A Proposal for On-Air Coverage of the Bylaws Revision Process

At the 5/9/02 WBAI Bylaws Subcommittee meeting, many voiced the need for more on-air coverage of the bylaws revision process and for more on-air coverage to educate the listenership about the struggle to retake Pacifica from the hijackers.

It is self-evident that listener awareness of these issues is vital to Pacifica's future as an independent, progressive network, and we must take advantage of the airwaves to encourage greater increase listener awareness and involvement.

However, it is also important that what goes out on the airwaves is quality programming and that it takes into account programming schedules and listener preferences.

Here is a proposal that I think meets these criteria:

(1) A Weekly Report to the Listeners on the Bylaws Subcommittee

After each WBAI Bylaws Subcommittee meeting, Janice K. Bryant and Ray Laforest will prepare a 15-minute summary of the meeting. They will broadcast the summary live on Wake Up Call at 7:45 AM on the earliest possible day.

At the end of the summary, Janice and Ray will announce the time and date of the next meeting and provide a phone number and email for listeners to call for questions and comments.

This report will be recorded and re-broadcast on the same day:

-- at 4:45 on Hugh Hamilton's show
-- at 7:45 PM
-- at 10:45 PM.

The recording will be re-broadcast at the same four time slots 3 days later.

The live broadcast and the re-broadcasts total 2 hours of airtime.

(2) Dred's Bylaws Program Featuring Listener Participants

Dred's 2-hour programming featuring listener participants in the Bylaws process should continue.

(3) Janice and Ray should call a meeting of producers to urge them to include reports about the bylaws process as much as possible. Similar to what has already occurred with Bob Lederer and Kathy Davis, Mike Feder, Barbara Nimri Azziz and perhaps others. A memo should also be circulated for those that can't attend the meeting. Bernard should participate in the drafting of the memo and in the meeting as well.

(4) Programs on Democracy Now! (this proposal is based on a suggestion made by Steve Salchow at the 5/10/02 Bylaws meeting)

Janice and Ray should seek a meeting with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez to suggest (1) an ongoing segment on the Bylaws and elections process (perhaps weekly) and (2) A program or series of programs on the Pacifica struggle. I would suggest bringing Liz Bouis, who is doing a documentary on the struggle, into this process as well.

(5) A monthly (or more often) 15-minute report by Carol Spooner summarizing the work at the 5 bylaws committees. To be broadcast four times during the week, perhaps at 4:45 PM.

(6) Pacifica Matters. Several people suggested that Bernard be urged to put this program on the air. It is participatory, but it is several hours long. I think a better approach is for the producers to edit-down highlights that cover a diversity of views reflecting different approaches and different signal areas, and to play these highlights at a subcommittee meeting. This could be beneficial to our work and would also give us a better basis to decide whether we want to propose the programming on-air.

Summary:

The above proposals comprise 4 hours of weekly on-air time (Janice & Ray's report repeated 8 times, Dred's show once). Carol Spooner's report broadcast 4 times would add another hour one week per month (5 hours per week). Programs on DN! and other shows would add even more to the weekly on-air time.

To this should be added daily CARTs announcing the Bylaws meetings and also announcing the times that the Weekly Reports will be played.

Paul Surovell