Bill Mandel Loses Show on KPFA

The Pacifica network has to be one of the most valuable assets of the left, and much of KPFA is very underutilized time, because it's not very interesting, or doesn't differ much from jazz etc. played on other stations. I rarely find myself listening except for to Amy Goodman. Web radio and Santa Cruz 101.1fm, and even Al Franken on the Quake are more exciting than certain KPFA timeslots. There are a number of microradio stations Bill Mandel could move to. He has had years of time. KPFA's biggest deficit is shows that younger people would listen to. Their evening news hour is pretty good, even that guy that has the sexual harrassment charges. I can think of quite a few people in the area who are great speakers and haven't been offered a voice. Just within Berkeley, there are some major leftists in other mediums, who you never hear from. Besides, what will happen in the future if the skills of younger people aren't cultivated to take over the news

There ARE _plenty_ of other stations that Bill Mandel could be on and could have been on for all these years: Free Radio Berkeley, ECR, tons of other local micro stations, recording his own stuff and putting it up there on the web... basically I guess it's one thing to focus on your station (KPFA), but if the struggle is about whatever content he has in his shows, he should and could have been making shows all this time (all he needs is a computer, a mic, and some software...or a $200 audio recorder and all of the above). Like what Sue Supriano his done (http://suesupriano.com/article.php)- I really like her show and it's true that I don't listen to it ever now that it's not on the air on KPFA, but at least I know where to find it!

With 168 hours a week and over 60% of those hours being music programs there is just not enought time to have Mandel on according to station management and their minions on the program council. Some people on the program council as has been noted have hours and hours of music programming but for them 1 hour a month for Mandel is way too much.



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From: http://www.struggle-and-win.net/
Bulletin #16
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Please feel free to distribute.
http://www.struggle-and-win.net


Two of KPFA's long-term radical programmers have been unceremoniously purged this week.

On Tuesday evening, the Program Council voted 11-4 to dump "Thinking Out Loud with Bill Mandel." They offered no explanation for this decision, nor even suggested what they intend to replace Bill's show with.

On Monday, General Manager Roy Campanella II unilaterally cut Robert Knight's time on Flashpoints by 25%, reducing his four five-minute slots per week to three.

The basis for these two decisions is far from clear.

PROGRAM COUNCIL AXES BILL

The Program Council refuses to report who voted yes or no on Bill's program. However, from our investigation, it appears that those who voted to fire Bill were: Shahram Aghamir, Nick Alexander, Aileen Alfandary, Mary Berg, Amelia González-García, Annie Hallat, Luis Medina, Lemlem Rijio, Tracy Rosenberg, Dev Ross and Kris Welch.

Those voting to keep Bill were: Anthony Fest, Sepideh Khosrowjah, Joe Wanzala and Stan Woods.

Nine of the eleven Program Council members who voted to can Bill are staff members. Three of the four who voted to continue Bill's program are listener representatives. If the Program Council wasn't so packed with staff members, Bill would probably still have his show.

It appears that a number of staff members are intensely jealous of Bill's popularity and cutting-edge politics. Indeed, even as the Program Council was voting to cut Bill's show, 25 of Bill's supporters were picketing in front of the station. This was the second picket line organized by Mandelistas in the last week. Both of these pickets have gone unreported by the KPFA evening news.

Bill has two more scheduled shows before the ax comes down: Friday, December 9, and Friday, December 23, at 2:30 pm.

CAMPANELLA CUTS ROBERT KNIGHT


The nearly-simultaneous cutback in Robert Knight's air time only serves to confirm that the purge is on.

There has been no public statement by Campanella regarding this decision, and consequently no public explanation. However, it is well-known that the news department has long been bitterly opposed to the "Knight Report," which provides the excellent news headlines that the news department doesn't.

Earlier this year, Knight was fired as a regular programmer on WBAI, Pacifica's station in New York. This followed an incident which Knight has called a
"black bag job," during which a WBAI "management partisan inexplicably pored through, inspected and thoroughly rearranged my desk, file cabinet, recordings and confidential reporter's notes, as well as tampered with my production computer." When Knight objected to this behavior, he was threatened by another staff member who told him to "Stop acting like a bitch, you bitch, or I'll kick your ass." Incredibly, Knight is the one who was later fired.

Now it appears that Knight is also on the chopping block at KPFA. For more background on Knight's troubles with WBAI, click here.

It is clear that tough times are ahead for KPFA, but the fight is far from over. Stay tuned...

Bill Mandel spent 50 years defending Stalinism. That's good enough reason to get rid of him. I don't really give a shit about the various factions or more accurately the massive egos at KPFA. People should be judged on the quality of their programs, period.

David Grace wrote:
"Mandel is a Soviet-Affairs scholar, and wrote five books on the Soviet Union, all used in higher education."

Well that doesn't say much for the professors who use his books. I looked at one on Soviet women that Mandel wrote, it was an utter garbage. The book was mostly an apology for the USSR, written well after Stalin's crimes were well known.

PS Robert Knight is a third rate commentator, a true preacher for the choir.

The KPFA program council met on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 (with full atttendance), to pick up the issue of renewing or not renewing the contract for "Thinking Out Loud with Bill Mandel", after the one week delay. Due to our desire to fully air all points of view, we devoted 90 minutes of a 120 minute meeting discussing the subject. A longer period of time was spent in dialogue than on any of the pilot renewal discussions for 7-8 other shows, as we wished to err on the side of careful deliberation. Prior to the meeting, I and several other program council members went outside, mingled with the 20 people present, and collected the arguments that the picketers wished to convey to the body, and delivered them verbally during the discussion - in my capacity as a community representative. We engaged in dialogue in a circle, with everyone conveying their thoughts about the issue in what to me, was an intelligent, reasoned and extremely rich conversation. We heard from all 17 people present, 15 voting members and 1 unpaid staff alternate and the general manager (who were non-voting). We had a responsibility to vote on the matter of the contract renewal on this particular show, we did do so, and the vote was 11 not to extend and 4 to extend. The premise of the "no votes" was that the on-air show that has been presented was not working well structurally. The picketers marched through the lobby of the station.

The program council then turned to a discussion of what some other
ways might be to continue Mr. Mandel's prescence and participation in station life that might work a little better. While we did not arrive at any determined conclusion, several ideas were presented,
and they will be explored with Mr. Mandel - there are many
possibilities including special programs (that we may attempt to air nationally) focusing on the archives, or on McCarthyism and the parallels today with terrorism-baiting, debate and discussion on Russian, Central Asian and Eastern European affairs, launching a program of regular commentaries that would include Mr. Mandel, a limited run series with a co-host also focusing on Russian
issues, and there may be others that will develop as we continue to
discuss this with him.

I want to stress that the committment to utilizing Mr. Mandel on the
air as the asset he is was wide-spread throughout the program council, and that we took the petition and protests seriously as an expression of that shared desire. But as listeners and evaluators, the majority of us felt that the current series was not compelling. Opinions can and do differ on that, but they were honestly held and informed by extensive listening to the program.

Like many of us, I would like to see us develop further the idea that
there are many ways to interact with the station, get a message out, and participate in station life without being the host of your own program. I think we diminish our station and our community (and the english language) when we insist otherwise.

The program council at KPFA has been entrusted with the honor of
collaborative decision making - a situation that sadly exists at no
other Pacifica station, which all lack empowered program councils.
I am very glad that we were able to have this full, participatory
dialogue, whichever way it turned out.

Tracy Rosenberg
KPFA Program Council

Response to Confidential posted above:

> Two of KPFA's long-term radical programmers have been
> unceremoniously
> purged this week.

One program (by a programmer who hosted his own show for 30+ years and returned to the schedule for a six month run) - was reviewed for a possible contract extension in the standard process and was not approved for that new contract. KPFA's program council has reviewed eight pilot shows in this manner and issued new contracts to 4 of them (Guns and Butter, Pushing Limits, Bay Area Native Circle and The Women's Magazine) and declined to do so for four others. (The Conflict Hotline, Sue Supriano's Show, The Middle East Radio Project and Thinking Out Loud with Bill Mandel).

> On Tuesday evening, the Program Council voted 11-4 to
> dump "Thinking
> Out Loud with Bill Mandel." They offered no
> explanation for this decision,
> nor even suggested what they intend to replace Bill's
> show with.

The explanation for the decision is implicit in the nature of an
evaluation of a pilot series. We did not feel the show was strong radio programming. We were not evaluating Mr. Mandel's importance as a scholar, activist and icon, nor the results of his previous 38 year long stint on KPFA, nor the injustice of what happened in 1995. We were evaluating this series of 13 programs. As I have said repeatedly, we do wish to work with Bill, we do want to have his voice on the radio in some manner that reflects his importance to 20th century history and his range of knowledge, and
we intend to work something out with him that will do that, if he is
willing. But we were not satisfied that Thinking Out Loud with Bill Mandel was effective. That is our job as a program council - to make those calls - with voting privileges for department heads, volunteers, listener-elected board members, and community representatives
appointed by that board. The decision about what will replace the show will be worked out over the next few weeks. One decision is not contingent on the other as that would detract from making a decision on the merits of the show in question. We do not pit shows against each other.

> On Monday, General Manager Roy Campanella II
> unilaterally cut Robert
> Knight's time on Flashpoints by 25%, reducing his four
> five-minute slots
> per week to three.

So it seems. Linking a management decision on a consultant contract to a collaborative decision made by an elected body according to defined procedures is linking two different things that are not connected.

PROGRAM COUNCIL AXES BILL
>
> The Program Council refuses to report who voted yes or
> no on Bill's
> program. However, from our investigation, it appears
> that those who voted
> to fire Bill were ....

The program council does not, by charter, engage in roll call votes.
That is in our rules and these rules have been in place for more than 25 years. Any PC member is free to divulge their own vote if they wish, but they are not free to divulge the vote of others.

> Those voting to keep Bill were: ...
>
> Nine of the eleven Program Council members who voted
> to can Bill are
> staff members.

>Three of the four who voted to continue
> Bill's program are
> listener representatives. If the Program Council
> wasn't so packed with
> staff members, Bill would probably still have his
> show.

That is bad math. The program council has 16 voting members and six of them have paid staff positions. There are four volunteer representatives (unpaid), three community representatives, and three listener-elected representatives from the board of directors.

> It appears that a number of staff members are
> intensely jealous of
> Bill's popularity and cutting-edge politics. Indeed,
> even as the Program
> Council was voting to cut Bill's show, 25 of Bill's
> supporters were
> picketing in front of the station. This was the second
> picket line organized
> by Mandelistas in the last week. Both of these pickets
> have gone
> unreported by the KPFA evening news.

To say that people who evaluated a program and found it wanting were "jealous", sounds a bit to me like grade school. It really does a
dis-service to the rich and thoughtful conversation that I listened to
and engaged in inside the room. I heard many well-thought out
appraisals on both sides of the decision and appreciated everyone's
perspective immensely. Seemed like democracy in action to me.

Tracy Rosenberg
Community Representative/Facilitator
KPFA Program Council

Why are the meetings of KPFA's program council not open to the members and listeners to the station? And why are not minutes available? Why can't the public hear this rich debate that the author writes about?

Tracy Rosenberg is quite an advocate for a better KPFA. I have no doubt that her analysis of the recent events that took Mandel off the air (and reduced Knight's time) are largely sound, if lacking in some judgement for the sake of trying to reconcile bitter foes.

Unlike her, I suspect jealosy could have played a role in voting down Mandel in spite of her more forgiving view.

It seems to me that the main reason why Mandel's program was not deemed suitable could have been largely influenced by Pacifica's (and by extension KPFA's) drive to market itself.

Don't believe all the high sounding stuff about content yadda yadda yadda. Like commercial stations, and NPR today, it is all about demographics, pledges, and money.

KPFA has a comfortable niche (becoming less so) which it wants to build on. As for broadcasting a message for a message's sake-- fine if it folds into the grand master plan-- but woe to it if it does not.

I still love Sue Supriano-- Guns and Butter is good-- (but there have been only two or three programs in aeons).

I don't think KPFA really appreciates Mandel in spite of the optimistic bones it is tossing him, or pretending to toss. It needs rock-solid proof that a program will excite Donations. Look for cutting edge programming only if it assures money.

Sad.

Bill should start an independent effort-- better if he joins with others. Lew Hill had a great idea when he started KPFA-- time for new ideas now?

Meantime-- don't get your glasses too rose-colored about democracy at Pacifica.

Those (names not important-- they know who they are) who voted against Mandel should really be ashamed. True, all parties agreed earlier that his program would be judged soley on its merit-- and not HIS.

There you see. It was not fair to begin with.

There are plenty of hours available for all sorts of programming at KPFA with smarter planning. KPFA lacks imagination-- and even its best programming will be suspect from henceforth-- because they will not be allowed to discuss anything that threatens the money tree.

They way it is going, KPFA will become just a curious building in Berkeley I'm afraid.

There is constant infighting at KPFA in a never ending "I'm more leftist than you" struggle.

And what's with Robert Knight? He seems like a professional Suni apologist. I think the Iraq war was a big mistake, but every day Kinght seems to try and denigrate Kurds & Shiites who've been oppressed and slaughtered by Sunnis for the past 30 years and make the Sunnis, who are the ones blowing up civilians with car bombs, out to be the poor victims.

Just listened to the Bill Mandel show. It wasn't horrible or anything but it is really "THE BILL MANDEL SHOW". Half the show is literally about Bill Mandel and those who love and hate him. Of course Ol Bill is hardly the only one at KPFA with a massive ego.

I try to intentionally tune out if Robert Knight comes on the air. Any third rate right winger would crush this guy in a debate. It hardly suprises me that this guy would be apologizing for various fascist Iraqi Sunni insurgents as the above poster mentions.

Online at http://www.kpfapc.motime.com.

Have been since May.

Minutes for the December 6 meeting won't go up until they are approved at the December 13 meeting.

Sadly, KPFA looks like a shell of its former progressive self.
The current generation of staffers has lost context of KPFA's
roots as a radio beacon of progressive political discussion, discourse, and dissent. Market ratings now rule the day at
94.1 fm.

Much of what's transpiring at the station is due-in-part to the
dumbing-down of the U.S. culture by the mainstream media.
KPFA's Program Council's recent vote to oust/silence the few progressive voices remaining on its airwaves is a harbinger
of things to come.

K.P.F.A. R.I.P.

kpfk has been wrong for at lest 30 yrs. being anti american is NOT enough, what is the plan?

Oh please. Will you listen to the station? Hard Knock Radio is a great show. At 7pm, you have in sequence, the only hour-long discussion of African affairs on any radio station in the United States, a La Raza show, the excellent Voices of the Middle East, a dynamic Asian-Pacific show called APEX Express and Full Circle, whihc does a great job on youth and community issues. During the daytime, there's Guns and Butter, Terra Verde, Counterspin, Making Contact, Pushing Limits and a new Women's Magazine, as well as the wonderful Against The Grain.

As usual, when people start bemoaning "progressive voices", they mean the usual suspects from their Boomer generation. No one else is progressive .... just them - and the youth should shut up and continue to listen to their elders natter on for another twenty years.

Grow up, make space, and try to support community-building and
media democracy for another generation. They won't do it the same way you did - but they might do better if we could let go and give them a chance.

The author writes:

"The KPFA Program Council, previously made up of a combination of paid and volunteer DJs, but recently stacked - with that old 'money gets the vote' trick - chose to dump his meager hour."

Which old trick is that? Is the author insinuating something about the Program Council, other than he disagrees with their decision? Is he accusing them of accepting payoffs to vote a certain way? Please explain more fully, then support the allegations with facts.