[Kzyxtalk] Think of this matter as an unconscionably neglected repair ticket and address it.

[Marco McClean]

To: Alice Woelfle-Erskine, program director, KZYX

cc: to MCPB board <BOD at kzyx.org>, kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org, editor at theava.com


Dear Alice Woelfle-Erskine:


I have been working hard for real media (radio, teevee, print 
publishing) in this county for over thirty years. In addition to my day 
jobs --construction and theatrical work and maintenance and electronics, 
and so on-- I put twenty-plus hours into getting my show together and 
then do my show live every week on KNYO and KMEC, and before that I 
worked at KMFB for almost fifteen years --maintenance and repair and 
solving problems as well as doing my weekly all-night show there, which, 
by the way, had no trouble paying its own way /and/ paying me. I have 
never missed an airdate, nor caused a single legal problem for a station 
manager or with the FCC. I'm that reliable at what I do, and that 
experienced, and that proven. And I've been waiting for four-and-a-half 
years for my show to be scheduled on KZYX, where it will be one of the 
best shows there, and will fit KZYX' educational-band community 
broadcasting mission like a glove.


Months ago Lorraine Dechter told me that things at KZYX are different 
now from the bad old days, and she gave me to understand that all the 
people frustrated by the tone-deaf insular paranoid management of the 
past will finally get a fair shake. She told me to send a show proposal 
to then-brand-new program director, Raoul van Hall. I did that, and I 
wrote Raoul every week about it, providing explanations and links to 
samples of my work, and he never wrote nor called back. Then he vanished 
and somehow you became the program director, Alice. I wrote you. You 
took weeks to write back and then told me that my show sounded cool and 
that there's a new process for scheduling shows on KZYX. I wrote to ask 
you to describe that process and tell me the names and contact info of 
the people involved in it, so I can push it forward. That was a month 
ago. I've heard nothing from you since.


So I'm telling you now: pretend that I'm a paying member and so part 
owner of so-called Mendocino County Public Broadcasting Corporation, 
which I actually am, and I'm a taxpayer, one of the many whose federal 
tax money has been going to bail out KZYX to keep it from failing every 
year of its existence including this year --and that's another fact: 
without the tax-derived CPB grant, KZYX would have been six figures into 
the red every single year since 1989; it started out that badly managed, 
and nothing has changed in that regard; the budget for the current year 
is as absurdly high as last year's and every year's (at least six times 
what it should cost)-- but further, and imaginatively, Alice, pretend 
that I'm one of the secret wealthy persons who step in to make up the 
difference when the pledge drive is failing, so the station always has 
/just enough/ money to pay just the manager $5,000 a month (!), where 
the local airpeople on KZYX are paid nothing (!), while recorded and 
syndicated NPR shows are all paid enough for every one of their show 
people to eat steak and take summers off while they save for a year or 
two to buy a big fine house with cash. (Speaking of which, the MCPB 
budget has been hovering around $600,000. That's enough to pay cash for 
another brand-new pretty nice house on its own acre of land every year, 
when the total drain of running all three transmitters and all the 
equipment in all the studios and all the tower fees and publishers' fees 
and internet, phones and overhead and pencils and bottled water should 
come to less than $10 an hour --around $80,000 a year-- at the absolute 
outside, just to give you some perspective, and I'm including this 
section because I'm copying this to the board, so they know everyone 
knows all this when they trot out, with a row of straight faces, another 
faked-up $600,000 budget to, you know, keep a couple of computers and 
transmitters switched on and a microphone plugged in.)


In short, Alice, get moving on scheduling my show on KZYX. Because I and 
my show are worth it, it will improve the station, and I waited 
patiently in line for years, and lately I have been extremely patiently 
waiting at the head of the line while other less worthy people are 
ushered in past me with nary a glance in my direction. Think of the 
matter in IT terms: consider this a simple repair ticket that's been 
deliberately ignored by your service department for years. I know you've 
only been program director for a few months, and of course you have 
other things to think about, but given the history and the facts and the 
ridiculous length of the delay anyone with any integrity would make this 
a top priority. In the real world you would, and from what I've heard 
about you I hope you will.


You can start by simply telling me (and my listeners and readers) what 
steps you've taken so far to schedule my show on KZYX. If you've done 
nothing, pick an entry point and start now. And describe the "new 
process" you mentioned, and tell me the names and personal contact 
information of all the people involved in that process. So I'm not 
writing this same letter every week for the /next/ five years, to 
whoever comes after you, and whoever comes after that, and after that. 
Please.


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