WBAI Editor Don Debar In Support of Bernard White
Don Debar discusses the Pacifica Foundations decision to terminate Bernard White as Program Director. Those who support Bernard White believe he best reflects the interests of the WBAI community while others claim he has narrowed the community thus driving WBAI to the brink of financial ruin. Don Debar is part of the Take Back WBAI coalition which is fighting these changes. They contend that Bernard White has broadened the reach of WBAI and created a more diverse programming reflective of the special needs of the WBAI community. In their view, the new changes are part of a plan to make WBAI corporate in orientation. Every company, whether in the sector of finance, gaming partypoker or publicity, needs to have strong leadership in order to succeed. With the right people guiding, a company can go far. It takes vision and a lot of unified hard work.
Videopoem Don Debar in Support of Bernard White from robert dene on Vimeo.
I note you elected not to post an interview with a different perspective on the management change at WBAI> Did you talk to anyone with a different point of view before you made that decision? DeBar blithely denies that WBAI suffered from declining financial support from listeners, but it’s a fact that the station has spent more on operations than it received from listeners annually since 2001. It’s a fact that WBAI failed to meet its goals for fundraising in a dozen marathons, even after extending many of them beyond the originally scheduled dates. It’s a fact that WBAI has been increasing the number of days a year it spends fundraising. Many listeners get burnt out by the continuing requests for cash, so the average amount pledged per day has dwindled. Clearly, this situation is not sustainable, and would result in the loss of WBAi.
DeBar might disagree with the steps taken to solve WBAI’s acute financial crisis, but his refusal to admit that the problem exists damages his credibility on the issue.
If you would like to present a different view I would be glad to have you on….contact me at zote63@gmail.com
Thanks for bringing the situation at WBAI/Pacifica to your viewers’ attention. Pacifica is one of the few FM stations that provides evidence against aggressive wars and support victims of social injustice and is sorely needed.
Unfortunately, Messrs. DeBar and WHite offer a very biased picture of the situation that led to their dismissals from WBAI. They also left out critical information for understanding the what and why of their situation.
The Pacifica Foundation is the owner of WBAI (and 4 other stations in 4 other cities). Pacifica is a CA corp with a board of directors, 4 from each of the 5 stations all elected by the members and staff. The money to run these stations comes from the listeners, with a small amount from the corp for public broadcasting. If the programming at ech of the 5 stations does not attract a sufficient number of listeners who contribute $$$ and become members, the Foundation will fail and the progressive messages that we want and need to hear won ‘t be on air
You heard your guests say that, as they understand things, WBAI aims its message at “the community.” The truth is that the station broadcasts 50 kW from the Empire State Bldg atoward about 18 million people in the metro NYC area. This constitutes many communities and Paciifica’s Mission is to serve all of them and try to bring different people together in the struggle for peace and justice. If WBAI only “talks to the choir,” the choir of prople working to end war and for social justice will not increase. In effect, this is what happened during White’s tenure of almost 6 years, running WBAI. The debt grew steadily long before the “financial crisis.”
The Pacifica Foundation was forced to change management and begin changing the programming to serve more of the potential listeners. Otherise, 91.5 FM will be bought at auction and likely become another of the “hate radio” stations we all turn away from. Thanks for considering this.