Produced by:
KBOO
Program::
Air date:
Mon, 05/20/2013 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Lynn Fitch: Raw, Naked, and Exposed - Part Two
Don Merrill will be inerviewing KBOO Station Navigator Lynn Fitch.
They will contine the discussion began Sunday May 19th on Lynn's history in community media and development work, other experiences in her past, and where she is leading KBOO in the future.
Calls are welcome. (503) 231-8187
- KBOO
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Comments
?'s & Dialogue With Lynn? All filtered & denatured
After attending the last board meeting and staying until after the session was taken private banishing the public and the issue of the Navigator's pay increase could then be put before the board following the jaw-dropping plans for mass lay-offs, I listened very carefully this evening hoping to glean some insight into just what Ms. Fitch's vision for KBOO is. Any hope of deciphering just where this outsider to KBOO's community is coming from besides Alaska, Seattle, and big money deals with the Gates Foundation was over the course of 90 minutes dashed. Fitch dodged softballer Merrill's questions on specific numbers to assess her performance in her initial job description as Development (Funds & Listenership) Director; how much did Fitch's first year on the first job bring in to KBOO coffers? The expensive de facto fundraising consultants unveiled to listener-members at the Tabor Space some three years ago have also never accounted for cost\benefits of the last major depletion of listener contributions. Nor any measure of their success or Fitch's in audience outreach.Add to that no callers put through the phone line to question the Navigator herself and only a couple of listener questions filtered through softballer Merrill, I've come away with a cynical pit in my stomach where the antidote to the corporate world's concentration-of-wealth and spreading-of-illth conventional wisdom used to be. No respect is yet due. What we heard about the union-busting Bullard Law Firm selection over public interest lawyer-listener-member counsel amounted to PR BULL. Arlo Guthrie's soundtrack is quite apt given the anti-union remarks Arlo made to NY Times interviewer Deborah Solomon when he boasted of bolting from the musicians' union local a long time ago. Recently Arlo has pulled out his Dad's union songs and Pete Seeger's to soft-pedal the Libertarian small-government politics Arlo espoused in his support of the Ron Paul presidency. Why Arlo do you side with public service employees in Wisconsin after distancing yourself from the excess control of the musicians' union? And I'm a lifelong fan of Arlo's songs and storytelling!If this is where KBOO directional culture has gotten to, no numbers, no accountability, no vision, no macro no micro measures for growing listenership participation or even meaningful discussion of the various options available to KBOO, in fact no reconcilliation of the contradictory claims of the last season's rosey fiscal report with the Foundation Treasurer and board member Paula Small's assertion at the board meeting and at the Tabor Space meeting that KBOO Foundation is in fact bankrupt, there is no confidence in current leadership. Lynn Fitch describes herself as ambitious, but she may well be confusing the ambition to pad her Gates Foundation $60 million dollar resume with the ambition to put KBOO on course for the bumpy road leading into the 21st Century of Hoovervilles under all our cities' bridges and outside their no-vacancy homeless shelters that will define community listener-supported radio's "people's intelligence service" lifeline.
Misleading advertising for Lynn Fitch interview
Thank you to Don Merrill for reading the questions we dropped off to the KBOO reception desk during Lynn Fitch's interview. You mentioned on air that you disliked the anonymity, but we did not intend it that way. We scribbled them down in the car while driving in the neighborhood and expected to call them in. However, NOWHERE in the program did anyone mention the KBOO phone # or invite any callers. Once you asked listeners to "send" in your questions. Having listened to the May 19 program format, in which there were no calls answered directly, we assumed this was happening again. Therefore, we stopped by the station to ask if we had a chance of gettting our questions through at all, perhaps via email. The receptionist kindly offered to relay our questions to the interview room. I am very disappointed that the KBOO website misled callers into believing that there would be opportunities for live calls. Almost all of the station's live interview question/answer programs accept live calls, so it would be natural to expect it on this show, especially when it was advertised a such. This leaves me asking why the filter of a moderated interview was needed. Were the interviews created to achieve transparency, as the PSA's advertising them suggested, or part of premeditated management of the perception of the masses? If this is an example of KBOO's new programming direction, we are not impressed. By the way, the answer Lynn gave to my question about documentation regarding KBOO's current "financial crisis" appears to be inadequate. I would love to be directed to a published report of the finance committee that is more recent than Sept. 2012. If the station is in financial crisis, why no winter pledge drive, and what is Lynn Fitch doing to raise the funds? Hopefully the board will share some of the specifics at the next meeting. I find attendance necessary, since I do not currently trust that there are any unfiltered facts being presented regarding these issues.