[Kzyxtalk] Stuart, Raou, etc.

[Marco McClean]

Cur Mudgeon wrote (about Stuart Campbell):
 > But if this guy really is as Stalin-esque as you say - and I'm not 
arguing
 > with your asessment of him, because I don't know him - how could the 
entire
 > board and members not realize it ? Wouldn't any clear-thinking member
 > recognize this and get rid of him somehow ? It is a listener - supported
 > organization, after all; not everyone could  be fooled.
 > Could they ?


    First of all, not quite Stalinesque but rather Nixonian. And not 
everybody has to be fooled but only enough people. Make a list in your 
mind of historical figures who were voted into office, and had close 
friends, and loved puppies and bunnies, and were terrible people who did 
terrible things and nonetheless had their cadres of fatuous and staunch 
supporters (such as Tim Bray) who all pointed out that they were voted 
into office, sometimes many times in a row, and people complaining about 
beheadings and gassings and fingers in the till should shut up and get 
with the program.


    Get this: Stuart Campbell was /not/ voted into his current position 
on the board by the general membership. We were not permitted to vote 
either for or against him. The root of this is the subject of pending 
legal proceedings that rightly threaten the nonprofit status of MCPB, 
the corporation that controls KZYX. If they lose NP status, they lose 
their annual six-figure CPB grant, and they'll have to learn to operate 
like other radio stations that somehow survive without a tax money 
derived bailout every year, and they won't be able to do it. Without 
that annual shot in the arm, which amounts to not only a shot, nor an 
arm, but a whole replacement body from the arms down, MCPB would have 
failed every year of its existence, going all the way back to the 1980s, 
and the boardmembers aren't equipped to answer that. They're having 
secret sweaty consultations with their legal advisors right now. They've 
asked Dennis O'Brien for a few more weeks to think about how to respond, 
and I don't know why he said, sure, fine, take a few more weeks, but he 
did. Maybe he did because he knows that losing their nonprofit status 
would also cost them their license to keep feeding a total of $20 a day 
in electricity to their three transmitters that together cover the 
county. Maybe he wants to give them a chance to finally grow up, to 
improve. Anyway, those weeks are running out. You don't know anything 
about that, either, because of the lack of transparency characteristic 
of everything about KZYX, the same lack of transparency behind your not 
knowing anything about Stuart Campbell and how he operates. Sakowicz is 
right on this score.


    Other radio stations that pay their managers and office people well 
also manage to pay their airpeople, who are the ones doing what any 
community radio station is there for in the first place. Stuart 
Campbell, currently on the board as the so-called representative of the 
airpeople, has never spoken up for the airpeople in any way, much less 
to get them paid even a pittance for their work, and he's been a power 
in the station for years and years.


    When he was board chairman, he refused to insert in the public 
inspection file anything sent in by the public or membership that he 
wanted kept secret. He refused to accept into the public record anything 
written to the board. He personally intercepted email to the board and 
/spoke for the board/ in replying. He appointed the members of the 
manager search committee, then applied to the same committee to be 
manager at $60,000/yr. And right now he's the chairman of the so-called 
programming committee and the finance committee. The idea of such a 
creature sitting with the levers of power arrayed around him is 
appalling. The list of his sleazy perfidy is as long as your arm, 
speaking of arms.


    And, to be fair, it isn't just Stuart Campbell. MCPB has been a rat 
king since the beginning. Look up /rat king/. Tails, not arms.


    It'll be interesting to read Raoul's take on his experience at KZYX. 
He writes that he'll provide it soon. He has to decompress a little, and 
anybody can understand that.


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