[grc] Does anyone remember the NFCB Healthy Station Project?

[Heather Gray]

Thanks Carolyn ­ Below is Andrew Phillips on Pacifica and the Healthy
Station Project. It's an interesting and relevant article. I do correlate
the Healthy Station Project with privatization initiatives today on prisons,
charter schools, etc ­ basically efforts to take away the voice and media
control of and by the people. At a Pacifica Board meeting in Berkeley a few
years ago I was stunned to witness the conflict between the paid and un-paid
producers ­ definitely a hierarchy as one would expect. I was so glad upon
reflection that we never allowed our station to be engaged in this model.
Peace,

Heather

Riding the waves at Pacifica radio, by Andrew Leslie Phillips
by Matthew Lasar <http://www.radiosurvivor.com/author/matthew-lasar/>  on
August 6, 2013 in Community Radio
<http://www.radiosurvivor.com/category/noncommercial-radio-2/community-radio
/> , Op-Ed <http://www.radiosurvivor.com/category/op-ed/>
http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2013/08/06/riding-the-waves-at-pacifica-radio-b
y-andrew-leslie-phillips/
 <http://radiosurvivor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/andrewphillips.jpg>

Andrew Phillips
Andrew Leslie Phillips has written a short history of the Pacifica radio
network, published below. He is interim general manager of Pacifica station
KPFA in Berkeley, California.
Phillips is a native of Australia. He spent seven years in Papua New Guinea
as a government patrol officer, radio journalist and filmmaker before coming
to New York in 1975. He produced award-winning investigative radio
documentaries on a wide range of environmental and political issues for the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and for Pacifica station WBAI in New
York City. He taught journalism, radio and ³sound image² as an adjunct
professor at New York University for 10 years.
Phillips tells me he is still on ³administrative leave²
<http://radiosurvivor.com/2013/06/03/andrew-leslie-phillips-the-education-of
-a-kpfa-general-manager/>  at KPFA, pending the completion of some kind of
investigation of him by his employer, the Pacifica Foundation. Thanks to
Project Censored <http://www.projectcensored.org/>  for permission to
reprint this piece. -Matthew Lasar
The Pacifica foundation was founded in 1946 by poet and journalist Lewis
Hill and a small group of pacifists, intellectuals and experienced radio
people. They did not have the same political or economic philosophy but
shared a vision which supported a peaceful world, social justice and
creativity. At 3pm, April 15, 1949, Lew Hill sat behind the microphone and
announced: ³This is KPFA, listener sponsored radio in Berkeley, the first
such radio station in the world².
At the time, less than nine-percent of the Bay area radio audience owned the
new FM receivers and Pacifica gave them a special KPFA radio with 94.1 on
the FM dial, to get people tuned in. FM was a new, technology and Pacifica
was backing the future, inventing an entirely new funding mechanism ­ the
theory of listener sponsored radio.
It was daring, audacious and brilliant. And it caught on. Today there are
Pacifica radio stations in five of the ten top radio markets[1]
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftn1>
The concept of listener sponsorship appealed to the politically savvy and
zealously left-leaning progressive community in the Bay Area. They were
happy to support a radical alternative to the commercial pabulum, incipient
McCarthyism and the atomic bomb Cold War politics of the 1950¹s. The social,
political and cultural leadership eagerly sought the free access offered by
KPFA as they do to this day. Today the audience is more diverse reflecting
the milieu.
Equality of access to airtime has always been at the center of controversy
at Pacifica and community radio everywhere. Most on-air people at Pacifica
were not paid until the mid 1990¹s. They volunteered and they made money to
support the Foundation by pitching their programming on free-speech Pacifica
radio. That was the deal. It was a tacit agreement ­ Pacifica provides
opportunity and access whilst producers agreed to pitch and encourage on air
pledges. By far the largest percentage of financial support for Pacifica
still comes from listener donations.[2]
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftn2>
This model changed in the mid-nineties when the National Federation of
Community Broadcasters under Lynn Chadwick and David Le Page, adopted the
so-called Healthy Stations Project.  Lynn Chadwick later moved to Pacifica
as Executive Director during the disastrous 1999 shutdown and police raid at
KPFA.
The Healthy Station Project called for reducing the power of volunteers,
professionalizing the on-air sound and adopting more paid on-air producers.
It was a model more like National Pubic Radio than community radio. It was
designed to increase listenership and revenue and increase the amount of
money the CPB might potentially give stations. And it was a tacit control
strategy designed to moderate Pacific¹s radical message.
CPB has close connections with U.S. mechanisms of propaganda like Voice of
America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Marti. Personnel
move through a revolving door between these agencies. After almost
destroying Pacifica, Lynn Chadwick landed a job at CPB.
At the time the Healthy Station Projects was being foisted on community
radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was headed by Bob Coonrod.
Coonrod was deputy managing director of Voice of America. At the helm of
National Public Radio was Kevin Klose, formerly director of the
International Broadcasting Bureau, which oversees Voice of America, Radio
Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Radio and Television Marti. The chairman of
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was Michael Powell, son of then
secretary of state Colin Powell.
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 requires that the CPB operate with a
³strict adherence to objectivity and balance² in all programs of a
controversial nature and the CPB regularly reviews national programming for
objectivity and balance. When Pacifica agreed to take money from the CPB, it
was engaging in self-censorship for dollars.  Of course concern for
objectivity and balance is extremely subjective and when it came to the Gulf
Wars such sentiments counted for nothing at NPR and mainstream media.
Community radio was one of the few places one might hear and opposing
point-of-view ­ one that turned out to be prescient.
Programming was ³professionalized² and moderated; less abrasive, music more
homogeneous and consistent. It was an idea derived from NPR programming
consultants. The mission was to smooth the rough radical edges. The same
consultants would go on to advise Pacifica when in November 1996, Pacifica;
lead by former KPFA manager and then Executive Director, Pat Scott rolled
out Vision for Pacifica Radio Creating a Network for the 21st Century ­ A
Strategic 5 Year Plan.
The Strategic Plan was impractical and showed little understanding of the
realpolitiks of the five stations. It led to more expenses and more need to
raise money to feed the beast and make the pay roll. And the more money
stations garnered from listener support, the more it received from the CPB.
It created a two-tiered system of paid and unpaid staff. It encouraged
a-them-and-us culture where volunteers subsidized paid staff since the
unpaid work, pitch and pay their own expenses while paid staff receive a
salary and health benefits. It was and continues to be unfair. The old
hippie paradigm of diverse programming and volunteer-based management
disappeared. Today paid-staff call the shots and the community is less a
part of community radio than it used to be.
The Healthy Station Project didn¹t go over well with community radio
volunteers and in 1996 spawned the Grassroots Radio Coalition, a reaction
against increasing commercialization of public radio and lack of support for
volunteer-based stations. The Coalition is stronger than ever today and
grass roots community radio presses on whileHealthy Station Project stations
like the Pacifica network are floundering.
Today the five Pacifica stations revolve in a loose orbit around the
Pacifica mother ship. Sometimes the orbit gets wobbly. Pacifica owns the FCC
license for all five stations and the non-profit 501(c)(3) status. The five
stations are answerable to the Pacifica Foundation with ultimate authority
held by a Board of Directors elected from local station boards.[3]
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftn3>
Perhaps more than ever, the current unwieldy and expensive governance
structure that emerged in the new millennium following the removal Pacifica
board chair Mary Francis Berry and Executive Director, Lynn Chadwick has
created slates and factions within Pacifica. Pacifica Boards of Directors
comprise truculent political diehards with little radio experience who have
done little to improve programming, revenue or audience numbers.
Yet Pacifica has and continues to be an incubator for many important
broadcasters and programs like Democracy Now, Counter Spin, Explorations
with Michio Kaku and nowThe Project Censored Radio Show.
Probably the most valuable asset Pacifica has is its intellectual capital:
past, present and future. It is the seed germ and should be protected. Today
radio crosses over to the Internet to become a trans-media system with
opportunities for international distribution, video streaming, interactivity
and e-commerce. Creating and being part of trans media systems is the
future.
I fear the more things chance the more they remain the same. The popular
general manager of KPFA, whose controversial firing by Lynn Chadwick
precipitated the crisis at KPFA in 1999, was subsequently twice selected as
Executive Director of Pacifica in 2007 and 2008. In her September 24th, 2008
departure letter Nicole Sawaya, in the form of a letter to late Pacifica
founder Lewis Hill, wrote:
> ³ŠSadly, it (Pacifica) is no longer focused on service to the listeners but
> absorbed with itself and the inhabitants therein. I call it Planet Pacifica, a
> term I coined during my hiring process. There is an underlying culture of
> grievance coupled with entitlement and its governance structure is
> dysfunctional. The bylaws of the organization have opened it up to tremendous
> abuse, creating the opportunity for cronyism, factionalism and faux democracy,
> with the result of challenging all yet helping nothing. Pacifica has been made
> so flat, that it is concave ‹ no leadership is possible without an enormous
> struggle through the inertia that committees and collectives.
> ³Pacifica calls itself a movement, yet currently it behaves like a jobs
> program, a cult, or a social service agency. And oftentimes the loudest and
> most obstreperous have the privilege of the microphone. There are endless
> meetings of committees and ³task forces² ‹ mostly on the phone ‹ where people
> just like to hear themselves talkŠ²[4]
> <file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacific
> a%20-%20080413.docx#_ftn4>
Can Pacifica change or is it too late? Has Lew Hill¹s experiment been
supplanted by the Internet and smart phones? At a time when the need for
community radio and citizen journalism seems more important than ever, can
Pacifica adapt and change? Unfortunately the prognosis is not good.
Ironically, should Pacifica finally collapse, it will be in large part due
to the Healthy Station Project, which ripped the heart out of community
radio.


[1] 
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftnref1>  KPFA circa 1949, Berkeley; KPFK circa 1959,
Los Angeles; WBAI circa 1960, New York; KPFT circa 1970, Houston; WPFW circa
1977, Washington DC.  There are approximately 170 affiliates that take
Pacifica programming which is distributed over an Internet portal.

[2] 
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftnref2>  About 80 percent of support for Pacifica
radio comes from listener support.

[3] 
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftnref3>  There are almost two dozen members on the
Pacifica National Board, representing local station boards.

[4] 
<file:///C:/Users/OWNER/AppData/Local/Temp/Riding%20the%20Waves%20at%20Pacif
ica%20-%20080413.docx#_ftnref4>  Current ­ A newspaper about public media in
the United States, Sept. 25, 2008


From:  Carolyn Birden <cmcb007 at earthlink.net>
Date:  Wednesday, October 29, 2014 10:42 PM
To:  Heather Gray <hmcgray at earthlink.net>
Subject:  Re: [grc] Does anyone remember the NFCB Healthy Station Project?

Hi, Heather,

Right on point, as usual!  Thank you.

Unfortunately the Healthy Station Project is still alive at Pacifica, and we
should have followed your
example way back when.  Please feel free to use Pacifica as a bad example of
what can happen if the
Healthy Station model is followed:  thanks :-(    for the reminder, and I
hope other stations learn from
our mistake.  

Feel free to repost this, and thanks again.

Carolyn


On Oct 29, 2014Wednesday, at 9:03 PM, Heather Gray <hmcgray at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> I know a lot of folks have their stories about the Healthy Station
> Project. At WRFG in Atlanta in the early 1990's we kicked them out of our
> station. Atlantan's organized against them and the entire concept. The
> representatives were shocked.
> 
> Heather Gray
> WRFG-Atlanta 89.3FM
> 404 234 4630 (cell)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 10/29/14 8:52 PM, "'Donna Dibianco' via grc at peak.org" <grc at peak.org>
> wrote:
> 
>> You summed it up quite nicely...
>> The 5x5 model is the 21st Century Healthy Station project...
>> 
>> Not sure where you want to go with this, but, HSP is the whole reason why
>> we have GRC and R4P.
>> It was, in my opinion, the division of Community and Public Radio...and
>> forever will be in my mind, heart, and spirit.
>> 
>> 
>> Donna DiBianco
>> Station Start-up Specialist
>> 503-960-1068
>> http://www.communityradiogoddess.com/
>> www.linkedin.com/pub/donna-dibianco/2b/13b/459/
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: Sharon Lockhart <slockhart at kc.rr.com>
>> To: grc at peak.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 5:38 PM
>> Subject: [grc] Does anyone remember the NFCB Healthy Station Project?
>> 
>> 
>> If you remember the details of the 'Health Station Project' from the late
>> 90's, please reply with your comments and opinions.
>> 
>> As I understand, it was to switch to a AAA music format with all paid
>> staff
>> and no volunteers, or active members.  Essentially, it would eliminate
>> Public Affairs and become another Top 40 music station.
>> 
>> Is this correct?  Please reply.
>> 
>> Thank you. 
>> 
>> Sharon Lockhart
>> KKFI PA Programmer
>> Every Woman 3 - 4 pm Sat.
>> One of 2011 GRC host/organizers
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: grc-bounces at maillist.peak.org [mailto:grc-bounces at maillist.peak.org]
>> On Behalf Of Frieda Werden
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 3:33 PM
>> To: owner-grc at peak.org
>> Subject: [grc] Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
>> 
>> If anyone on this list gets a recording of a talk or reading by Roxanne
>> Dunbar-Ortiz about her new Indigenous People's History of the US, could
>> you
>> forward a copy to WINGS for audition?  Thanks much.
>> 
>> --
>> Frieda Werden, Series Producer
>> WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service www.wings.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> grc mailing list
>> grc at maillist.peak.org
>> http://maillist.peak.org/mailman/listinfo/grc
>> 
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> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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Carolyn Birden

Listener-elected Director
Pacifica Foundation Radio
WBAI 99.5 FM New York and WBAI.org <http://WBAI.org>
917 520 1268


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