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KPFA's Manager Lemlem Rijio Shuts Down Flashpoints Without Notice For Fund Drive?

by Stop Commericalization Of KPFA
The manager of KPFA who supported calling the police to the station to arrest Nadra Foster has cancelled the KPFA Flashpoints show at 5:00 PM without written or advance notice. Although this show raises more money than most the manager apparently wants to get it off the air during the fund drive. The managers have written a report that calls for more NPR type programming at Pacifica.
KPFA manager Lemlem Rijio who supported calling the police to the station to arrest KPFA unpaid staff producer Nadra Foster has ordered Flashpoints off the air with no written or advance notice. Rijio who is the author of a report that calls for the commercialization of the network and whose "passion" is coddling rich listeners wants to commericalize Pacifica and turn the stations into more like NPR operations.
Call the station at 5:00 PM and let them know what you think about Lemlem's operation.
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by red riding hood
Flashpoints canceled? Or preempted for one day?
I and many others would love to know how much Flashpoints "raises" AFTER its expenses and salaries are deducted. I hear it has more paid entrenched staff than any other show on KPFA except the Morning show, which has twice as much time to cover and is much more useful to lives in the community (and I hear raises far more money than FP). No wonder there howls of hysteria every time the station manager so much as looks at dennis bernstein funny.

When's the picket?

Or are you just crying wolf again?
by veillifter
WTF!? Flashpoints is one of the best programs on KPFA, especially in exposing all the bullshit that goes on in this world.
by KPFA staff person
The original poster is mistaken on several points. The most immediately important being that Flashpoints is NOT cancelled, it's simply postponed for today. Dennis and the Flashpoints crew were fully aware of this.
Other points that the original poster is mistaken about are
Lemlem was not in the building during the Nadra Foster incident and has said on a number of occasions that she did not support calling the police.
I doubt the poster can produce a link to the report he is citing. It likely doesn't exist.

It's unfortunate that the original poster thinks that spreading what are at best misunderstandings and at worst out right lies is a way to help the station, which like everyone else, is going through tough times during this economy.
It's posts like these that cause me to not use my real name. Why risk harrassment by an unnamed "fan" simply for telling the truth. I don't know the reason behind posts like this as they do absolutely nothing to help the station.
Management is lied about, Dennis Bernstein, a hard working career journalist, has his reputation damaged by being connected with people who purposefully spread lies and encourage pointless drama.
If you wonder why KPFA has problems look no further than this post and other like it.
by Stop Commericalization Of KPFA
As the Lemlem staff supporter should know, KPFA manager Lemlem Rijio has not only not supported Nadra Foster but in fact allowed radio carts supporting a benefit for her legal costs from being played on KPFA. This staffer needs to ask themselves who is really running KPFA. Was it Lemlem Rijio or one of the Concerned Listener staff supporters who kept the carts off the air for the Nadra Foster benefit or was this just an accident?
In fact, Concerned Listeners and their staff supporters including Lemlem Rijio have continued to oppose the recognition of the unpaid staff organization. If this is supporting the staff according to your standpoint you obviously show where you stand.
by Anonymous
__strategic_plan__mgrs__01-09_1.pdf_600_.jpg
Flashpoints was abruptly and rudely pre-empted on extremely short notice for a fund drive special.
Usually a bad idea to do that at the last minute. It is disruptive for both the audience that follows the show and for programmers who obviously have been planning something for that day. Flashpoints is a good money-maker for KPFA during fund drives, so the selection for the preemption makes no financial sense. There are numerous shows that make little or no money during fund drive that could have been selected. So far, most of the pre-emptions (noticeably PD Sasha Lilley's Capitalism and Its Discontents) have made less money than the shows they replaced do in those time slots. Poor management by every objective standard. But that is to be expected from folks who have no idea how to settle an office equipment dispute without resorting to bannings and calling the police on the workers. The manager's report being cited in the opening post is attached. It's public information as far as I know.
by Someone who WORKS at KPFA
I see the typical response of the station's critics. Note that in the original poster's response there's no apology or even an acknowledgment that they spread false information about Flashpoints being cancelled. That's something that is conveniently ignored now that it has served it's purpose. The truth doesn't matter, helping the station clearly doesn't matter. Will a whole bunch of misinformed people calling the station at 5:00 to complain about something that isn't real help anyone ? No it won't. the only possible benefit it will have is to perhaps inflate the ego of the original poster, who can point to the mayhem he heaps on others and say "I caused that with a simple internet post, I'm so mighty" that's really the only thing that will come from this.

He also fails to mention that pretty much all the afternoon programs have been postponed today. So it's not at all the case that Flashpoints was somehow singled out. They are broadcasting specials because a good special will sometimes outdraw a regular program. When you are faced with a deficit due to the economy, this is the kind of decision a manager has to make and they do not have the luxury of complaining on the Internet.

Again, I don't see how the original poster thinks he is helping the station.

Of course in his world, everyone is planning to either get him or subvert the station's mission and for that I apologize.
by deanosor
No matter what problems people have at the station, and yes there are many, and no matter what problems people have had with Sasha Lilly and here friends, i think "Capitalism and its Discontents" is a tremendous short term series and needs to be continued on a regular basis. I like Flashpoints as well. we don't need compettition contests betwe n great shows. This is not Fox News. I think there is irony that someone is complaining that a show called "Captialism and Its Discontents" is making more money than another show.
by Carolyn Scarr
I have heard that the Women's Magazine show on Monday afternoon is being cancelled -- not for fundraising -- just cancelled.
Does anyone know anything about this? If this is true, I am going to miss this show.
by Anonymous
The Women's Program was taken off the air for three months to air "Letters from Washington: The First 100 Days of the Obama Administration" produced by Mitch Jeserich who produces the daily Morning Show. At least in theory, the Women's Magazine will return to the air after the three month period, which would be in April. This was announced, again, on very short notice for both the audience and the pre-empted programmers. The above poster, who apparently listens to the Women's Magazine regularly, should have been thoroughly apprised of the change by frequent on-air announcements. That's good radio practice.

Capitalism and It's Discontents is not making more money than another show. It is making less money than the regularly scheduled music program that it is pre-empting, at least so far. It may have merits that make it worth airing anyway as a non-fund drive program, but it didn't succeed as a fund drive programming maneuver.



by deanosor
I know KPFA needs money to run the station. Electricity, for example, isn't free. But the programming decision of KPFA shows was never whether they provided more money than other shows. And whether a special show without a regular following such as "Capitalism and its Disconnects" get a level of money should not be the programming judgment to run it or not. I'm happy that those at KPFA no matter which faction they are from are allowing this wonderful program to run. I still find it ironic that to make a point from a factional point of view (a faction that i usually support, by the way), someone writes that a show critiquing capitalism is not making as much money as other shows.
But to schedule a special program in the middle of a fund drive (when the content is sacrificed for pitching time) suggests that it was partially intended to generate more revenue in that slot than the program it replaced, isn't it? Otherwise you would run it outside of a fund drive period since obviously you have some listener dropoff towards the end of a long 17-day fund drive.
by Richard Phelps
They do some great programs. They must be allowed to continue.
I think the women's program was partially the victim of Mgts wanting to silence the LSB Show for a while. Even though it wasn't always produced this year or very strong when it was they like to keep any possible truth about what the Concerned Listener majority is doing off the air. Also the people that produce the Women's Program aren't the type to kiss the Gm's ring. They spoke out against hiring her in 2007 and so they get preempted. Another example of patronage and cronyism under this GM and her cronyies.

Richard Phelps, former Chair KPFA LSB and many time producer of the LSB Show.
by John Smith
It's unbelievable how this people, the so called "flashpoints team," are able to manipulate some on the well intended KPFA listeners. The pattern Dennis Bernstein has been following over the years to attack other workers (management included), just because they refuse to be manipulated and being used for Mr. Bernstein politics inside the first public radio station in the country is totally insane. The suffering and abuse Mr. Bernstein has caused to so many people over the years is more than extraordinary. He has constantly abused many of the women and people of color who have worked for Flashpoints. The overload of work on technicians who have had the bad luck to end up working for these vicious group is more than clear to anybody at the station. One of his more recent victims is Eric Klein, whom they now pretend they are defending Mr. Klein is filling grievances with the union representing the KPFA staff on a case of abuse and mistreatment he says has been very well documented. The corruption, manipulation, lies and nepotism, not to mention the mafia style threats by his slave Miguel Gavilan Molina, to whoever does not agree to go along with them, have to be stopped in order to keep a reasonable safe work place at KPFA. The radio station has spent so much money on lawyers, lawsuits, and medical expenses of the people he has abused, that now run into the hundreds of thousands of money the station needs to keep going. The amount of hours Nora Barrows, Miguel Gavilan Molina and Mr. Bernstein himself work to put together the 5 hours a week radio show is not justified by the salary the get for it. Why Mr. Bernstein, Mrs. Barrow and Mr. Molina don't run the board themselves while speaking on the microphone like anybody else does, including the volunteer programmers? Why they require a technician to make the telephone connections the need for the show? Why they don't edit their own prerecorded interviews?
Please, lets stop this madness of patterns of lies and manipulation for the good of our beloved radio station.
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