UPDATE: The fund drive is over. Your pledges made a real difference during the last week, pulling the station out of an expected $150,000 deficit to an a smaller $80,000 shortfall, and raising $10,000 alone in the last hour of the drive during the Evening News. Thank you! You can still donate anytime at KPFA’s online site.
To support KPFA’s Spring Fund Drive, the station’s staff passed the hat at union halls, and circulating fundraising appeals online at KPFAWorker.org. They raised over $13,000 for on-air challenges “in support of KPFA’s workers.” Those pledges, raised during the last week of the drive, were announced on air and matched — and then some — by others who also called in with their support.
Soon, SaveKPFA will launch some exciting initiatives that you’ll need to be a voting member of KPFA to participate in — so stay tuned, and sign up for our email alerts if you haven’t yet.
General manager calls KPFA’s staff and listeners a “fifth column”
So, has Pacifica’s hand-picked KPFA manager Andrew Phillips welcomed the extraordinary off-air fundraising efforts by KPFA’s workers? Nah.
At the May 21 meeting of KPFA’s local station board, Phillips (who’d taken a week-long vacation in the middle of the fund drive), accused the station’s staff of making the fund drive fail because of their “dissent,” referred to KPFA’s workers and listeners as a “fifth column” (a reference to fascist infiltration of loyalist forces during the Spanish Civil War), and asserted that KPFA could operate without any paid workers at all.
This, from a person who refused to accept $63,000 of listener pledges to restore the Morning Show, and whose own salary is among KPFA’s highest. When the audio from the public local board meeting is available, we’ll post it so you can listen for yourself.
Judge calls Pacifica back into court for contempt hearing
The Pacifica National Board has removed elected SaveKPFA listener delegates Dan Siegel and Laura Prives in apparent defiance of an injunction from Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch. Roesch has scheduled a hearing on enforcing his injunction for June 3, and a contempt of court proceeding against Pacifica and two of its board officers for July 1.
Morning “Mix” to return
Just before the fund drive started, KPFA managers announced that the ill-conceived replacement for The Morning Show — called the Morning Mix — would end. They also announced sweeping changes to KPFA’s programming that listeners overwhelmingly rejected. According to a memo sent to staff on Friday, management is now backing off its programming changes, but also extending the Morning Mix’s lease on life.
PRESS CLIPS: California Labor Federation on KPFA fundraising | David Bacon’s Letter to Labor Activists