Candidates from CMS (Concerned Members and Supporters of WPFW)

Jim Brown – I will work with the very small WPFW staff to promote the station in the old and new developing communities.

Sabooh Hikim – I am great at event planning, I helped start Morgan State University’s radio station in 1977. I want to see training for young people; we must ask them to share their ideas for our future..

Tony Leon – In the society that we’re living in, all but the 3% are struggling. The 97% aren’t exactly in the same boat because we experience life differently however, many people sense that something is wrong with this country and are looking for change and how to go about it. WPFW and Pacifica have the potential for becoming the Pied-Pipers of this movement.

Nancy Sorden – To increase listener-support, I want us to increase transparency, train more volunteers and staff in broadcasting, journalistic, technical, and financial skills, increase programming with state-of-the-art technology, and have permanent home.

Maskeelah-Myrtle Washington – The station needs to move into the 21st century: from analog to digital and then we would be able to have a music station and a public affairs station — same as other radio stations in the area.

Don Williams – The station needs more fund raisers and to focus more on economic issues that directly effect the station’s survival. WPFW needs a permanent location.

Louis Wolf – We must convene regular Town Hall Meetings for WPFW listener-supporters, programmers and staff (paid and unpaid) all with a stake in our station to further democratize it.

CMS Vision Statement for WPFW:

WPFW was born from the ashes of the rebellions stemming from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968.  The Pacifica Foundation realized that in order to challenge and effectively fight against the laws, policies, and practices that Dr. King and others were fighting to correct and eliminate, many which emanated from the power structure ensconced in DC, Pacifica needed a beachhead here to effectively challenge it.  Thus began the fight, starting in 1968, to get WPFW on the air, which culminated with its first broadcast on February 28, 1977 at FM 89.3

Lewis Hill, Founder of Pacifica and listener sponsored broadcasting in America, went to San Francisco in 1946 with the first of a series of constantly evolving, highly detailed prospectuses for a non-commercial radio station whose principles would be pacifism and civil liberties.  Thus we have the beginning of KPFA, KPFK, KPFT, WBAI and WPFW.

WPFW, from its inception, was meant to be a radical station, a beacon of truth and progressive change, within a politically and socially conformist media status quo.  That necessity is, as ever, present now as then and in fact even more so, and must compel and direct WPFW into the future, to fulfill its birthright.

Thus, we must create the WPFW it was meant to be.  We must envision the specifics of what that takes and means, and then garner the people, financial, legal, technical, and all other resources, to make it happen.

Some of the things to make this happen are clear.   WPFW needs to secure a home, where it can build a stable base of operations and become a landmark for community activities.   WPFW must seek to use the latest relevant and effective technology to create, expand, and become more efficient, in developing its capacity for performing all tasks related to fulfilling its mission.  It must learn to market itself better and create multiple, stable streams of revenue.

WPFW must be able, and willing, to use its airwaves, and net-waves, to produce programming that is educational, current, relevant, and even inciting if necessary.  It must be able to connect to a wider audience, in more languages.  It must be able to be a conduit for transmitting to the people, as well as being a receiver of information and news from the people. It must be adaptive, willing and able to program to the immediate need, and not just to artificial criteria, such as day and time slot.  Life changing events should become the focus when they occur in the news.  Ultimately, its programming must matter to more people!

But every organization is no more than the actions of the people who comprise it.  WPFW must be able to attract, train, and sustain the myriad of skilled and not so skilled people that will be necessary to build and maintain the organizational capacity for changing this world.  We must be broad in our thinking, and astute in building alliances with like-minded groups, organizations, and people.  We must realize, and act as if, we are not in this thing alone.

Finally, WPFW must also be willing to assess and build the best organizational structure which puts primary using its resources to fulfill this mission.  People will come and go, but the mission should remain focused and clear.

The ultimate assessment of WPFW will come down to: how good is it at helping to make this a better world for us and our children to live in.   That is what Pacifica was created to do, and WPFW must fulfill its role in making that happen.

CMS’s Election Platform in Brief

1. We want to increase quality programming.
2. We want clarity about the station’s mission.
3. We want to bring harmony and focus to the governing structure.
4. We want to create a viable financial structure.
5. We want transparent management at WPFW; management that is accountable to the LSB and listener-sponsors.
6. We want a harmonious structure that includes staff, programmers and listener-sponsors.
7. We want coordination among Pacifica’s five radio stations and the hundreds of affiliate stations within the Pacifica network that could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of progressive broadcasting in the US.
8. We want an adequate capacity for a strong local news department that could do for the Washington DC community what Democracy Now does for the nation and the world.
9. We must have a permanent home for WPFW!