1. Why do you want to be on the Local Station Board?

To help KPFK in whatever way is appropriate to maintain the ongoing well being of the station and help grow the listenership and donor base or devise other income-producing activities and to carry forward the mission of KPFK and Pacifica around the world.


2. How do you envision the Local Station Board working with the Pacifica Foundation, KPFK and the community?

The Local Station Board should give input the National Board representatives, the National Board representatives should seek advice from the Local Station Board on major questions and they should both be supporting the Pacifica Foundation and they should all be following the Mission of the Pacifica Foundation. Otherwise, I will have to wait until I am on the board and I further understand the dynamics of the organization.


3. How could the station better serve its listeners?

The biggest thing I would love to see KPFK do is have more local and state news and related public affairs programming. This area has suffered the most in cutbacks in the mainstream newspapers and it is an area now grossly underreported, allowing local representatives to act without accountability or transparency in ways that directly affect us. I’d like to see the City Council(s), County Supervisors, Mayor(s)’s offices, State Senators and Assembly and the school board actively covered. For example, how many people know that Mayor Villagarosa recently outsourced and privatized the parking of Los Angeles and fees for parking will soon quadruple as soon as this fully takes effect? In the last year or so there have been an unprecedented number of elections, with even the national election having a large number of ballot measures affecting California in general and Los Angeles in particular plus special local elections replacing City Council people or Supervisors. There was/is scant coverage of these issues anywhere and even I had a hard time finding information to help me vote responsibly. KPFK did reporting on this which really helped me and I’d like to see more of this. This could also cover various ethnic, labor, older or geographic communities. I would also like to see more economic issues covered with advice or resources for help and analysis.


4. Describe some actions you would take to increase the influence of the station in underrepresented communities and to increase the diversity of the listening audience?

I have noticed that KPFK has sponsored certain events -- music and other kinds -- and I don’t know if this is profitable but it does raise KPFK’s visibility. Perhaps doing more of this, alone and in conjunction with other organizations, and including sponsoring cultural events or screenings of documentaries and discussions in different neighborhoods or in schools, would be useful and/or profitable.

Because KPFK has some programming that appeals to small, specific audiences, I think each of those audiences could be looked at and targeted to promote and expand that particular audience, even with something like Facebook and sponsoring community activities specific to that group. In other words, I’d like to see KPFK take the audiences it has and expand it as well as target new audiences for these programs for people who are unfamiliar with KPFK, only listen to some programs on KPFK or used to listen to KPFK but stopped.

I’d like to see KPFK do some sort of mainstream advertising, marketing and promotion of KPFK as a whole and certain programs in general. It could be things like advertising in the LA Weekly on the “Other Music” pages to promote Global Village and the evening music shows, to promoting Democracy Now! as the “must listen to” news or creating Facebook pages for different shows (DN has a Facebook page). Although I know advertising is expensive, perhaps a special fundraising drive or activity could be run for this purpose. I am not privy at this point to what the numbers are, what the listenership is for each show, which shows do well in fund drives, etc. – and how KPFK/Pacifica evaluates those numbers (i.e., it seems to me that some shows don’t bring in much money but there’s a consensus that they deserve to be on because they provide a real service to the community) so I can only speak generally here.

KPFK should do some kind of a newsletter and/or email letter about the station, upcoming shows, special programming or special events with a link to the station or the event. Each newsletter could highlight a certain show that people may not listen to regularly that may get them to expand their KPFK listening. For example, the Sotomayor hearings that KPFK is covering would have been an ideal reason to send out an email alert. Also, although I did hear the aforementioned election coverage on KPFK, it was only by chance that I had KPFK on, and in one case I only heard half the show, to my dismay. I would have really appreciated an email alerting me to this special coverage and is something I would have forwarded to friends.

I have noticed KPFK has been doing some on-air cross-promoting of shows; for example, Lila will have an announcement about the guests on her next show on Ian’s show, Jon Wiener will remind people to listen to Maria’s show, and I heard one recently for Access Unlimited about its program. This is good and I’d like to see more of it.

I’d like to see KPFK/Pacifica and/or certain shows be linked to other like-minded websites.

I have used the Audio Archives a lot to listen to favorite programs I could not hear at broadcast time, either listening on-line or downloading to my computer or MP3 player. I think this is a great service. This also allows for the audience to expand way beyond the confines of KPFK’s transmitter. This service would make an email newsletter and Facebook presence worthwhile in adding to current listenership and potential donors and members – around the world.


5. What sources of funding, other than listener donations, do you feel KPFK should solicit?

A start would be to expand the audience of the current shows and/or also develop new shows with new audiences that KPFK would like to reach. Another possibility is to get grants for specific programming, especially local news, and for hiring interns. Also co-productions with some of the on-line news groups, such as Calitics.com, might be viable. Co-sponsoring cultural events would raise KPFK’s profile in targeted communities.

I’d like to see some coordination between the Pacifica stations of shows that could be syndicated or shared within the Pacifica group. I have been listening to shows on the other Pacifica stations and have heard some shows I really like. This could be worthwhile additions to KPFK and might save money for other resources.

For the Fund Drives, I would like to see more emphasis on soliciting the $25 basic membership. It has seemed to me that almost exclusive emphasis on high dollar gifts might seem overwhelming for many of KPFK’s listeners. I remember answering phones during a Fund Drive when someone called to donate and said, “I’m sorry, I can only donate $25.” I’d like to see KPFK make this $25 donation seem like an important and very valuable contribution to the station and well-being of the community, not a source of apology for not having more to donate. Ticket, concert and other giveaways and perks should be given exclusively to paid members and is an incentive for the basic member donations.


6. Please state briefly the skills, experience, educational background, work history, organizational affiliations, areas of community service, areas of interest and expertise that you would bring to the Pacifica network as a member of the Local Station Board.

For one thing, the fact that I listen to a lot of radio (and not just KPFK) gives me a good idea of what’s going on with it. Having worked as a legal secretary I am familiar with contracts, and the process of business, have good organizational skills, with attention to details. For several years I sold advertising for the art magazine, Coagula, and maintain a connection to the art world. I have also worked in the entertainment industry. I went to art school where I learned the value of “creative problem solving.” Currently I am an active member of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles and, among other tasks, do research for the Economic Task Force. I am particularly interested in election integrity and was a poll monitor in the Primary election and a pollworker for the last four elections. I participated in an audit of the vote count of Los Angeles County for the 2008 national election sponsored by Workthevotela and monitored the vote counting in Norwalk with the Election Protection Task Force after the February Primary election. I am currently helping Marcy Winograd’s campaign with research. I am very interested in issues dealing with the media. My active involvement with being an activist was only recently re-activated because of the stolen elections when I realized our Democracy is in jeopardy.


7. On which Local Station Board committees are you interested in actively serving?

Programming Oversight. Otherwise, I’ll go where needed.

If you are a current Local Station Board member, on which committees do you currently serve?