KPFA: Stop the Closed Door General Manager Hire

The KPFA Local Station Board is scheduled to select its recommendation for General Manager hire on Sunday, October 10, in executive session. At this point, the decision could be made without the entire Local Station Board even knowing the names of all the finalists, nor seeing any resumes -- based solely on the recommendation of the General Manager Hire Subcommittee, a subcommittee which has been mired in conflict.

For true listener-sponsored community radio, the finalists should appear before the public. Our sister Pacifica station in Los Angeles, KPFK, had a public meeting to help select their General Manager. The same should be done at KPFA.

Let us recall that our last General Manager hire, Gus Newport, only lasted on the job for 9 months, after a one year search process. It is critical that this hire decision be correct and that we are able to retain a strong, progressive manager to help lead our station in these critical times.

We call for a public process to help select our next General Manager. The listeners deserve no less.

Please send your call for a public General Manager hire process to Riva at riva187 [at] yahoo.com. She will forward your comments to the Local Station Board.


Mike Alcalay
Former KPFA reporter and programmer of Aids in Focus

Lincoln Bergman
KPFA News Director 1969-71,
longterm programmer through 1995

Jeffrey Blankfort
Co-Founder, Take Back KPFA

Riva Enteen
Chair, KPFA Local Station Board

Maria Gilardin
Co-Founder, Take Back KPFA

Bill Mandel
37-year programmer,
fired for refusal to obey KPFA gag rule

Henry Norr
KPFA news subcommittee,
fired from the San Francisco Chronicle

Les Radke
Co-founder, Take Back KPFA
and the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica,
KPFA Local Election Supervisor, 2003-2004

(All organizational references are for identification only.)


For more information about the General Manager hiring process, please see Jeffrey Blankfort's recent letter, posted on the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center at
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/10/1697924.php.