WPFW is a gem. Worth saving. Worth handing down to the next generation. More necessary than ever before to effect change in this city, country and beyond.
Twenty-five years ago I moved to Washington for the fourth time, to stay. I looked for a jazz station and found WPFW. Jazz and Justice. The perfect combination! I became a member. I’m constantly learning things listening to WPFW, because the programmers are real people who treat listeners like their equals. With the massive changes to the program grid in 2012, I became a WPFW activist. As an activist, I saw that many people passionately supported the station, but passion didn’t translate into agreement about how to run the station. It was clear from many meetings that the financial stress was debilitating, causing other stresses at the station. Family demands kept me from running for the LSB, till 2016 and 2019, when I was elected. In my second term, I was elected as a Director to the Pacifica National Board, serving for two years as Chair. I have served on the national Audit, Finance, Governance, Strategic Planning and Personnel Committees.
Pacifica owns WPFW’s FCC license, giving me insight into not just WPFW’s fortunes, but those of the other four stations and the Foundation as a whole, which includes ~200 Affiliates (not owned by Pacifica but pay membership dues and carry our programming) and the Archives (taught in every journalism school). Two Pacifica stations are doing very poorly financially, and they have brought the finances of Pacifica very close to the brink. While the Board is focused on addressing these issues, they come from years of poor management and factional in-fighting instead of clear-eyed focus on what’s best for the whole Foundation. That poor management had Pacifica over 3 years behind on its annual audits in 2014; working with others, I helped get Pacifica caught up by 2021. Unfortunately, the poor financial state means we are once again behind on audits. Pacifica hired a new Executive Director in 2022 and she is a great manager, focused on keeping Pacifica around.
A bit more about me: In graduate school, I was a union activist, because of the poor treatment of graduate student instructors, and I worked on a successful campaign for union representation. I now work for the federal government and have been a volunteer at my agency for the Combined Federal Campaign, the largest workplace charitable giving program in the world. CFC could be an important pathway to making it easier for federal employees to support WPFW and reduce the reliance on on-air fundraising.
Recently, PFW spent some time as the best-performing station in the network. We have some work to do with the search for a new home and a new permanent general manager, but these are just opportunities for PFW to get back to being a beacon for the whole Foundation.
I seek your vote of support to continue making PFW that gem.