top
East Bay
East Bay
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

"Marxist" KPFA IPD Sasha Lilley Has No Time For Labor Programming On Labor Day2009

by Voices For Justice Radio
Sasha Lilley, the interim program manager at KFPA had no interest in any special labor programming on Labor Day 2009. Instead of allowing new community programming on KPFA, Concerned Listener's supporter Lilley has closed down the Program Council and is making programming decisions based on nepotism rather than on a democratic and fair manner. She refused to post the job for the show "Letters From Washington" that would have allowed other programmers and producers to apply for the job.
http://www.voicesforjusticeradio.org/others/sashalilley.htm

"Marxist" KPFA Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley Has No Time For Labor Programming On Labor Day 2009

By Steve Zeltzer

KPFA used to have special Labor Day programming in past years but not this year and this is a trend with the present management. Labor Day 2009 special Labor Day programming could have been vital and exciting, but again, it was absent despite the critical role of labor on this particular Labor Day including the reconstruction and repair of the Eastern Span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge ESSFBB by unionized Ironworkers and Operating Engineers as well as many other trades. This could have been a terrific show at KPFA honoring the workers who were repairing and rebuilding the bridge. In fact at WBAI in New York, the regular weekly one hour labor show "Building Bridges" had five hours of special labor programming and there were other special labor shows around the country at other Pacifica stations but not unsurprisingly at KPFA.

With the largest unemployment in California in decades, a massive statewide budget crisis in which hundreds of thousands of public workers are getting wage cuts and furloughs, and the butchering of public education from K-12 to community colleges, CSU and UC, apparently there was no time or interest in doing special Labor Day programming on these struggles and issues.

Despite the fact that many trade union officials including Sharon Cornu and the Alameda Labor Council and San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson have endorsed the "Concerned Listeners" grouping, which runs the station and has, as it's supporter interim program director Sasha Lilley and KPFA manager Lemlem Rijio, apparently they could care less that KPFA ignores the labor movement on Labor Day and has no regular weekly labor show other than 20 minutes on Wednesday by David Bacon on the Morning Show.

What has happened at KPFA under the management of "Concerned Listeners" grouping, independent collectives such as the KPFA Labor Collective and others have been virtually forced out of KPFA. The KPFA Labor Collective http://www.kpfalaborcollective.org which provided regular programming on May Day, Labor Day, Women's Day and MLK Day was a rank and file labor grouping that brought together trade unionists from the SEIU, Teamsters, ATU, UBC and many other unions.

A major factor of who decides programming at KPFA is with the present interim program director Sasha Lilley. Her mother is a leader of the Democratic Party Wellstone Club and she is an active supporter of the "Concerned Listeners" grouping. Lilley, instead of bringing on more local programming, has eliminated "Youth Radio" and has brought in other programmers from NY like Doug Henwood and from LA Sonali, while not opening up more local programming on the weekends when most working people can listen to public affairs shows.

Lilley has also shut down the Program Council, which was established in a democratic struggle after the Mary Francis Berry take-over. This Program Council was the only vehicle where new programs could be introduced and supported with a more democratic process. In fact, Lilley and her supporters in this council played a negative role in keeping off the air programs like TUC Radio and "Taking Aim" which have support among many listeners. At the same time, Lilley supported the banning of the KPFA Labor Collective from even introducing programming proposals. She was supported in this banning by the LSB KPFA Indy Media 2009 slate supporter Tracy Rosenberg and their candidate Ann Hallat. " Independents for Community Radio (ICR) - an affinity group of independent and diverse candidates url, http://www.indyradio2009.org"

One has to ask what is independent about a slate in which some of the candidates went along with management "banning" of the submittal of programming to KPFA?

The fact that the Program Council had some independence was too much however for IPM Sasha Lilley. The program council, which was set up by an action of the Local Station Board was dissolved by Lilley and it has not been re-established.

What is interesting about this story is that Lilley presents herself as a "Marxist" and supporter of the "New Left". As former co-host and vacation replacement of CS Sung on his show "Against The Grain," Lilley is continually interviewing "New Leftists" on KPFA and pushing books by her husband's book company PNP Press. One of the facts about the systemic problems at KPFA is the growing nepotism and cronyism by the management and their supporters. Besides pushing events by people that they are related to or are friends with, they also are introducing new programs without posting the job positions. The latest example of nepotism is Lilley's decision with the support of KPFA Manager Lemlem Rijio and interim Executive Director Grace Aaron to bring on "Letters To Washington" by unilaterally hiring Mitch Jeserich. His job was never posted by any of the stations, so other programmers and producers could also apply for the show. The use of KPFA and Pacifica funds on this show is also questionable. Why would KPFA and Pacifica have to have a programmer be sent to Washington DC when there are plenty of qualified, articulate and excellent programmers at Pacifica Washington station WPFW.

The failure of vision of the Pacifica and KPFA management to use the resources that we already have at the station is another example of the systemic problems facing the stations and the network.

Steve Zeltzer

Candidate of Local Station Board
Voices For Justice Radio slate
http://www.voicesforjusticeradio.org
by Frank Snapp (Pallas89juno [at] yahoo.com)
Remember the Pacifica.org gets some funding from NPR and that NPR gets some funding from the CIA and from Corporate America, which is also associated with the CIA where it intersects big finance and many other business models. The CIA is about many things, including, psychological operations, which primary goal is opacity in all things communications.
by Dan Biggs
Indeed. And the CIA brought crack cocaine to these shores, and we are seeing the results.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network