I just signed on as a WBAI Buddy.  As long as I was on the site, thought I'd take this opportunity to put in my two cents on the subject of fundraising. 

My comment is basically this- regular programming should not be preempted for fundraising. 

WBAI at its best provides public service; it provides timely, reliable information- as well as arts and entertainment programming. Just as people tune in AM news radio stations to get the latest weather, people rely and expect to hear their favorite shows according to a set schedule. 

People are creatures of habit; to a greater or lesser extent, we are adverse to change.  In my opinion, preempting regular programming for fundraising is counter-productive.  Each time the regular schedule is preempted, I believe there is a net loss of listeners.  I know I turn off the station if it is wall to wall fundraising.  When the fundraising is over, I turn it back on.  I don't think BAI can afford to have people such as me turning the station off for weeks at a time.  Fundraising can be done in breaks but should not preempt the regular schedule.  I believe this does long term harm to the stations listening base. 

-Matt Frisch

I'm writing in response to a recent email appeal I received from you via Constant Contact requesting additional financial support for WBAI. First, let me say that I was very impressed with the celerity with which you fulfilled the premium on my last pledge. I pledged during Ibrahim Gonzalez's show and received the five disk set in much less than eight weeks. Based upon your past performance I really didn't expect to see them until the middle of next year.

I was also very impressed by your coverage of the Newtown Connecticut massacre, but not in a positive way. First I must provide you with some context. I'll be sixty this year. My parents raised me right and so I've been listening to WBAI for my entire life and the entire life of the station. I've been an active supporter, on and off, for most of that time. I've endured the follies and foibles, coups and catastrophes all the while observing the evolution of the station to its present state... I now reside in a suburb of NYC instead of the South Bronx of my youth and am employed by a large corporation.

It is my roots in the Black Power, antiwar, anti-imperialism and anti-fascism struggles of the past that have lead inexorably to my disappointment with your coverage of the Newtown massacre. Coming, as it did, on the heels of your breathlessly sycophantic coverage of and support for President Obama's reelection campaign I should not have been surprised by the zeal with which you embraced and propagandized for the gun control agenda. I'd expect the farm team for WNYC to promptly fall into line with Chuck Schumer, Michael Bloomberg and other stalwart defenders of the rights of the downtrodden. After all, National Government Radio struggles tirelessly to maintain the hegemony of the ruling elite and the ruling elite requires a disarmed population first and foremost. If you have any hope of following your former WBAI colleagues into positions of employment with NPR you'll have to tow the appropriate lines.

On the other hand, I expect WBAI to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. In this specific case that means balancing your genuine concern for those directly impacted by this catastrophe with exposés of the false flag operations that pose as attacks on the NRA. Yes, the NRA is just a shill for part of the arms industry, but attacking them in support of the gun control agenda sired by Ronald Reagan when he was confronted by legally armed Black Panthers is not exactly extremism in the defense of liberty. Come now! You know who Leonard Peltier is. You guys have seen the photograph of Malcolm X peering through the curtained window while holding an M1A1 in a high ready position. You know who the Deacons for the Defense of Justice were. You know that poor black women are disproportionately represented among the annual toll of +15,000 gun deaths, that they are primarily the victims of black men and that keeping them disarmed saves zero lives. Or do you really believe that the lowered murder rate in NYC justifies Bloomberg's suspension of the forth and thirteenth amendment rights of black and brown youth?

And so I cannot in good conscience send you more money at this time. Unless I see some demonstrable change in your news coverage I will be sorely tried to renew my membership next year...
- Kevin Tyson