[Kzyxtalk] Loyalty and Labor Day

Tue Sep 6 14:55:48 PDT 2016

Marco, 
Excellent letter. 
Something needs to happen to flush the truth out into the open at KZYX. You have raised so many important issues. 

I thought I was on the right track toward getting to the truth by filing my complaint to the FCC two years ago, but John Coate and Mary Aigner hired an expensive Washington D.C.-based law firm that specialized in FCC license renewals to defend themselves and the station. 
Someone now needs to bring a formal complaint to the CPB. 
I'll persist in my grievance and possible lawsuit. The station's policy of a "loyalty oath" is reprehensible. 
The quality of a show's content, the skill of the show's host as an interviewer and producer, the ability to attract top guests speaking to important issues, and the demonstrated evidence of attracting and building an audience, should be the only criteria in having a show on the schedule at KZYX. 
Who should have a show on KZYX? 
You, Marco McClean, should have a show...4-5 hours every other week after midnight on KNYO and KMEC in a show that is both informative and entertaining, and 30-plus years doing both radio and newspaper work, including KZYX, is proof enough. 
I should have a show...a weekly show on KMEC on a powerful digital platform that goes out to the Public Radio Exchange and Radio4All, with a Youtube audience of 34,326 (and growing), top guests (including Nobel Prize laureates, Pulitzer Prize recipients, and Emmy Award winners), foundation support (Guggenheim and others), underwriter support (Frey Vineyards, Orr Hot Springs, and others), and nine years experience doing radio, including KZYX, is proof enough. 
Doug McKenty should have a show...years of having up to three different shows at a time on the KZYX schedule, wildly popular with listeners, and a proven fundraiser during Pledge Drives, is proof enough. 
Norman De Vall...retired member of the Board of Supervisors, years doing a popular show on KZYX about county politics, and many years experience in hosting candidates debates, forums on ballot initiatives, and election returns, is proof enough. 
So why don't we have shows on KZYX? 
None of us is likely to take a loyalty pledge to KZYX management. That's why. 

But, by the same token, none of us have ever used our show as a platform to criticize management. Never. Not ever. Not once. As long-time programmers, we're too professional to abuse the privilege of having a show. 
We must continue fighting, Marco. Fight how? Bring a complaint to the CPB. Bring more complaints to the FCC. Bring a class action lawsuit from disenfranchised programmers. 

You get the idea. We -- you, me, Doug, and Norman -- must be the leaders. It is on us to change the culture at KZYX and bring control of Mendocino public radio back to the public. 
They are other important agents for change at KZYX. Dennis O’Brien, who has worked hard to get the station to follow its own by-laws. Scott Peterson, who has worked hard to open the books on the station’s finances. King Collins, who has worked hard to organize the station’s members and give them a voice. And, Sheila Dawn Tracy, who has reported truth to power at the station. 
Are we worthy of the trust that the public has in us to continue fighting the good fight? 

That is the question. 
John Sakowicz 
"I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honor was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust." 
Geronimo 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Marco McClean" <memo at mcn.org> 
To: "kzyxtalk" <kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org> 
Cc: "discussion lists" <discussion at lists.mcn.org> 
Sent: Monday, September 5, 2016 12:33:25 AM 
Subject: Re: [Kzyxtalk] Loyalty and Labor Day 

On 9/4/2016 6:34 PM, John Sakowicz <sako4 at comcast.net> wrote: 
> 
> ...I'm thinking about taking Ed Keller's advice and finally filing my 
grievance over my suspension, so I can nail down this heretofore 
unwritten policy of a "loyalty oath", and sue the station to undo this 
policy. 
> 
> -- John 

John, it's not unwritten. The reason Sean Donovan banned me from 
KZYX in the first place, in 1989, was that I refused to sign a written 
oath to never talk about station business on the air, and then brought 
Mitch Clogg, who Sean had banned from KZYX probably for the same reason, 
to my show. I never got a grievance hearing --and who would have been 
the hearer? Sean Donovan? It was the same with you, John. Who would have 
conducted your hearing? John Coate? Stuart Campbell? Mary Aigner? Who 
would conduct it now? 

"Talking about station business on the air is grounds for losing 
your show." I think the airpeople still have to sign something like 
that. Certainly if an airperson were to so much as /squeak/ about 
wanting to be paid for his work he'd be canned in a Philo minute. 

By the way, here is exactly what Alice Woelfle-Erskine wrote, after 
I complained of having been treated like a bug and then ignored by the 
management of KZYX for a quarter of a century, and after I'd asked her 
who exactly makes the programming decisions now, if not the the program 
director, as I'd been told there was a "fresh new process for 
determining programming," and what exactly is that process? The proposal 
she mentions in the following paragraph was one I brought to the station 
in person in February of 2012 and emailed like clockwork every four 
months thereafter. In July of 2016, after Raul van Hall resigned after 
two months in disgust of the place, fresh program director Alice wrote 
to me (really, read this aloud to get the full benefit of the treatment): 

>"The way that programming decisions are currently happening is this: 
Potential programmers submit a proposal for a show. It is reviewed by a 
programming committee and that committee decides which shows are 
approved and when those shows will be aired. You submitted a proposal 
for a show, which I think sounds very interesting. The programming team 
has decided not to air it. We currently don't have an opening for a show 
of your format or length. One thing we consider when discussing 
programming is the programmer. It is important that the programmers on 
kzyx are reliable, accommodating, respectful, and committed to serving 
the station. The aggressive and demanding tone of your correspondence, 
and the mistrust you have of the operating procedures here at the 
station are not positive recommendations to you as a potential 
programmer. We are not motivated to give air time to people who display 
mistrust and aggression towards the station or its staff." 

p.s., John, the chairman of the "new and improved" programming committee 
she describes is Stuart Campbell who, in one of his last acts as 
president of the board, appointed the chair of the /manager search 
committee/, who threw out my detailed offer to manage the station out of 
the hole it's in and then lied to a boardmember that I hadn't ever applied. 

Why would I mistrust Stuart Campbell? Well, in Lord of the Rings terms, 
why would anyone mistrust Grimer Wormtongue? In A Series of Unfortunate 
Events terms, what's there to mistrust about Count Olaf? 

I repeat: It's not possible for KZYX to cost anywhere near as much as it 
burns through every year. ($600,000). Either the board and management 
are phenomenally bad with money, or there's a clever thief among them or 
with his hooks in them, or both. Lorraine Dechter couldn't change the 
system there. Nothing has changed there since day one. Terrible, 
terrible people are in charge and they use bureaucratic chicanery and a 
cheerleading squad of naive sycophants and old junkyard dogs to keep 
change from happening. 

A radio station is a microphone and a transmitter and federal permission 
to switch the transmitter on. All of that was taken care of at KZYX 
before the Berlin Wall fell. If electricity is 15 cents per 
kilowatt-hour and your transmitter continuously uses 4,000 watts, that's 
60 cents per hour. Sure, there are a few fees and rents and phone bills 
and a few old computers involved, but /$600,000 a year/? almost a third 
of which comes in a grant from CPB that they just have to play a few NPR 
shows to collect? and they can't pay the local workers? 

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

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