50 year old "Left Wing" New York radio station battles to survive

[Turborama]

Run time: 02:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkdcoQZ4PmI   Posted on YouTube: May 14, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 15, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1250

 
In New York one of the city's pioneering radio stations is struggling to survive as donations from listeners dry up.

WBAI offers an alternative viewpoint on all issues and has been a thorn in the side of various administrations for decades.

But if it can't raise more money, that voice could soon be silenced, as Al Jazeera's John Terrett reports.

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Couldn't they just move to somewhere less expensive and buy some boosters?

Here's their homepage: http://www.wbai.org/

[billyoc]

1. I wouldn't trust BAI's management with 2 cups and a string.

If they're saying things are bad, I can safely assume that things are good.

From Doug Henwood's excellent LBO website:

I’ve got some good news about WBAI, for a change. The station was been under a mix of toxic and ineffectual leadership since the death of Samori Marksman in 1999. Morale sank, listenership dwindled, the airwaves were filled with drivel, and fundraising sagged badly. The station fell months behind on studio and transmitter rent. It was years behind on its payments to Pacifica, the network that owns the license, and threatened to drag the whole five-station network down.

Finally, Pacifica’s new executive director, Grace Aaron, decided it was time to intervene. She fired the station manager, Tony Riddle, a likable fellow who nonetheless did next to nothing, and suspended and banned from the air the dreadful program director, Bernard White. White’s politics are a crude sort of black nationalism, and he’s been surrounded by a gang of acolytes calling itself the Justice and Unity Coalition (JUC), who’ve dismissed any criticism of White’s disastrous reign as racist. (Among its many offenses, the JUC is in tight with the Workers World Party.) White and some of his JUC cronies denounced their critics as “pieces of fecal matter” and “CIA agents” on the air. Aaron decided there’d been enough of this, and has essentially taken control of the station. The JUC hacks are on the run, and it’s a beautiful sight.

...

http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/support-wbai-and-my-show/

[Turborama]

2. Interesting insight, thanks for sharing it. n/t

[JHB]

3. No need for quote marks: WBAI is definitely Left Wing...

...somthing which has always had me laughing at RWinginut complaints about the "liberal, left-wing media" when they're talking about Dan Rather or Tom Brocaw.

If, as related in the Doug henwood piece, BAI is under new and better management, then I'd encourage throwing a few bucks their way for those who can afford to do so. This is the station which gave Amy Goodman her start, and her morning show evolved into Democracy Now!. It has provided one of the few prominent forums (50,000 Watts at the center of the Fm radio dial in the NYC market) where political debate is not 5-minute snippets between commercials, and speakers can develop their points rather than devolving to sound bites.

This is a resource that really shouldn't be allowed to wither away, especially if it is no longer being run by a clique of ideologues.

[Turborama]

4. I only used the quotes because I was quoting the reporter and I don't know the station's politics...

...very well. Hope you don't think I was inferring anything.

Thanks for your insight, too. I didn't know that it was Amy Goodman's launch pad.

[JHB]

5. Wasn't inferring anything...

...other than you didn't know that it's a fair and accurate characterization. I listened to them a lot in the late 80's and early 90's when I was commuting to school and also had a delivery job, so I was in my car a lot. I volunteered a couple of times to answer phones during fundraising too. Didn't exactly agree with everyone over there (that would actually be impossible without multiple personality disorder) but it was an education in diversity. When I first started listening, it was when Nicaraguan Contras were still a going concern, and it was like finally hearing both sides of a phone conversation. I could see counter-arguments to Contra-critics on TV and read their op-eds in even generally liberal papers, but I never heard the critics themselves make their case unfiltered until I discovered BAI.

And that pattern has followed with a lot of subjects in the media. So I think a station like that is a necessary thing.

The problem is, since it's listener-supported and listener-governed (for the miost part), it, like many electorates, is vulnerable to small cliques of insiders essentially taking over. I've only listened sporadically over the last decade or so (switched to train & subway commuting, where I tend to read rather than radio-listen), but that's what seems to have happened, and if there's been a housecleaning it's worth ensuring it stays around.