Upcoming WBAI Town Halls

Library defenders may remember that for much the same reason that Citizens Defending Library co-founders Michael D. D. White and Carolyn McIntyre have been fighting to defend our libraries, they have similarly gotten involved with WBAI radio, 99.5fm, the only truly listener supported radio station in New York City.  (The both went on WBAI's local station broad.)  Free speech radio WBAI can also be called, as it sometimes is, "radio for the 99.5%."

 As part of WBAI's grassroots celebrating governance tradition, WBAI holds Town Halls for public discussion and input.  Library Defenders may want to get involved with these as Michael and Carolyn have.  As you will see from the descriptions below for prospective featured Town Hall topics, the concerns to be grappled with in the WBAI community and the Pacifica free speech radio network of which it is a part, tend to have a lot in common with concerns involved in defending libraries.  This includes concerns like censorship and narrative control, what happens when our traditional analogue has to contend with the arrival sometime dubious benefits of digital revolution, and finally having to fend off skulking would-be privatizers.

Our next Town Hall has been decided upon and will be held by Zoom on Sunday, August 28th at 4:00 PM (see below).  Library Defenders are invited and welcome.

You may also want to give input on what Town Halls you'd like to see prioritized to be held next or may have ideas for additional topics or coverage to what appears below.

To get information about attending email Michael White at MDDWhite [[at]] aol.com. 

UPCOMING WBAI TOWN HALLS

Debating Debates, Particularly On The Most Divisive Issues, Probably Starting With Covid.  (Sunday, August 28th at 4:00 PM-  Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode: uq@$8Uam:) Will debates improve and help make the WBAI and Pacifica environment healthier?  Can debates increase audience and bring in revenue?  Can debates create a more unified, free and exploratory thinking free speech radio audience and valuable listener membership?  Perhaps the best and most topical example, which is up for discussion, is the way that Covid questions  divide and fracture the cohesion and unity of political cultures that, once upon a time, self identified regarding themselves as anti-corporate, anti-monopoly, pro-health and anti-big Pharma, and anti-authoritarian (and possibly as Left).  At least two sides in Covid discussions are claiming that they are “following the science,” while others absolutely don’t.  Anthony Fauci has announced that he is “science,” and he along with those of whom are Fauci followers say that to doubt Fauci is an “attack on science,” moreover an attack on “truth.”  If shows on Pacifica showcase Fauci while describing invermectin as a “horse dewormer” that is spuriously “touted in right-wing media” as a beneficial treatment for Covid, if Pacifica stations run government PSAs about Covid safety, should the slant of that `reporting’ and air time use get debated?  If so, by whom? Some serious money has been talked about as flowing in connection with the prospect of Covid issue debates: Multi-millionaire and activist Steve Kirsch has issued multiple million dollar backed challenges for qualified people just to show up and debate the Covid issues, but some people parry that because people like Fauci “are science” it would be undignified for them to debate, or they feel that only those who have credentialed themselves by receiving money from Fauci and the Big-Pharma should be allowed offer opinions as to what may be the facts respecting Covid, vaccines, and best health practices.  NOTE: Attendees of this Town Hall are also invited to play a social justice and debate game of chance– To play this game take any three of the last four digits of your phone number, and arrange them into a number between 23 and 894 and then submit that number together with your name when you attend.  

WBAI and Pacifica Decisions- Competing Successfully With the Internet vs And/or Becoming Internet Successful.  (Sunday, September 18th at 4:00 PM- Zoom information to attend is in the Pacifica/WBAI calendar-click on the date- and the CDL Calendar) Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode:!0b0MppY  The Pacifica Network originated as a network of terrestrial radio stations.  It’s no secret that the internet has brought a lot of “creative destruction” to all businesses, but particularly to virtually all forms of media, terrestrial radio included.  Just as the Craig’s list usurpation of classified ads worked to defund and financially starve newspapers, terrestrial radio’s business model has been challenged as audiences are siphoned off by an ever greater multiplicity of internet-based challengers supplying huge varieties of content, listening experiences included, that frequently seem even more convenient to access.  Most people now carry a smart phone in their pocket. Those phones easily access the internet providing podcasts or other forms of available listening streams, but those ubiquitous phones don’t provide terrestrial radio connections (although they easily could have that added feature).   Search engines and algorithms readily (and censoriously) direct people to internet-based content, but not, per se, without added effort, to terrestrial radio.  Terrestrial radio has understandably seen its audiences diminished.  This doesn’t mean that the audience for alternative media is diminishing: Alternative media on the internet is flourishing.  It is flourishing despite Big Tech’s exercise of considerable censorship.  Its audiences are growing to increasingly dwarf the audience of the Big Tech promoted legacy and corporate media.  But the Pacifica network stations, that once were the sine qua non in providing definitive alternative media, have not participated in that audience growth and shift to alternative media.  Is that because of Pacifica’s lack of internet savvy and presence?  Is internet savvy and slickness what’s needed to keep pace and similarly outpace corporate narratives?  Maybe, but as the recent spectacularly ignominious demise of CNN+ demonstrates, internet slickness alone means nothing in terms of capturing audience.  Also, as we reposition ourselves, reinventing ourselves in this internet world, might it not also be important to recognize characteristics of the internet from which audience might want to escape?: the data scraping, and regular surveillance, Big Tech’s curation and constant steering of what you see there along with censorship that includes the evanescence with which what’s on the internet can disappear when censored.  While we probably want to do both, what takes priority: for WBAI and Pacifica to compete with the internet on our own terrestrial radio terms, or to become internet successful with all the tools associated with success in that realm?

Recognizing The Methods By Which Public Assets Are Targeted, Taken Over, or Otherwise Neutralized (And Goals of Those Doing So).  Sunday, October 30, 2022 at 4:00 PM- Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode:9?gHZPw4.   WBAI and all its sister stations in the Pacifica Network are part of our public commons.  They are publicly owned and controlled public assets.  Anyone can listen.  There are no bars to access, no user fees are demanded.  It exists through public contributions donated to freely benefit, without restriction, the entire larger community.  It therefore stands in contradistinction to and it competes with privately owned entities, including the corporately owned mainstream and legacy media.  Those other entities exist for different purposes pursuing different goals.

More and more frequently, we see the private sector targeting public assets and the commons for privatization, or sometimes just working toward its destruction, neutralization and/or possible replacement.  An explanation sometimes given is that, as capital continues to build up, it exhausts traditional investment opportunities and is forced to seek new, less traditional assets to acquire and monetize.  Or is it partly just what happens when there’s so much of this money sloshing around?  Quite importantly, it is important to remember that the competition from the Pacifica stations is a threat not only just to the goals and purposes of the corporately owned media, but also to the agenda of all the corporate expires and the rest of the establishment institutions with which corporate owned media is so fearsomely and completely interlocked.  Also efforts are always made to quash, any examples that model alternatives to the profit based capitalism (e.g. how we relentless impose sanctions of socialist countries, then declare the systems don’t work).

There is substantial overlap, but public assets may be privatized, or public entities that own and control such assets may also be taken over accomplishing the same thing. Similarly public purpose organizations may be targeted, or political parties, political movements, or causes may be targeted for takeover, redirection or ineffectualizeation.

In learning to recognize the tactics that used it is probably important to discern the goals of those acting to commandeer public realm assets and enterprises.  Those goals can be multiple: To monetize or privately profit from the changed ownership or control (e.g. privatized road for toll collection, library real estate turned into luxury condos); elimination of alternative models of success; squelching competition; thwarting an anti-corporate mission or promulgation of any anti-corporate narratives; while intending that good work of an entity should cease, it may also be the goal to use the accumulated prior good work and built up good will and trust of a captured entity to send the public off in wrong directions (e.g. captured environmental groups touting fracking as a “clean transitional fuel”); the captured entity can be used as a resource drain or suck (e,g. a captured public purpose entity political faction that continues to seek donations so that donated money is sidelined, not going to productive use; similarly, a takeover may be slow or incomplete, existing for a long time as a battlefield to drain the financial strengths, talent and available man hours of those fighting for pubic goods– much as the U.S. lured the Soviet Union into Afghanistan intending to sap its resources); lastly when privatization shifts functions away from the government (.e. the internet, the Post Office, surveillance agencies) to private entities, those private entities may have a freer hand (decision making included) to do that, which the Constitution (or voter control) might prevent the government from doing.

In this context, can we identify and discuss some of tactics used when targeting the public commons?  They include draining and starving the entity of funding (creating an argument that someone else or alternatives are better), creating crises, undervaluing the assets, working in stealth to formulate top-down takeover plans, infiltrattion of decision-making processes with people who are unsympathetic to the public and to public goals; dismissing, avoiding and interfering with workable alternatives and ways to keep public assets robust and self-sustaining; sending in disrupters who may engage in obvious power plays (“steering committee” grabs) and divide and conquer techniques (they may also use the CIA/FBI COINTELPRO tactics of promoting unworkable bureaucracy), and, for the longer term, sending in “pivot people” (and information collectors) who will be regarded as helping until their numbers build sufficiently for a flip in tactics/board control/etc; buy influence and position within the entity with appreciable donations, co-opting the goal-and-purpose language of the entity, which can also include redefining that language into less meaningful watered down expressions of purpose; set up astro-turf alternatives and competition.  We leave this list open for more thought and additions.

Effective Directing of Resources For Good Influence.  (Part 1- Saturday, February 25th at 4:00 PM-  Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode:*+G&6Z8* Part 2- Will be Sunday March 26th at 4:00 PM,  see the CDL Calendar for March 26 for Zoom meeting sign on information.)
You are paying at your pharmacy’s cash register, and the screen to confirm your payment asks whether you want to ‘round up’ your payment to make a donation their charity. Answer: No!- Why would you want a pharmacy chain with probably too many connections to Big Pharma, corporations and the medical establishment to be directing your money to where they want it to go?  A candidate is running for office: Do you donate to their campaign?  Maybe, if it qualifies them to get into debates where they are going to force discussion of certain issues.  In a flood of emails you are asked to donate again to a political party: Do you do it?  And have your money be the tail on a dog funded by lots of mega-corporations? Don’t think so!  Similarly, stopped on the street, you are asked to donate to save animals, protect the environment, or children via a charity that’s backed by big business conglomerates while parking political operatives at high-profile salaries.  Where do you put your money to influence the world for the better? Jane Mayer reported that the Koch brother’s decided to put their money into causes first, rather than politicians who could flip on them. What about sending some of your money and resources to WBAI and Pacifica for the influence it can have on the world?  Next question, when resources come into WBAI and Pacifica, how can they best be directed within the Pacifica environment?; to improve programming attracting a bigger audience, or to promote the good shows already here?. . Maybe paying for social media promotion that might be quashed by Big tech algorithms?  There is a lot up for discussion in a two-part WBAI Town Hall.

Music Programming on WBAI and Pacifica Stations.  Sometimes some of our biggest radio listening audiences, often along with reliably sizable donations come in from music programs.  But music comes in such variety. .   what music should best make its way onto our airwaves and how much should be played of all varieties to make way for all the richness that is available?  Furthermore, isn’t music deeply imbued with cultural message?  In this regard, should we now ask: Where have all the anti-war songs gone?  The protest songs?  Are they still being written?  Or should music perhaps be a justifiable and carefree respite and refuge from the blocks of talk radio Pacifica programs where we assiduously exercise our consciences searching for solutions for the world’s societal problems and what own role should be in pursuing such solutions?  Other questions: Should we strive to feature, perhaps prioritize: local talent?; live performances?; new current era music vs. music that, like the oft revered American Song Book or the nostalgic oldies you hear played in supermarkets, have withstood the test of time becoming familiar airs?  
              
Improving WBAI and Pacifica Reputation and Brand. Do WBAI and Pacifica suffer from “reputational handicap.”  Do our stations have a reputation for lack of professionalism?  Does our democratic, grass roots governance structure mean we have reputations for destructive infighting, and if so, is this inevitable or available?   Do we undermine the free speech radio brand we seek to promote with signals that we only tolerate a narrow range of discourse?  Are we viewed as a welcoming home to, and reliable platform for, new, different and a wide range of voices that can provide alternatives to the corporate media?  Or are we hobbled by uncertainties about that?  If our reputation handicaps us, it can dissuade people, potential show hosts and producers, from bringing programs, messages and content to WBAI’s air.  Similarly, it can limit our pool of applicants for those who might work at the station or network.  It can drive away potential LSB board members or others who might be willing to contribute constructively in different ways to WBAI’s and Pacifica’s governance.  It can intimidate people who might step up to provide special fundraising premiums based on their work.  It can scare away potential contributors who could be making donations. Listeners may not then have a positive and clear perception of the WBAI brand, plus it may interfere with a full spectrum of good feelings about the station as a welcoming community. It can foster the idea that WBAI and Pacifica have no future.  Robust disagreement and debates between friends and allies is valuable.  It can even be friendly.  Alternative media can be a very big tent without ever retreading any of the corporate media narratives. But are we instead suffering from the effects of divide and conquer?  If so, what do we do to improve our brand and reputation.

WBAI and Pacifica Stepping Into The Breach As We Increasingly See More Internet Censorship.  If we are free speech radio, do we find that our most valuable content for the airwaves will be in inverse proportion to that which is censored?  Maybe that’s always been the case, but is it possible that the increasingly blatant censorship of the internet coming from Big Tech as an arm of government gives WBAI and Pacifica a perfect opportunity to strengthen, burnish and promote our brand?  And doesn’t it mean that the areas where there has been the most intense censorship is exactly where we should step in with flourish.  With the RT takedown much valuable alternative media programming was banished and disappeared, including our own “Chris Hedges On Contact” program.  Chris Hedges is one area where we stepped into the breach to broadcast a new resurrected version of Hedges’ weekly broadcast.  That’s something we can toot our horn about! It’s an age-old story with us that anti-war content, and content about promoting peace, have been intensely censored and squelched in our mainstream corporate media.  Likewise, criticism of capitalism and information about systematic racism, particularly the forms it takes with our police and in our prisons.  What else is high on the censorship list these days? It would seem at least the following: The conduct of the Israeli state in occupied Palestine, the topic of Big Pharma’s influence and the reliability of related Covid issue narratives, certainly now discussion about Ukraine and NATO, the topic of Big tech and authoritarian censorship itself, and now getting onto the list is the question of whether the U.S. is in a “recession.”  Participants in the discussion can probably add to the list.  Participants are also free to argue that they think certain points of view, or people they might identify, should be censored or “curated” off the air.  Most important is whether WBAI and Pacifica are stepping up to meet and take advantage of the challenges and opportunities here.