running KZYX are frazzled it's not by work but by 
faking being busy and by running every aspect of the project in the most 
wasteful, byzantine, tension-making manner possible. They are stunningly 
incompetent. And they may be busy much of the time with things that have 
no bearing on radio, for which they shouldn't be paid by the radio 
station. John Coate, for example, would like to turn the station into a 
social media site of bells and whistles on the web, but somehow without 
the frightening prospect of members communicating out of his control 
with one another. You can see the problem.

    Thinking in these terms, I take it  back. I don't want them to 
volunteer. They're not suited for the work.

    The purpose of a community radio station is to provide a place for 
people in the community to do radio. It shouldn't be to pay an entitled 
gang to keep people out who have a great deal to offer. Imagine if your 
husband had been kicked out four months after he started at KZYX 23 
years ago, and then blackballed and ostracized by the power structure 
there ever since. Would you be angry now at people who speak up for what 
they believe in, or would you recognize the ongoing injustice and speak 
up with them?

-------------

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


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