KPFK non-responsive to any questions, queries, calls

Our concern about KPFK is always repeated =that there is almost NO information about what is happpenning there forthcoming anywhere locally unless it is gossip, rumor, conjecture or complaint,

and then only at the fund drives do the KPFK volunteers meet each other while on site .... a strange lack of community or continuity otherwise or other times...as far as we can find out...tho it would seem it should be otherwise, there is only a silent thud here.

And when KPFK was googled searched there is nothing more to find out, but that was how the Pacificana web site showed up way down on p 2 or 3 of google search - and it took a long & dedicated search to discover that one!... Actually, Pacificana informs more there than can be found in Los Angeles or newsgroups, or else these are so submerged that they are not popping into regular view.

Also the Pacifica's ED's momentary visit described there and the description of people she met briefly, ever so briefly at OUR radio station is contrary to what we experience here...so her postings were of more interest because of course her position would give her a total different response and effect and view...like from the top,...and we are at the bottom...'just a volunteers'.

The July 11 KPFK website post of the new GM was only up AFTER we had searched google repeatedly only to find it noted 7 days earlier elsewhere...but it was NOT on KPFK's website until the 7 day+ delay, and there is no notation of who or when it was put up anyhow...as if it didnt matter

...so it was up way late .and while www.la.indymedia.org = a local info source [the only other place, where we here write or ask or comment or complain just a little - about KPFK to each other] because no one from the station ever seems to read it or care or respond or change anything at all....

So the GM appointment was Not announced promptly, the days earlier when he took 'office'or even before that, like when he was finally selected for sure ...and the info on website is also very minimal, w/no pix, no comment from him, nothing else that we can know... so what is the secret being held close there ? why?

again....as someone else said, we cannot be listening 24/7 to hear [maybe] an announcement, maybe even a short blurb or hear him talk.[as of July 15 anyhow] ..he may have by now...but we also cant' take in that much and listen and then maybe 'miss it' and are told, well," 'we did it already...it is your fault for not knowing..." the usual passing on responsibility...

and the initial announcement being on Sonali's site instead of KPFK's site FIRST [even Pacificana copied it from there ! before KPFK put it up at all.] makes one wonder what connections she has that the other paid staff dont have... and the GM made a comment somewhere overheard that he thought her program somehow special or whatever words he used to elevate her program above others ???? huh???? has he listened to others too ?? was he just being polite because she interviewed him before anyone else had made a public announcement? Did she scoop this ? or was Sonali the only one willing to expose him ?

or What happened there? No info makes it all more suspicious than it probably needs to be. But that's what KPFK engenders and promotes - secrecy, thus more suspicion. Why is this happening ?

so it was all a bit strange, the order of how, when, who makes the prime announcement and who will see it ? or know? and who cares anyhow !!!!! right ? does this sound grumpy ?? well it comes with the futile search and not finding much.

We are still lured to trying to help improve/change/do something ! to keep KPFK from being the secret compartment closed enclave hidden agenda'd and totally non-transparent entity claiming "free speech" and openness and not displaying any.

Like all rebels, the KPFK programmers like to expose the "others" while in their own paranoia hiding themselves, excessively, fearfully. What strength can that be ?

Some of us recently attended the 2nd or 3rd meeting of a group called the "community advisory Board" required by Corp Pub Broadcasting =to give KPFK funds yearly....and already a few of us are already dismayed and discouraged by how this too goes.....dysfunctional is a positive description compared to the realities seen and experienced...so far

It is said that this group should have been in effect already for a few years now [how many ?] but had not been meeting, and had been 'advising'some years before ....and yet because it is required to exist and advise for the financesto flow into the station, so it is being started up again. With no good guidelines of who they advise ...what was ever advised before ? what is possible to do as an external group to help ? to help the station's community's to really have a bit of input in programming or elsewhre, though all internal-workings are so closely held for that staff/programmer sense of personal-political-individual power...or so it seems, so often and clearly so.

So we dont expect to know or do anything... BUT at least we believe in exposing problems and refuse go into addictive-people's denials....like alcoholics...the whole station's staff and even many long time programmers collude to keep silent, never answer emails, never answer phone call msgs. and are impossible to connect to directly. it just dont happen !

There are a few volunteers who work on site who confirm this also, to their own frustration, trying to be responsible to the KPFK listerner public, yet they dont understand and cant get anything or anyone to be more responsive - even while at the premises working there for gratis !!!

... nothing is confidential here... and it's noted that the KPFK website has requests 2 volunteers for 2 days of reception afternoon work...huh?so while the hope or assumption may be that the new GM will be somehow different or better, I already dont think they could do much even if they wanted to make the great effort to change the elephant's stripes...they will change him,the GM, not him change the whole teetering mega station. or rather the tightly held corporation...

and if a person has been on "a program for '25 years" as a programmer claimed and insists this gives them permission to keep on having their own special program, what does this also tell us ? entrenchment is what the programmers are all about...even within the great variety that does also exist, I admit and why I still remain loyal to the station.

if anyone at all is interested in what is happening at KPFK from the Outside, as there is no central channel of truth or sharing information, then again la.indymedia has some articles that can be searched and briefly reviewed...but who has time to do this ? who cares ?

yes, we can write and carry on, apologies to those irritated by these complaints, but these complaints repeat because we want them to heard, healed, changed and the station's secretive ways to be opened up to it's owners and sponsors and dedicated loyal volunteers, not just paid staff that are in divisive factionalized conflicts already...

that so many in LA listeners must know...or who cares ? whatever......
peace, maybe....
mary janie written on July 15,2008 8:04 pm PST