From: Sharon Tremble
Subject: Re: KPFA Forums
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I was also at the 'Listener Forum' in San Rafael. It was an interesting evening, but I left feeling more pessimistic than ever about the future of KPFA.

As reported by others, there were loud protests at the beginning of the meeting about the format. Many attendees wanted to speak with KPFA MANAGEMENT, and were not at all thrilled that someone else had been put forward to catch the flak.

I felt that it was one of the more ridiculous scenes I'd ever witnessed -- a group of people clamoring to speak with KPFA management, and the only representative of KPFA management in sight is hiding behind a piano, refusing to say a single word. (Ginny Berson did make a brief introductory comment: no, the 2-hour Jerry Brown show is not definite; Larry Bensky will have a one-hour program beginning in April; thanks for coming.) No more communication from Ginny Berson, except her body language -- which was pretty clear. She obviously was very unhappy to be there, it was a painful experience for her, she was one unhappy camper. And she looked that way from the very first moment I saw her, before the meeting even began.

Her appearance caused me to wonder why she hasn't quit her job before now. If she is *so* miserable, she should find something else to do with her life. I found her obvious misery to be astounding -- if I were program director for a radio station, I would *want* to hear feedback from listeners -- I would look at it as a great opportunity to find out what people like and don't like, to be able to look into the eye of a person who says 'I like program x', to find out if the programming is appealing to yuppie types or hippie types. No such curiosity seemed to be present in Ginny.

The ridiculous behavior of Ginny (and Marci, too, since I now hear that she was present) made lots of people mucho angry. Tomas, a volunteer, was forced to field the angry comments of the attendees -- the comments were obviously directed at KPFA management, and it was obvious that a response from KPFA management would be appropriate and desirable, but KPFA management sat on their butts and refused to even get up and say 'we're hear to listen, your comments will be heard and considered'. What cowards!!!!!

After watching Ginny hide behind the piano for 10 or 15 minutes while attendees demanded to speak with her, it became clear to everyone that it was hopeless, absolutely no words would come forth from her mouth, so someone angrily said "I agree with everyone's comments, but we might as well get on with the process Tomas is running" and we did.

Every table supports Flashpoints. The loudest applause of the evening was when a speaker said that KPFA management should apologize to Bill Mandel and Mama O'Shea for treating them so rudely (there is a civilized way to tell people they will no longer be on the air, but that's not how KPFA does things....)

Several tables concluded that they do not want two hours of Jerry Brown each day. A couple of tables wanted Jerry Brown cut down to three days per week, with the excess time allocated to Bill Mandel and Mama.

Even though the questionairre we were given dealt strictly with programming, I think that all the tables made strong comments about the governance of KPFA (both verbally and on the written forms). There was a strong feeling that Pacifica needs to become a democracy, with an elected board. Also strong feelings to eliminate the gag rule.

There was a couple of people there (Mary Moore was one) holding a banner that said 'KPFA management: KPFA dissenters are NOT your enemy' (paraphrased). No evidence that Ginny saw the banner, certainly no sign that she believed it.

We were a pretty non-threatening group, a bunch of aging hippies and other ordinary folk. I am still astounded and disbelieving that Ginny acted the way she did -- NO HARM would have come to her if she had engaged the group in conversation. And the people who came to the meeting (who were invited by Ginny's blurb on KPFA!) would have been a lot more satisfied.

I felt that we were brought there under false pretenses -- the blurb did say 'structured and facilitated', but there was no hint that conversation between listeners and management would be verboten. There was no hint that KPFA management would refuse to answer direct questions, would refuse to say a word.

A few more impressions of the San Rafael listeners forum:

I hope they didn't turn anyone away, telling them that all slots were occupied. The room could have held twice as many people as showed up. The way that they had assigned people to tables, some tables had 2 people, other tables had 7 or 8. (I wonder if each table had a full number of people assigned to it and about one-third of the people who had reserved slots did not show up?) They were merged, so that each table had about 8 or 9 people -- that meant there were at least three empty tables.

To a person like myself, who believes that making KPFA the best and most intelligent radio station imaginable is a VERY worthwhile goal, the light turn-out was disappointing. (tho not really surprising -- I've organized events that had 200 people committed to attending, and only 120 showed up -- it seems to be the modern American Way, to commit to appear somewhere and then be a no-show without even a phone call of explanation)

From a personal perspective, the forum was enjoyable because I got to meet several people from this e-mail list. Once I had put on my nametag, several people walked up to me and said 'You're Sharon! Great to finally meet you' I could then read their nametag and say 'You're Jeff! Great to meet you, too!' An amusing occurrence in our modern e-mail world.

To comment a little more on the format:

Several people mentioned that they *liked* breaking into smaller groups. Particularly people that are not dominant personalities -- it was easier for softer-spoken people to feel that they had input. If the meeting had just been a big-group back-and-forth, the quieter souls might have felt lost. But I think that if Ginny (and Marci) had said that she would circulate among the tables, listening to the group interactions and available to speak with anyone who felt strongly that they wished to speak with her directly, all participants present would have felt much more satisfied, both loud and quiet types.

(At my table, there was one man who was such a quiet person, that even in the small group discussion he only said about 5 words -- we had to really work at getting his input)

A last note: The Unitarian fellowship sure has a nice spot in Marin! Great setting, beautiful view, lovely building. They were very generous to allow KPFA to use the room.
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