KPFT Notes

Panos South Asia (PSA) is a part of a family of Panos Institute worldwide that encourages and facilitates public discourse on a wide range of issues, particularly those that have a direct impact on the least privileged and most marginalized sections of society. Panos works through media to bring neglected subjects to the fore in developmental debate, so as to give a platform for voices and perspectives, which are often rendered voiceless in the public sphere.

In this endeavour, besides other activities, Panos facilitates the capacity building of media and other communication practitioners to use new media technologies to raise marginalized voices and perspectives in development. The Internet as a ‘new media’ has become a major arena for traditional broadcast media. Internet based radio is proving an attractive field for traditional electronic broadcasters. Despite bandwidth limitations in South Asia, the Internet already enables radio stations and other communication practitioners to distribute their radio programmes in broadcast quality beyond their immediate geographic confines.

Panos South Asia (www.panossouthasia.org) is organising a 5-day South Asian regional ‘Online Radio Broadcasting Training Workshop’ for media and other communication practitioners in South Asia, from 17-21 March 2008 at its Media Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The workshop aims to provide know-how on the potential the Internet offers to radio and point them to ways of incorporating it in their respective media outlets’ strategy. Based on hands-on training in digital technologies, the workshop curriculum will cover the issues of distributing material online and the techniques of streaming content to global audiences. Trainees will become acquainted with the latest real-time on-line broadcasting technologies, as well as with the fundamentals of digitisation of multimedia input, encoding, compression standards and online audio streaming.

Broadcasters, radio producers/reporters, editors, web masters, web editors, bloggers, pod-casters and other communication practitioners, especially, but not necessarily associated with radio media from South Asian countries wishing to attend this training workshop may apply by 15 February 2008 by e-mail to prsa@panosradiosouthasia.org. PSA will cover all related costs of participation, including travel, for selected participants from the region. Your application should contain a brief resume and less than 300 word write-up stating your experience on ‘new media’. Alos, how by participating in this workshop it will enable you or your organization to enhance your work to give a platform for voices and perspectives which are often rendered voiceless in the public sphere. PSA will respond ONLY to selected applicants by 22 February 2008. Telephone and other solicitations shall not be entertained.

THe ever-awesome Rachel Clarke sends this out about tonight’s Houston Indymedia Radio Show. Tune in tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Headlines…

Activists in Portland arrested for engaging in direct action to protest Northwest National’s investment in new Liquified Natural Gas Pipelines

Seattle activists with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action continue to demonstrate against the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the United States
Temple students demonstrate on MLK day for workers’ rights
Mexican prison authorities deny access of US farmworkers to Flavio Sosa, a prominent activist with the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca
Features…

Last week more than 500 activists gathered in Houston for the National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights Conference. Houston Indymedia was there to bring you a piece of the many different voices and perspectives shared during the three day event.

We talk with a community organizer out of Boston MA who led a successful blockade against a bank foreclosure this past week. As many predominantly minority families fall victim to the sub-prime lending schemes, her organization City Life is empowering the working poor to fight back.

Hey everyone! The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights conference is all done. I collected tons of audio and had a great time. For those around the country, make sure to let your local affiliates know I’ve posted NNIRR interviews and such on AudioPort, Pacifica’s audio distro service. Here are photos from the Friday action:

A few hundred folks braved the cold and rain to protest the Wedge Group and to draw attention to the plight of janitors in Houston. The march left from the hotel, went through the streets of Houston, and ended up at Wedge’s building. Here’s the rat that was inflated in front.

Houston Indymedia had a great reflection piece on their show (Fridays at 7:30 p.m. — catch it!) and John, Rob and crew did a fabulous job documenting the event.

Big thanks to Arnoldo Garcia and Diana Pei Wu of NNIRR for their awesome politics and friendliness; Jane Guskin,  for her cheerfulness; Bryan Parras and Otis Maclay, for all their hard work; and everyone who participated in interviews.

KPFK, 90.7 FM in Los Angeles and 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, a progressive, listener-sponsored radio station located in North Hollywood, California, and a unit of Pacifica Foundation, a 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation, seeks to fill the position of General Manager.

The General Manager will work under the supervision of the Executive Director (ED) of Pacifica Foundation. This is a full-time exempt management position.

*RESPONSIBILITIES:*

The General Manager is responsible and accountable for overall administration, personnel, programming, financing, technical operations and public relations of the station. Working collaboratively with the Local Station Board (LSB), the station staff, and the community, the General Manager is responsible for monitoring and guiding the station.

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1. In collaboration with Pacifica’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the Executive Director, the Local Station Board, and Staff, prepare the station’s annual budget and present it to KPFK’s Local Station Board and the Pacifica National Board for review and approval.

2. Maintain the fiscal integrity of the station through membership/fundraising activities, budget management, and compliance with Pacifica National Board and Pacifica National Office policies and practices.

3. Prepare reports for revenue and expense oversight, and ensure that station maintains a balanced budget (plus or minus 5 percent) within Board and National Office guidelines.

GENERAL OPERATIONS/PHYSICAL PLANT

4. Ensure transmitter function and compliance with all necessary local, state and federal laws and regulations.

5. Ensure maintenance of physical plant in conjunction with Chief Engineer and/or Operations Manager.

PROGRAMMING

6. Ensure program content complies with all necessary state and federal laws, regulations, and requirements as well as Pacifica programming policies and requirements.

7. In coordination with a Program Director, present an annual program report to the Executive Director, Local Station Board, and Pacifica National Board in line with Pacifica’s mission, PNB policies, and National Office priorities and/or goals.

8. Establish, maintain, and review programming goals and services in line with Pacifica’s mission and goals.

9. Oversee technical broadcast operations and program content, delivery, format and schedule.

10. Supervise Program Director and communicate programming goals and initiatives.

FCC, CPB, EEO, AG REPORTS

11. Ensure completion of and compliance with necessary public filed reports, annual CPB Station Activity Surveys, FCC license renewal applications, EEO mandates, charity registration with state Attorney General, OSHA regulations, or other necessary local, state and federal filing.

GOVERNANCE

12. Attend Pacifica National Board meetings four weekends a year.

13. Serve as a non-voting member of the station’s LSB, attending once per month as an ex-officio member.

14. Select a regular Program Director from a pool of candidates presented by the station’s Local Station Board.

15. Work with the Local Elections Supervisor on implementing Pacifica governance election procedures and policies. Communicate and enforce Fair Campaign Provisions to staff. Provide office facilities to Local Elections Supervisor.

16. Report to the PNB quarterly on the status of diversity of station staffing, programming and audience (data permitting) within the radio station areas.

PERSONNEL/TRADE UNION

17. Supervise all station staff, paid and unpaid.

18. Attend trade union contract negotiations, handle grievance process, and manage union employees.

19. Follow all Pacifica procedures, and state and federal laws, regarding employment processing, recruitment and selection, hiring, termination and other personnel actions and follow the Pacifica Foundation employment handbook and union contracts.

20. Ensure that public safety measures are in place at the station for paid and unpaid staff, members of the general public, and visitors.

COMMUNITY RELATIONS

21. Represent the station and Pacifica at public forums. Handle media relations for the station.

22. Broadcast monthly report to the listeners with at least half the scheduled time allotted for call-ins.

23. Develop and implement an outreach strategy to increase listenership to and membership in KPFK, paying particular attention to underrepresented communities.

DEVELOPMENT

24. Devise, with the Development Director, a strategy and plan for fundraising in and outside the station.

INTERNET

25. Maintain a web site for the station.

26. Maintain publication of programming schedules on the station’s web site and in other appropriate venues.

27. Maintain publication of appropriate station and network information, including those required by law (i.e., EEO) or by policy.

*QUALIFICATIONS:*

Education: College degree or at least 6 years equivalent experience.

Experience: Experience in broadcasting, and/or in a non-profit or community organization supervising employees and/or volunteers, desirable.

Skills and Abilities: Emphasis on communication skills (written and oral); management skills (e.g., planning, motivating, organizing, innovating, etc.); and industry skills (programming, marketing, fundraising, etc.) Ability to work with diverse communities. Must be detail oriented. Requires good judgment. Ability to think clearly and manage multiple changing priorities. Requires critical thinking, commitment to work collaboratively, and ability to advise and support coworkers facing difficult challenges.

Bilingual Spanish-English desirable.

Salary range: Starting salary $65,000, negotiable depending on experience.

Benefits: Medical, Dental, Life, Disability (upon completion of introductory status).

To apply, email your resume, letter of interest and salary requirement to: kpfkresumes@gmail.com

Or by Fax: (510) 849-2617, or mail to:

Pacifica Foundation

Attn: General Manager Search KPFK

1925 Martin Luther King, Jr Way

Berkeley, CA 94704-1037

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: Open until February 28, 2008.

The Pacifica Foundation is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring a diversified work force. We do not discriminate against candidates on the basis of race, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, age or disability. Women, people of color and members of other underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.

Do you have a story to tell about the power of media to create social change? Do you want to share your Outreach Journal? Do you have what it takes to write about distribution?

Send us your pitch! Accepted articles will be published on MediaRights.org, featured on our homepage and will be highlighted in our monthly newsletter. Plus, you’ll get a check for $150!

Articles should:

- be at most 1500 words
- include web links
- include 3-5 digital images
- consider our audience of filmmakers, educators, nonprofits, and activists

Send your article to outreach@artsengine.net.

Let These Words Be My Weapon: Poets and Writers Against War: An Evening of Anti-War Readings on the Fifth Year of the Iraq Invasion

An artistic and political collaboration by Bárbara Renaud González & Pablo Miguel Martínez and the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

Thursday evening, March 20, 2008
At the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center
922 San Pedro
San Antonio, Texas 78228

We are seeking poems, short fiction, creative nonfiction, and biography/testimonio on the theme of war. The reading will run approximately 75 minutes in length; we are committed to selecting a diverse range of voices, and as much work as the schedule can accommodate.

If your work is selected for inclusion but you cannot read it in person, it will be read by a trained actor.

All work will be videotaped and will be considered, with the author’s permission, for an anti-war anthology.

Send us your best work. We are not looking for polemical work, but rather, work that makes a soulful, compelling, original, and unforgettable statement against war.

Poets: Please send no more than three poems.

Writers: Please send no more than five pages of text (double-spaced) or attached Word document to the following: poetry to Pablo Miguel Martínez, xololoco@yahoo.com; all other genres to Bárbara Renaud González, anabarbararenaud@gmail.com.

Or by regular mail: Words As Weapon, P.O. Box 5557, San Antonio, TX 78201-0557

DEADLINE: All submissions must be received no later than February 29, 2008. Late submissions will not be considered.

If you have questions, please call us at 210.228.0201.

Local activist and frequent KPFT guest Kofi Taharka speaks about the recent Hillary Clinton controversy.

Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr. & The “Post Racial” Fairy Tale

By: Kofi Taharka

As we move towards the annual Dr. Martin Luther King birthday celebrations, across the country the presidential bid of Barack Obama and reaction to it; has brought discussions of race to the forefront in mainstream America. Comments made by Hillary Clinton uplifting Lyndon Johnson over Dr. King in their perspective roles in the civil rights movement have ignited a firestorm of controversy. Her comments were a classic example of a white supremacist worldview. She implied that Dr. King dreamed and gave great speeches while it took a white man, Lyndon Johnson to realize the dream through the voting rights acts of 1964. She was obviously drawing comparison to herself and Lyndon Johnson and Obama’s speaking ability to Dr. King.

This commentary is reflective of the mainstream coverage of the King Holiday, which regulates him to a two second sound bite which says “I Have A Dream”. It fails to recognize him as a man who was a part of an organization The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which was part of a broader movement which included many other organizations and groups. This period spawned formations which fought, bled, were inprisoned and died for real change and uplift for African people in America. Among them were the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Deacons for Defense, The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, The Nation of Islam (NOI), The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), The Black Panther Party (BPP), The Republic of New Africa (RNA) and countless other foot soldiers whose names we don’t know.

These groups did not always agree on strategies and tactics but they all helped to force changes in America.

Mrs. Clinton should be reminded that seldom have white people in power made concessions out of the goodness of their heart or because it was the right thing to do, conversely pressure has been applied through protest, marching, boycotting, self-defense, lawsuits, political organizing, community organizing and open rebellion.

Dr. King’s positions opposing the Vietnam War, calling for a radical redistribution of wealth in America, and a aspect of the I Have A Dream speech which focused on coming to Washington to cash the check are almost never mentioned in celebrations of his life.

In his I Have A Dream speech he challenged the America saying

“In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, which has come back, marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

In his book Where Do We go From Here: Chaos or Community he provides insight into politics:

“The majority of Negro political leaders do not ascend to prominence on the shoulders of mass support. Although genuinely popular leaders are now emerging, most are selected by white leadership, elevated to position, supplied with resources and inevitably subject to white control. The mass of Negroes nurtures a healthy suspicion toward these manufactured leaders. Experience tells them that color is the chief argument their leaders are offering to induce loyalty and solidarity… Tragically, he is in too many respects not a fighter for a new life but a figurehead of the old one.”

M.L.K. Jr. is not the only personality or group straightjacketed in the public packaging to a sound bite philosophy. Lack of serious examination has left us to identify certain personalities with limited ideas such as Malcolm X “By Any Means Necessary”, Fannie Lou Haimer “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired”, The Black Panthers “Power To The People”, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) “Black Power”, Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) “Burn Baby Burn”. The point is none of these figures or groups should be regulated to one or two slogans because their outlooks and programs encompassed a variety of actions to push the community forward. You cannot talk about this era without mentioning the fact that the United States government helped to destroy many of these organizations through it’s Counter Intelligence Program (Cointelpro) conducted by the FBI.

Barack Obama as well as all of us are recipients of the opportunities we have today because of the great and mighty struggle conducted by the aforementioned groups and those who came before and after them. As Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) an active participant in the 1960’s said ‘no one in our community can solely claim they accomplished anything, it goes back to the blood of the people’. In the political discussion surrounding racial tension in the presenditial campaign commentators in large part have dismissed race as a non-factor. The terminology “Post Racial” has been introduced to describe Obama’s ability to gain white votes which supposedly proves racism/white supremacy is no longer a issue in America. This is like the movie “the matrix” in which people are deliberately deceived into accepting a fantasy as reality. Under reported white supremacist terrorism abounds in America including dragging, noose hangings, racial slurs and racially motivated
kidnappings/torture. This is not to mention how structurally white supremacy is engrained in institutions which control religion, education, economics, prisons, law enforcement, military, emergency response, housing and politics. The real fairy tale is trying to ignore historical and contemporary racism/white supremacy, which still infects American society today.

Malcolm X whose name dare not be mentioned during the presidential campaign offered instructive questions for us today in the political process. He stated that we should control the politics and politicians in our community. We should ask who controls Hillary Clinton, who controls Barack Obama? In addition, Malcolm asked Can A Chicken Lay A Duck Egg? Referring to the lack of capacity of this system to produce freedom, justice, and equality for Black people in America. Ultimately, neither the Democratic nor Republican parties will deliver the types of change we need in our communities, we will. Further, we are responsible for the preservation and accurate accounting of our history and our heroes and heroines.

As we look to the future and before we turn the page let us look deeply at the past and realistically at the present.

Kofi Taharka serves as the Chairman of The National Black United Front – Houston Chapter (NBUF.

The Chicago Tribune reports the Federal Communications Commission was told by members of Congress to preserve electronic records for legislators investigating decision-making at the agency.

The request came in a letter from the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which last month said it would look into whether FCC procedures are fair, open and transparent.

The agency has drawn scrutiny over its Dec. 18 decisions to relax media-ownership rules and tighten controls over the cable industry in the face of opposition from Republicans and Democrats in Congress. In November, Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, was accused by Democrats on the panel of manipulating data meant to justify greater cable oversight.

“We expect to issue a comprehensive document request in the near future,” said the letter signed by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell, the committee’s chairman, and Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican. “The committee believes that added steps should be taken to ensure the full cooperation of all FCC employees.”

The lawmakers told Martin to notify agency employees they have a right to communicate with Congress. It asked him to preserve “all electronic records, including work e-mail and personal e-mail communications relating to official work of the commission.”

A copy of the letter was e-mailed to reporters by committee staff.

The FCC had no comment on today’s letter, said Clyde Ensslin, an agency spokesman.

In response to an earlier inquiry from Dingell, Martin said the commission’s document-retention policy was “substantially” unchanged from past FCC practices.

Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi recently released a new report called Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video. It states many online videos creatively use copyrighted materials in fair-use ways under copyright law. The authors recently discussed their findings at a panel on digital rights management at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show Jan. 7 in Las Vegas, NV.

On Friday, EFF filed an amicus brief in Atlantic v. Howell, an Arizona lawsuit brought as part of the RIAA’s national campaign against individuals for file-sharing. Although the case has received attention recently over the issue of whether CD ripping is legal, the main event in the case is about something different: can the RIAA sue people for attempted copyright infringement?

EFF’s brief (as have several courts) says no.

As in more than 20,000 other lawsuits, the recording industry claims that Mr. and Mrs. Howell committed copyright infringement by using P2P file sharing software (in this case, Kazaa). But rather than going to the trouble of proving that the Howells made any infringing copies (by ripping CDs or downloading songs) or any infringing distributions (by uploading to other Kazaa users), the record labels argue that simply having a song in a shared folder, even if no one ever downloaded it from you (i.e., “making available”), infringes the distribution right. This essentially amounts to suing someone for attempted distribution, something the Copyright Act has never recognized (although the DoJ unsuccessfully tried to get something like that from Congress last year).

The RIAA’s position is troubling not just because it would set a dangerous precedent, but because it has already been rejected by several courts after pitched battles between big copyright owners and big defendants. For example, when the RIAA tried this maneuver against Bertelsmann in the Napster case, they were shut down. When the entertainment industry tried it against Google in the Perfect 10 case, they were shut down.