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OCTOBER 2013 e-Newsletter
This Newsletter was made with 100% recycled electrons! No trees were destroyed and no animals were harmed.
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In This Issue
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Tweet #baibuddy and help us cut down on-air fund drive days.
 From The General Manager  

From the Station Manager - Berthold Reimersgenman 
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The New Location of WBAI

  

 

 

Dear WBAI Family,

 

WBAI's management is working very hard to stabilize WBAI and the WBAI family continues helping in the process towards that stabilization. We have settled into our new offices and are fully operational. We made painful decisions to lay off most of the staff in order to keep WBAI presently afloat. This has allowed us to pay off debts while reducing our monthly budget.

 

You have supported us for 53 years and have been a most loyal group of listeners, contributors and "BAI Buddies". I have never seen this kind of devotion at any other organization. There are all kinds of rumors that circulate about the future of WBAI. But like the Phoenix...WBAI endures!

 

Like many not-for-profits, WBAI cannot continue relying so heavily on the donor fund drive model alone in the current economy. We were saddened by the closing of the "people's opera"; The New York City Opera. In existence as long as WBAI, they faced similar challenges to the ones that we have. The decrease in major donor support that comes with a recession, the reduction of funding available through public and private foundation grants and a larger pool competing for those grants has meant drastic "downsizing" or the demise of many organizations. But like I said above, because of your loyalty, WBAI endures!   

 

We are now strongly focusing on the BAI Buddy initiative that we launched in September of 2012 to meet our fiscal challenges. BAI Buddy has already grown during the Phoenix Fund Drive by 200 new participants who have signed on for a monthly contribution ranging from $10 to $1,000 per month. Our goal is to increase this to 30 new subscribers per day during the drive.

 

Please click the link below and help ensure the future of WBAI!


Thank you,
Berthold Reimers
General Manager

 

Events events2

Please click here: Calendar for an extensive list of upcoming community events

 

  • FIRST VOICES BENEFIT CONCERT FOR WBAI: THURSDAY, NOV. 11, 8pm (Doors open 6:30) .  A WBAI Benefit Feat with PETE SEEGER +FRIENDS: David Amram, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, The Last Internationale, + Earthmum! AT: THE CUTTING ROOM 44 E 32nd St  New York, NY 10010 212 691-1900$30 Advanced (Standing) - $35 Door - $50 Advanced (VIP Seating) - $55 Door. Get Tickets Here  
      
  • Inner Resources for Health and Wellness Workshop- 2 Sundays, Nov. 3 and 10. The Inner Resources for Health and Wellness Workshop, lead by Konstantin Trifonov MD MPsy DAc, will offer insight and understanding of the forces that make up and influence our lives with a tutorial on muscle testing and the use of mudras to facilitate an inner dialog to clear old wounds and open new vistas of self expression. Attend one or both workshops. For details and to sign up please go to www.give2wbai.org. This will be a fundraiser for WBAI radio.
From the Interim Program Director progdir
Andrew Phillips


On October 1 embarked on a 25-day membership drive. I am first, a radio producer. We are radio producers. So we are doing a 25-day radio show. Heart and soul. Authentic, transparent. Intimate and beautiful - we are putting it all out there and doing some radio.

WBAI created free-form radio. Pacifica created listener supported radio. We are a jewel in the rough. We are a national treasure and living proof of the voice of the voiceless and the importance and inviolate nature of free speech.

We find ourselves in an auspicious historical moment for WBAI. In the most important media market in the world, the pioneer of free speech, peace and justice community radio faces extinction. This is not a test!

I requested that all producers participating in this drive to think carefully about why they broadcast at WBAI, what is unique and special about us, and their programs; stewardship by producers and community.  What are our core values?  We stand on the shoulders of giants and now it's our turn.

Every time we hear the drums of war, we tune to WBAI to find another perspective.

WBAI AND PACIFICA IS MISSION DRIVEN

* We are an educational, free speech radio station - and promote the study of political and economic problems - the causes of religious, philosophical and racial antagonism.
We have done this for more than half a century.

* We promote full distribution of public information and the goal is to report varied sources in accurate, objective, comprehensive news and information on all matters vitally affecting the community. We do our best.

There are many examples of this - our reportage of Vietnam and all the wars since abroad in our streets, Contragate, Wiki leaks and the NSA, drones, Mumia Abu Jamul and the military-industrial-prison-info complex that closes in tighter and tighter every day; 911, conspiracy, deep politics, great music, Glen Greenwald, health and wellness, art and theater, gay and lesbian, city politics, environment, sustainability, fracking and so much more. Nobody does it like WBAI.

...And radio is intimate and private. We listen alone and leave no trace for the NSA!

WBAI and Pacifica provides an outlet for the creative skills and energies of the community. We serve the cultural welfare and have for over half a century.

WBAI has unique music and arts programming - a unique voice, a grand real-time experiment in broadcasting - free speech, social-justice-radio in NYC - for more than fifty years. We are Pacifica Free Speech - progressive, social justice radio.

YOU NEED US.

WE NEED YOU!

 Host Highlights HostHighlight

 

Winning Again: 

We are proud to announce that Building Bridges has won, for the second year in a row, an Excellence in Media competition award from the International Labor Communication Association (ILCA).

 

 

This year's award was for their program, So Rich, So Poor - The Crisis of U.S. Poverty Today,  included Peter Edelman,  author  of So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard To End Poverty In America, Dr. Avis Jones - DeWeever, Executive Director of the  National Council of Negro Women, and Frances Fox Piven, professor of political science and sociology, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her latest book is Who's Afraid of Frances Fox Piven: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate. This program can be accessed on the  Building Bridges website.

Building Bridges' production Out of the Flames, From the Ashes: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and Its Legacy, won the Matt Doherty/Gwen Wells Excellence in broadcast Media and Communications award last year, one of the most prestigious awards granted by the N.Y. Metro Labor Communications Council ("METRO").   Out of the Flames can be accessed here.

This has been the second time the show has been honored by METRO, with this award, which they also won for the program Domestic Workers Uniting - Your Home, My Work, it is available here.

 

From the producers Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash:

Thank You!!
Building Bridges wishes to thank both the International Labor Communications
Association and METRO for their recognition of our programming over the

years and our numerous listeners and affiliated stations for your support.

Building Bridges Spreads Nationally & Internationally
You can win by listening every Monday to our broadcasts, streamed and
archived over WBAI from 7 - 8 pm EST, or accessing our half-hour National
Edition from our website. It is regularly broadcast by a  growing list of more
than 40 broadcast and internet radio stations throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The current economic crisis accents the relevance of the message of class

struggle that Building Bridges has promoted for many years.


Interns + Volunteers interns
 
INTERN OF THE MONTH: Paulana Lamonier
Paulana Lamonier


"I've always had a passion for music and communicating with others since I was a little kid. Throughout my years in elementary school, I would be put in 'timeout' for talking a lot during class, or nicknamed "gossip monger" by my orchestra teacher. Fast forwarding to my adult life, I'm in my senior year at CUNY- York College majoring in journalism to ultimately be a multimedia journalist.

Through interning at the record labels Epic and RCA/RCA Inspiration, I've learned the ins and outs of the music business. I came to WBAI after a classmate bragged about how much hands-on experience she received here.  After hearing her experiences, and doing my research about the station, I made it my mission to intern where legendary Gary Null and Chuck D have their shows. Essentially, my career goal is to effect the culture by becoming a damn good journalist! I'm coming for you Oprah!"

 

FALL / WINTER INTERNSHIPS:
 
 
Internships (credit and non-credit)  in audio engineering, marketing, accounting, graphic design, social media networking, event planning, general station support, and business organization. Please email a resume, days/hours  of availability, and areas of interest to:
Listener Commentarylisteners
**LISTENERS WANTED TO RECORD ON-AIR PROMOS: 
We are seeking listeners who would like to share why they listen to WBAI, contribute to support their favorite shows and those who have become BAI Buddies. Please email Andrea Katz at andrea@wbai.org, or call 347-529-6766, if you would like to participate. 

FAVORITE SHOW E-DONATION: 
 

Mr. Ian Masters' Background Briefing program is called "left of center." But his recent comments on Syria seem far from it.

For two  days now in his interviews he has expressed "astonishment" at how the "evil dictator" Assad ("bloodthirsty" "mafioso", "tortures children" ) is the "real cause" of the present civil war,  and how "the left" is "so confused" and inexplicably switching loyalties and abandoning human rights ideals.  

Mr. Masters seems not to understand how much he sounds like the "humanitarian intervention" US and UK liberals who dwelt at great length on how "barbaric" Saddam Hussein was, not on how wrong a US war on Iraq would be. Their one-sidedness allowed the Right, led by Bush and Cheney, to steamroll the country into the ghastly, unjust, illegal 2003 Iraq war.

I hold no brief for Assad. But it's the job of progressives in the U.S. to stop U.S. imperialist aggression, not to decide who should or should not rule Syria, or any other country.

If this basic democratic notion eludes Mr Masters, then perhaps he should not be on a radio network called Pacifica.
-Mary Jamison
Bayside N.Y.
WBAI subscriber

I have been a listener and supporter since 1960. Dale Minor and Vietnam reporting an early inspiration; indominable Bob Fass and freeform radio; indefatigable Amy Goodman and the early Bernard White on WakeUp Call; the mesmerizing brilliance and return of Robert Knight as 5 O'Clock Shadow all to the good, etc. 

But chronic infighting and dislocation over the last 20 years has done irreparable damage - much like the systematic diminution of labor union power and the antiwar Left in general starting at least since the CIA was formed by Truman. (And Chris Hedges this decade has been DEAD-ON correct about who and what "Liberals" actually are and do).

Ms. Goodman has gradually morphed into one of the leading journalistic truthtellers in the English language supported by Juan Gonzalez with backup now by an unbelievably skilled and technically innovative staff. Democracy Now  reaches a very large National and International audience but she remains a stubbornly loyal and dedicated fund-raiser, as does Gary Null. Why
can't these two unique innovators be allowed--among others, outside Pacifica?-- to steer WBAI into a SURVIVABLE  future? The current model I fear may be unsustainable!
-Werner Simon
                                        

Please send your comments, complaints, or compliments related to any program subject matter aired this month to Listenercommentary@wbai.org with "Listener Comment" in the subject line. Submissions should be limited to 400 words and please include your full name and location. We reserve the right to edit where deemed necessary.
Programmingprogram

Varius regular scheduled programs are pre-empted during the
Phoenix Fund Drive