In a strange turn of events, the Berkeley Daily Planet reported last week that parent Pacifica Foundation was "raiding the bank account" of Berkeley's community radio station, KPFA. Sensational headline, but the allegations are false.

The Planet said they were tipped off by someone demanding anonymity to an online petition posted by KPFA's board treasurer, a news reporter named Brian Edwards-Tiekert. The petition, posted at petitiononline.com and since taken down, featured claims by Edwards-Tierkert that parent foundation Pacifica, in some financial stress due to membership loss at NYC station WBAI, had authorized a transfer of $200,000 out of KPFA's bank accounts.

Instead, as paperwork submitted by Pacifica's CFO Lavarn Williams clearly shows, Pacifica in fact transferred over $300,000 into KPFA's accounts, freeing 75% of funds held in a CD securing a foundation line of credit and reducing the amount of restricted funds from $400,000 to $100,000, a net gain of $300,000 in operating revenue to KPFA.

Williams submitted the following statement on the matter:

"Brian Edwards-Tiekert, the author of the "let the enemy own the problems
to come" memo in 2005 and member of the National Finance Committee in
2008, along with Sherry Gendelman, then-PNB Chair, raided the KPFA Wells Fargo account in 2008 and placed $400,000 of KPFA's cash in a restricted account as collateral for a $300,000 dollar line of credit. The line of credit was used to support the “borrow and spend” failure model at WBAI in New York.

The current PNB with the Chair, Grace Aaron, acting with the CFO, LaVarn
Williams, returned $300,000 in cash to KPFA, thereby strengthening the cash
position of the Foundation.

As a Foundation, we are well on our way to re-establishing financial
stability and promoting management with skills to deliver 60 more years of
strong Pacifica programming as a voice for free speech, peace, and social
justice".

The Daily Planet story is here. Media News is told a follow-up story will be printed on Thursday.

Video testimonial from the Centro Legale created by the Raising Our Voices Training Program.

KPFA, the nation's first community radio and still one of the mainstays of independent progressive media, is having its Board elections over the next two months.

One of the few media outlets with a subscriber-elected board (KQED did away with that experiment a few years ago), KPFA moved to an internally democratic model a decade ago after a self-selected board threatened to sell of the network's stations and locked out workers at Berkeley's KPFA. 

While Media Alliance will not endorse particular candidates, we want to lay out the options for you (and in the spirit of disclosure, confess that ED Tracy Rosenberg is an incumbent KPFA board member and is strongly supporting Independents for Community Radio) - so here is the playing field.

People's Radio - the long-time listener democracy oriented group - running 4 candidates. www.peoplesradio.net

Voices for Justice - affiliated with labor organizer Steve Zeltzer - running two candidates

 Independents for Community Radio - a new affinity group of activists and organizers - running 11 candidates - www.indyradio2009.org

Concerned Listeners - the current board majority running on the slogan "professional radio with a radical edge"  - running 10 candidates - www.concernedlisteners.org

Media Alliance's historic role in the Save Pacifica movement was to advocate for what we define as community radio: locally-focused and collectively run, with a commitment to presenting voices heard too little.

KPFA subscribers will have to make up their own minds, but here is an article written by ED Tracy Rosenberg about how she made up her mind how to vote:

More articles:

Incumbernt board member Sasha Futran on transparency and recent accusations of "raiding".

Community Radio at the Crossroads

Editor's Note: Early morning on New Year’s Day, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was shot and killed in Oakland, California by a Bay Area Rapid Transit agency police officer. Grant was unarmed. The young black man’s arms shackled behind his back. His face—pressed down against the cement. Onlookers video-phoned the horrific spectacle as his life was taken from him.

Over three dozen artists have contributed to the Oscar Grant Memorial Arts Project. Our goal was to gather the creative works dedicated to Oscar Grant from artists, musicians, writers, photographers and others. Any form of creative expression was accepted-- a video of a dance work, audio, song, poster, photo, etc. Selected portfolio work will be featured in several Bay Area publications (print and online). If you have any questions christinejoy@urbanhabitat.org.

People are angry. Thousands have been appalled by the Oscar Grant shooting and have taken a new stand to fight injustice.  Many have chosen to  creatively express their stance through art. Songs have been written and dedicated to Oscar Grant. Poems, paintings and posters have been created. Graffiti artists have painted murals.

For this project Media Alliance will act as a clearinghouse, collecting and archiving copies of the material and coordinating its presentation by partner publications including: Urban Habitat's Race, Poverty & the Environment Journal, Media Alliance, http://media-alliance.org, InColor magazine http://In-Color.net,  and Street Spirit Newspaper. This work is supported by a grant from the Akonadi Foundation.

This project is co-sponsored by Media Alliance and Race, Poverty and the Environment.

Media Alliance’s mission is to defend, develop and strengthen independent media to support the creation of a truly democratic society and to build capacity of low income people and communities of color to create and be represented by media responsive to the communities needs. MA helps create alliances between media creators and media consumers to bring light to under-reported issues, build public support for fundamental rights to communicate and lift up best practices for the inspiration of a broad range of communities, regionally and nationally.

Race, Poverty and the Environment is a project of Urban Habitat. Since, 1990 RP&E has been exploring issues at the nexus of race, class and the environment. Founded as a joint project of the Urban Habitat Program and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation’s Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, since January 2004 RP&E has been solely a project of Urban Habitat. Urban Habitat builds power in low-income communities and communities of color by combining education, advocacy, research and coalition-building to advance environmental, economic and social justice in the Bay Area.

Co-Sponsored by Race, Poverty & the Environment

Graffiti
Photography & Art
Poetry
Songs
Videos

Photo by Kirstina Sangsahachart

Contributing photographers and artists:

• Adrienne Miller - Photography
• Carina Lomeli - Painting
• Eric Arnold - Photography
• From Oakland to Gaza - Poster
• Jocelyn Goode - Poster
• Keba Konte - Photo Essay
• Khalil, StudioBendib - Comic
• Kirstina Sangsahachart - Photography
• Matthew Williams - Bart Logo
• Melanie Cervantes & Jesus Barraza - Poster
• Nina Sparks - Photography
• Pitzeleh8 - Illustration
• Police are Pigs - Art Design
• Shelton Santos - Art Design
• Various Artists - Other Cultural Works

Photo by Elliot Johnson

Contributing Artists and Photographers:
Amend TDK
DESI, Weapons of Mass Expression
DNO, Teach More Culture
Aerosoul
DZYER
David Heyes
Elliot Johnson
James Wacht
Brendan Cox
Eric Arnold
Brooke Anderson
Christine Joy Ferrer 

• Teach More Culture
  
• I am Oscar Grant - Various Artists
• Kill Dirty Cops
• No Justice, No Peace
• Protesting Police Brutality: A Mural in Progress - Various Artists
• R.I.P. Oscar Grant - Various Artists
• Rest in Power Oscar Grant
  

Co-Sponsored by Race, Poverty & the Environment

Contributing Artists:
AIDGE 34, Aethetics Crew
Mistah F.A.B. & Amp Live
Novel
Rukus
Siaria Shaw
Anisse Gross
Leron Blankenship
Anais Kaine 

• Dear Tatiana
• Mad World
• My Life
• Never Will Be Forgotten
• Oscar Grant Tribute
• Same Shit
• Too Many

By Shelton Santos

Contributing Poets:

Dee Allen
Sheilagh"Cat" Brooks
Raul Estremera
Shiko
Tiny
Rashida Mack
Carrie Leilam Love

• Face Down
• For Oscar
• Forty One Shots and Nineteen Hits
• In Honor of ALL fallen Victims of Po'Lice Terror
• One
• Oscar Grant's Glimpse of the New Year
• Slide Show

Contributors:
Youth Movement Records
Jasiri X

• Oscar Grant Tribute-This Week With Jasiri X
• Youth Movement Records - Never Will Be Forgotten

The Asian-American journalist, activist and executive producer of APEX Express, passed suddenly and prematurely earlier this week. It is a tremendous loss of a strong activist, a powerful broadcaster and a rich spirit.

Friends and admirers can attend a public celebration of Gina's life and work at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center 388 9th Street, 2nd Floor in Oakland (Pacific Rennaissance Plaza) on October 25th from 5-7pm.

Any reminiscences, reflections and letters of her support for her friends and family can be left at the First Voice Media Action blog at www.firstvoicemap.org.

The Alliance for Community Media, and the cities of Lansing and Dearborn in Michigan have filed suit against AT&T's U-verse system for the placement of many local public access stations on one channel with a pull-down menu. This effectively prevents channel surfers from ever encountering their local PEG. Comments are due at the FCC by March 5th. Anyone can file one! Proceeding# 09-13. 

Robert McChesney: "If BE THE MEDIA didn't exist, like Voltaire's God, it would have to be invented".

Click on the picture to buy a copy and give Media Alliance a donation at the same time!

A delegation of community groups led by Media Alliance visited an Oakland Radio Shack on Friday December 19th on behalf of the Media Action Grassroots Network (Mag-Net). They requested digital television converter boxes be made available for the $40 federal coupon price for low-income populations that can't afford to pay $20-50 to upgrade their TV's to digital signals. See the pictures.

A benefit on January 22nd, 2009 for arrested KPFA journalist Nadra Foster featured poet devorah major at the La Pena coffeehouse. Audio of the January 22nd benefit at La Pena By First Voice Media Action.

Nobody doubts the impact of the right graphic. It can make a huge difference in a campaign or struggle. That's why we wanted to let you know about the work of veteran East Bay printmaker Doug Minkler.

Thirty-year veteran poster-maker Doug Minkler would like to invite the Media Alliance community to receive his quarterly outreach announcement letter highlighting his newest work and some timely older work. His free graphics web site offers his colorful art as a high resolution pdf file suitable for home printers as well as small presses. These graphics, which reproduce nicely on 8.5"x 11" glossy photo paper, can be used to assist those who are trying to further social justice issues. They can also be copied and posted in lunch rooms, union halls and community centers.

Many well known organizations have commissioned Doug to create graphics such as the: International Longshore Workers Union, Rain Forest Action Network, SF Mime Troupe, American Civil Liberties Union, Lawyers Guild, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, United Auto Workers, Africa Information Network, Ecumenical Peace Union, ADAPT, Cop Watch, Street Sheet, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and Veterans for Peace.

By making his artwork known to the Media Alliance community, he hopes that other organizations will commission him to create posters that will support their efforts. Also, his outreach letter offers his silk screen prints for sale and announces his Sunday morning art class for kids, Drawing the Unusual, held in his studio in Berkeley.

To receive his next outreach letter or commission him-- reply to dminkler@dminkler.com
To find out about his Sunday morning kids class -- http://www.dminkler.com/transfer/drawingclasss.pdf
To view his web site resource -- http://www.dminkler.com/

You have permission to use this work. Using the graphic is not dependent on a fee---but if your budget allows please send your desperately needed financial compensation so that Doug can continue to send you these high quality masterpieces.

Doug Minkler
http://www.dminkler.com/

Clips of panel discussions from the Feb 2008 Oakland Digital Inclusion Summit. 

Bridging the Gap: How Communities Attack the Digital Divide  (54.45)

Creating Platforms for Success (1:15.34)

Washington, D.C. – While the media environment is evolving rapidly, television continues to be the dominant medium used by the American public. TV advertising is therefore still a core component of most major public service campaigns, on topics such as childhood obesity, drunk driving, or cancer prevention. To help inform the work of non-profits seeking to communicate with the public, the Kaiser Family Foundation is releasing a new, updated study that examines the extent and nature of public service advertising (PSA) on both broadcast and cable television.

The report – Shouting To Be Heard (2): Public Service Advertising in a Changing Television World – found that broadcast and cable stations in the study donated an average of 17 seconds an hour to PSAs – totaling one-half of one percent of all TV airtime. The most frequent time period for PSAs to air was between midnight and 6 a.m., accounting for 46% of donated PSAs across all stations in the study; looking only at broadcast stations, 60% of donated PSAs ran overnight. The time period with the fewest donated PSAs was during prime time (8-11 p.m.), with 13% of all donated PSAs.

The most common issue among donated PSAs was health (26% of all donated PSAs), followed by fundraising (23%), family and social concerns (12%), community organizations or events (8%), and volunteerism (6%).

“PSAs can be an important tool, but obviously they have to be seen to be effective,” said Vicky Rideout, vice president and Director of Kaiser’s Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health. “With so little airtime being made available, making sure PSAs get seen frequently by their target audience can be a daunting task.”

This report updates a previous study released in 2002 which allows for some comparisons over time. While the time allotted to donated PSAs increased from 7 seconds to 15 seconds per hour on cable television during this period, overall, there was no statistically significant change in the average amount of time donated to PSAs when broadcast television was factored in. Also during this period, the study found that paid commercial advertising increased from 11:45 of ads per hour to 12:25. In addition, during this period the proportion of donated ads featuring a Web address increased form 32% to 75%.

The Kaiser report was released today at a forum that featured Federal Communications Commission Members Michael Copps, Jonathan Adelstein, and Deborah Taylor Tate along with representatives from News Corporation, CBS, Time Warner, Univision, the Ad Council and the American Legacy Foundation. A webcast of the event will be available after 5:00 p.m. ET today at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia012408pkg.cfm.

Additional key findings:

Time Allotted to Donated PSAs

English-language broadcast stations assessed by the study (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) donated an average of 18 seconds an hour to PSAs. The cable stations (CNN, ESPN, MTV, Nickelodeon, and TNT) donated an average of 15 seconds an hour. The Spanish language network (Univision) donated an average of 29 seconds per hour to PSAs. (The overall average across all types of stations was 17 seconds an hour).

Most donated PSAs were 30 seconds long. Twenty-two percent were less than 30 seconds, and 10 percent were longer than 30 seconds.

The amount of time donated to PSAs ranged from 9 seconds an hour during prime time, to 32 seconds an hour after midnight.

Just under half (46%) of all time donated to PSAs occurred between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., across all stations in the study. On the broadcast stations, a greater proportion of donated PSA airtime occurred during the overnight hours (60%), compared to 38 percent for the cable stations, and 35 percent for the Spanish language channel.

Health was the most common PSA topic, accounting for 26% of all donated PSAs. A wide variety of health issues were addressed, with the most frequent being fitness (6% of all donated PSAs), cancer (4%), HIV/AIDS (3%), and overall wellness (3%).Environmental issues accounted for 4% of all donated PSAs.

A large majority of all donated PSAs included some type of provision for viewers to follow up on information presented in the spot: for example, a Web address (75%) or a toll-free telephone number (38%). Eighty-five percent included one or the other. The proportion featuring a Web address increased from 32 percent in 2000 to 75 percent in 2005, while the proportion with a toll-free telephone number decreased from 49 percent to 38 percent over the same period.

One in five donated PSAs (20%) specifically addressed a local issue, cause or event, while 80% were national in scope.

Instead of relying on donated airtime, some corporations, non-profits, and government agencies purchase airtime for public service messages. In addition to donated PSAs, the study found that there was an average of 10 seconds an hour devoted to paid PSAs. Paid PSAs got better airtime than those relying on donated time: 27 percent ran after midnight (compared to 46 percent of donated spots); 19 percent ran during prime time (compared to 13 percent for donated spots). A little more than a third (37%) of paid PSAs were sold at some type of discount – either a special nonprofit rate, or being part of a “match” in which sponsors purchased one spot and got another for free.

Across all channels in the study, a little more than one out of every four minutes – or 27 percent of all airtime – was devoted to non-programming content (16:25 per hour, up from 15:35 in 2000). This includes 21% of airtime that is spent on advertising, and 4% that is spent on promos. The amount of time dedicated to advertising increased from 11:45 per hour in 2000 to 12:25 in 2005 – a statistically significant increase of 40 seconds an hour. The four major broadcast networks and their affiliates aired considerably more non-programming content per hour (18:47) than did the cable stations in the study (15:04).

The study examined a full week of television content on affiliates of ten major broadcast and cable networks: the four major broadcast networks; five basic cable channels that represent news, sports, music, children’s and general audience programming; and one Spanish language network. The networks in the study are: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, ESPN, MTV, Nickelodeon, TNT, and Univision. For each network, programming was sampled on local affiliates or cable providers in seven different markets across the country: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. A total of 1,680 hours of television content was collected and analyzed for the study.

Because television content varies across weeks and seasons, the study used a composite week of programming, collected from September 25 through December 3, 2005. To determine whether PSAs were donated or paid for, the study used letters, email, and telephone calls to stations, cable franchises, and sponsors. A total of 969 donated PSAs and 626 paid PSAs were identified and studied in depth. Most findings in the report concern donated PSAs.

The study was designed by the Kaiser Family Foundation in collaboration with Professor Walter Gantz of Indiana University. Implementation of the study was overseen by Nancy Schwartz of Indiana University. Analyses were run by James Angelini, then of Indiana University and currently of the University of Delaware. The report was written by Professor Gantz and Vicky Rideout of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Guest: Regina Costa, TURN
Host: Tracy Rosenberg
Subject: Net Neutrality and the Future of the Internet