The woman who probably bears the distinction of being the worst program director in KPFK's history has announced she will be "moving on" at the end of the month.

This is my personal obituary for the tenure of Ms. Lo, as I believe she deserves to be remembered. May she  never do to your community radio station what she did to ours - smothered Los Angeles' most valuable and accessible educational resource under the fetid pinions of her "show biz" ambitions.

Blessed not only with a bullying and power-hungry personality, Ms. Lo also demonstrated a lack of understanding of community radio in general, and the purpose and mission of Pacifica in particular. During her tenure, producers were forced to adhere to a uniform format of irrelevant and obtrusive "breaks" every 20 minutes irrespective of the dictates of the content, making KPFK sound stupid, stupid, stupid --like the commercial radio that Ms. Lo evidently admires so much. Content which Ms. Lo didn't understand (and thus considered "boring"  - like history for example) was deemed unsuitable for everyone else.
Newscasters were also forbidden to pronouce Mexico the way it is supposed to be pronouced (it's not good English, right?)

Not only was she ignorant and unimaginative, she lacked any sense of understanding of KPFK's role as a support mechanism for activists, or of its role as the voice of conscience in the hellhole of greed and narcisscism that is Los Angeles. Among her achievements, the embargo of a Ralph Nader talk at a critical political juncture out of fear that listeners would buy the tape from an independent producer and thus lower the funds drive totals, and a memo prohibiting on-air personnel from advocating demonstrations against the bombing of Iraq as such advocacy was not "responsible."

Ms. Lo  did not act alone. Chiefly responsible is KPFK's manger, Mark Schubb who unfortunately has not yet resigned. One ought not to expect the Program Director position to be filled by a person of intelligence and integrity as long as he remains. - LG