Dear KPFT General Manager Robert Franklin:
We are very concerned about some KPFT program changes that preceded your joining as General Manager. You have inherited long-term and short term messes and we thank you for taking up the challenge of leading the station’s renewal.
A rash of changes in June had the effect of marginalizing many Black, Latinx, and Indigenous programmers by removing them from the radio schedule, shoving them into late night and overnight, or onto the low-listenership HD2 drive. The effects are charted on KPFTwhitewash.info.
Absent was the respectful, collaborative programming process required by our Bylaws (https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art7sec3.html).
In fact, some adversely affected staff had received no communication at all from the then-general manager 5 months after his January arrival. And in failing to stop the implementation, the Pacifica National Board’s inaction adversely impacted under-represented communities.
We would like to know your plan for redress and hope these programmers would not be held to a harsher standard for having been targeted. We hope you will be communicating directly with all the affected programmers and producers.
There is also the matter of the suspension of the Houston Indymedia program for an alleged campaign violation during the “New Day” Bylaws replacement referendum.
A National Election Supervisor may direct a particular act or set a penalty for a specific period of time, but not indefinitely. At 3 months past the July 7 end of balloting in that referendum, we are beyond any reasonable disciplinary period.
Note that we are not discussing how sorely needed are programmers under 50, or how desperately Texas could use alternative news, views and analysis, or KPFT’s earlier CPB disqualification for failure to adequately serve communities of color, or whether a show produced by a group should have been removed for a perceived violation by one person and whether collective punishment – which is considered a human rights violation – should be practiced in Pacifica.
Primarily on the grounds of correcting abuse and excess, we urge you to promptly restore the program to the air in its original spot or at a date and time set with the programmers.
Justice delayed is justice denied. And we’ve all had too much of that.
With respect and for fairness:
Name – organization or station connection
Pacifica Fightback invites you to sign on to this letter and send it to GM@kpft.org
You can do so by signing the petition on Change.org: