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ANNOUNCEMENT: OCTOBER 20,2020

By Anyel Z. Fields

Before 2009, KPFK had a fully resourced news department covering local, national, and international news. A newscast was broadcasted at 12 PM and 6 PM, with headline news throughout the day. Due to the recession, the loss of CPB funding, and reduced revenues, Pacifica laid off most of its news department to reduce expenses. Leaving one full-time, one part-time employee, and a few volunteers to produce news—a challenge to cover our signal area that spans more than 20,000 square miles. 

Given the capacity to produce news, the newscast was reduced to half an hour Monday through Friday, with 15 minutes from our sister station in Berkeley. Plans were never laid to restore nor secure resources to reestablish the news department to what it once was. 

These decisions to reduce our workforce or suspend a department never come easily, and they never should. 

We thank Ernesto Arce and Dan Fritz for their service to KPFK, its listeners, and its members. 

Times have been changing in the journalism and public media industries as it relates to news. Over the past three years, KPFK has sought funding for its news department. Its most significant challenge in applying for grants and funding has been due to years of Pacifica Foundations incompleted annual audits and 990s. Pacifica has made strides in this area, and we are nearly caught up with the previous fiscal year. It allows us to lay a vision and plans to restore and seek the resources necessary for a news department to meet tomorrow's challenges. 

To continue our service in Southern California with Pacifica quality news, we will be expanding our half-hour news to one hour 6 to 7 PM Mondays thru Friday from our sister station KPFA. KPFA is funded by $350,000 annually, compared to KPFK, whose news department was funded by $100,000 annually. While this won't immediately bring resources to support KPFK in covering local news in Southern California, we are committed to seeking the resources necessary to reestablish our news operations to contribute to the newscast from KPFA. 

"This has been a year like no other: a deadly pandemic, epic wildfires, massive nationwide protests against police violence, and a presidential election where the fate of the country's democratic institutions hangs in the balance. We're committed to advancing our coverage on the Pacifica Evening News and hope our news colleagues at KPFK can join us again in the near future. Their coverage of Los Angeles and surrounding communities will be sorely missed." - Aileen Alfandary, KPFA News Co-Director.

Quincy McCoy, station General Manager at KPFA, and I advocate for the Pacifica Foundation to establish a news program as an alternative to NPR's Morning Edition. This news program should utilize all of Pacifica's strengths from its five stations and draw on its strategic partnerships in producing such a program. This program can and should be one of Pacifica's flagship programs to syndicate to community stations throughout the country. News now is overwhelmingly being consumed online, and any Pacifica branded news program should also include digital platforms.

"We're delighted to provide news and information to our sister station, and look forward to collaborating with KPFK to provide coverage of local and regional news from the west coast." - Quincy McCoy, General Manager.

We look to reestablish a robust news department in the future by securing resources and strategic partnerships so that KPFK will have the organizational capacity to provide Pacifica branded news in Southern California and contribute to our sister stations newscast and possibly a Pacifica branded newscast. KPFK programs Sojourner Truth, Background Briefing, and Rising Up with Sonali are programs that are syndicated throughout the Pacifica network and Pacifica affiliates.

We have been making changes to improve the direction of KPFK, and one of them will be on October 26th; when we will be launching our 1-hour newscast from 6 PM Mondays through Friday. We will be extending the fall drive through October 29, 6 PM. We will also continue to air news headlines at the top of the hours at 1, 2, and 3 PM. This will be our first step in reestablishing KPFK's news department.

Despite the challenges ahead, we look forward to sharing our vision and developments with you. We welcome your ideas, especially from those who have experience in the journalism industry and report local news. We are open to developing partnerships in services to communities we serve.

The following is an interview I did with Ernesto Arce, former News Director, about his journey with KPFK as a local reporter. 

I encourage you to listen — we are a family, and the journey we've taken together yields its own great stories.

For comments, suggestions, or funding inquiries please contact Anyel at comments@kpfk.org

Every day KPFK opens up a new controversy, a new societal pain point, a new cultural, political or community insight, and new revelations about everything that means something in your life.

We can’t help it. It’s who we are and what we do. And we won’t stop.

We’ve been unstoppable for over 61 years.

And in an amazing testament to the hearts and minds of all our journalists, hosts, guests over that span-- history has proven us more or less right on almost every major issue we’ve faced during all these years.

Oh, how they’ve wanted to stop us. 

• “They” were the then conservative worlds of California’s Nixon, Reagan, Wilson,  Deukmejian, Schwarzenegger, and the Wall Street loving presidents that backed them.

• “They” was an L.A. run by the original police militarization cheerleader, Darryl Gates, who busted open our doors at KPFK in a raid during the ’70s.

• “They” are still the lobbyists, the corporations, the Roger Stones, Paul Manaforts, Stephen Millers, and the political forces that work to crush or stall any change to our failing economic and social system. 

• “They,” are all the political powers big and small who fear any exposure to their misgovernance and reckless or poorly conceived policies.

• “They” are still the reckless, greedy people who crashed us on the seas of economic despair in 2008 and again in 2020 with the most willfully inept response to a health crisis the magnitude unseen in over a hundred years.

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But it’s been a constant and mostly lonely war for one single radio station. And we’re even more lonely today as we painfully watch the doors close to local media in our cities throughout the country. The combination of drifting news habits in our digital age and COVID crisis have combined to crush the funding of our needed local papers and news stations.

But we’re still here -- and we won’t stop reporting for you, advising for you, analyzing for you, and advocating for you.

We won’t stop making the world uneasy for those who’d let self-interest, greed, and deranged right-wing ideology shape our world in the worst ways imaginable. 

In fact, the only one who can stop us is you!  

Without your membership support and that of your friends, colleagues, and like-minded thinkers  -- we’re just not going to be there for you and our community of listeners now when you need us most.

Please join us in making us an unstoppable force for good in our world and take this moment to help us continue our work, and give as generously as possible to support your KPFK.

We thank those that have already contributed during this drive. Your support is appreciated.

Got a comment, suggestion, or question please email me at comments@kpfk.org

Sincerely,

It's clear to everyone at KPFK that we can't hold a traditional fundraiser, so we've decided to take another approach to our usual long-form fundraisers. 

We've decided to eliminate our typical long-form on-air spring pledge drive. That usually lasts three-week and in some cases, four weeks. During a typical pledge drive, we preempt regular programming and raise over $600,000 to fund our unique media platform. We will also be relying on fewer premiums to meet our. goal. KPFK on average spends nearly $250,000 on premiums a year on the premiums and thank you gifts.  A platform dedicated to building citizenship, raising social awareness, and strengthening communities.

Our soft campaign begins this week, and we here at KPFK along with thousands of supporters aim to raise $500,000 before May 19th so that we can avoid a long-form fund drive. 

We know this is ambitious and a challenge for us. We are FEARLESS in our efforts to continue our service in bringing you the information, stories, music, and news you need during these times. Many community organizations rely on KPFK to share their stories about the services they offer for the under-served.

This soft campaign is a big deal for us. We know it might be hard to raise the funds we need without the usual amount of time, a plethora of premiums, and massive pre-emptions but I know we can pull it off with your help. 

Our world has changed profoundly and KPFK is adapting to it, so we can still be here for you. Please give what you can, if you can, and thank you so much for your support of community media.

Thank you for supporting FEARLESS RADIO,

Sincerely,

"The multi-trillion-dollar scale of the government’s response to the crisis, for all its flaws and inadequacies, offers a powerful reminder that there is no replacement for an activist state."  New York Times Editorial Board, April 9th, 2020

By Anyel Z. Fields | KPFK

Image from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository - usa.gov

KPKF and Pacifica's progressive movement existed long before this presidential election, and we will continue with more determination than ever. KPFK has always existed for a better world with a more equitable economy, solutions to the climate crisis, a better health care system and so much more. Progressivism is based on the idea of progress in which advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.

The progressive community stands to grow even stronger through and beyond this election. Perhaps a future candidate for President is a KPFK listener. These are reasons why, for over 60 years, KPFK has been Los Angeles and much of Southern Califonia’s source for sharp progressive journalism. We look to continue our work.

The New York Times editorial board is now making a case for progressive changes that 

KPFK has advocated for since its inception. Welcome to the party.

A few weeks ago, Bernie Sanders conceded that victory is virtually impossible in his bid to be the Democratic nominee for the 2020 election. KPFK continues to advocate for a more progressive and saner world in the wake of Bernie’s campaign coming to an end.

We are watching how our long battle in bringing a progressive vision to our democracy is finally beginning to take hold. We were here long before Bernie Sanders and the New York Times shifted the conversation from liberal to progressive thinking.  We’ve been here encouraging the political voices and liberal organizations to move from its centrist status-quo to embrace positions such as access to healthcare as a human right.

We have shined a light on the disastrous economic policies that have led to the downward path of the middle class and become a poisonous gas to democracy.  We are a country built on work and imagination of immigrants, that U.S. policies need to be driven by love and humanity, not xenophobia. And now to see conservatives speak about helping the American people in ways that they railed against just months before is breathtaking (even if we don’t believe they mean it).

Organizations like Shake Shack, Ruth's Chris, Delta Airlines, and other companies sitting on reserves of cash got big PPP loans, KPFK along with other nonprofits and community organizations have gotten little to no assistance. Now KPFK and much of Pacifica look beyond the current crisis as to where our place in history will be and should be.

YOUR SUPPORT IS NECESSARY TO KEEP US ON-AIR AND INFLUENCING THE POLITICAL CONVERSATION

IN A WAY THAT ONLY KPFK CAN

Donate to help KPFK continue its mission to inspire, empower, touch lives, and

ultimately make our communities and the world a better place for everyone.

Today we kick off our On-Air fundraising campaign. They are necessary to fund our operation. On average, it costs $225,910 a month to fund our operations. 107 programs heard on KPFK weekly rely on station resources to produce the content you appreciate and we rely on listeners like you, so we won't have to rely on special interest groups. Will you stand with us and support KPFK, LA's historic community media outlet?

"Listening to KPFA and KPFK significantly improved and broadened my life.  My programming philosophy is simply to pass on the wisdom and intelligence of great people to current listeners. The overwhelming majority of radio is dedicated to hatred, manipulation, and lies. We are part of a few in search of truth and peace. Eleanor Roosevelt stated that 'it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness' so we work to keep the flame alive." - Roy of Hollywood

Ever since KPFK was established in Los Angeles on the most powerful FM signal west of the Mississippi in 1959 broadcasting to over 20,000 square miles in Southern California;  many have worked hard to bring you content that has helped forge social change and celebrate the cultural diversity in the most diverse region in the United States. Public media has changed a lot since then; NOW KPFK looks to the future to secure our place in its future as a leader and innovator.

Over the past 11 days, many have helped us raise over $26,000
For Roy of Hollywood, Sonali Kohlatkar, Ian Masters, Margaret Prescod, for all of our volunteer hosts and producers, we THANK YOU for allowing us to provide consistent programs regularly. 

On behalf of the Global Village Hosts, Chuck Foster, J.Rocc, and all of the volunteers that host the music and cultural programs, our gratitude to you. Gracias from our Spanish Language programs.

A BIG THANKS from Maggie LePique, Kevin Fleming, Christine Blosdale, Terry Guy, and all of our dedicated staff.

As KPFK's General Manager, I commit to you that I will dedicate my efforts to unearth Los Angeles' diamond in the rough and strengthen our bonds with community organizations. Together we can strengthen KPFK for the future generations and those that have yet to discover our jewel ...KPFK. 

Have a wonderful New Years' Eve celebration. May your pursuit of happiness and efforts for a saner world be fruitful in the year to come. 
 

Cheers, 

Pledge Now

   It would be impossible to strengthen our station without the support of listeners nor can the changes happen overnight. We ask that you stand with fellow listeners that care about independent public media and make a pledge now  or become a sustaining member so KPFK doesn't have to operate from fund drive to fund drive, providing KPFK an opportunity to grow and bring you the diverse content that we are known for.  

  If you would like to know more about KPFK and what is going on at the station I invite you to read the State Of The Station