2014 Accomplishments

1. CMS drafted a statement on “The indefinite suspension of Jared Ball and Luke Stewart”. This led to the reinstatement of Jared Ball and the return of Luke Stewart, on a volunteer basis, to the station.
2. The Campaign to secure selection of a new (permanent) G.M. who is qualified and loyal to our station’s stakeholders & mission statement. ONGOING
3. Campaign to secure a suitable, affordable and long-term home for WPFW. ONGOING. Even though we weren’t successful at this juncture, our issues and concerns were heard and shared by many. ONGOING.
4. Campaign to build an ethical, responsive LSB that will fulfill its fiduciary duties. Cleanse the LSB of reactionary elements. Elect honest & progressive elements to the LSB. ONGOING. T. Norman resigned his ANC position. Luzette King, Campbell Johnson, and Oscar Fernandez are gone. ONGOING.
5. Campaign to return Staff to Full pay. Staff is currently at full pay.
6. Campaign to work with the Community Advisory Board (CAB). CMS members are currently involved with the CAB.
7. The IGM’s idea of re-branding the station was not followed through because of vocal opposition.
8. CMS created strategies to mobilize CMS members, PFW listeners, programmers, volunteers and paid staff to participate at the PNB. There was testimony, public theatre and public speaking on various local and national topics. Other Pacifica stations and people living outside the local area attended.
9. During the Westminster Church Jazz night in January, new names were added to the CMS roster and The Chair addressed several people regarding the status of WPFW. This prompted the IGM to label the CMS Chair a “terrorist”.
10. Certain PNB members were shuttled between the airport and the hotel for an opportunity to network and to make their visit more comfortable.
11. CMS made its presence known at the Unity Church Programmer/IGM meeting.
12. After continued pressure the “terrorist” label was removed from the IGM’s blog.
13. Interim Program Director Tony Bates resigns his position.

2014 Comments from the Community

“Concerned Members and Supporters (CMS) are living up to its brand”.

“Michelle Price is gone partly for her own reasons”.

“CMS was influential in the Interim Program Director’s improvement in the programming”.

“Where they were only listeners before, CMS has broadened people’s knowledge about the station”.

“CMS was successful in getting on station committee’s such as Programming, the Community Advisory Board, Relocation, Finance and the LSB”.

“CMS pointed out a discrepancy in the budget during a finance committee meeting that helped with future spending plans”.

“It was the community that responded when the Programmers asked for help”.

“CMS has defined what the progressive left is about to those who may have lost their way by speaking truth to power”.

“CMS has been the spark that has kept WPFW alive. Sometime hot other times warm but because it was always there, meant that the station was worthy of surviving. It made people think! And because they thought about why people disagreed with certain decisions, it forced them to make better decisions. We have to continue to agitate or do what’s necessary to make people think. Sometimes people get confused or so involved in something that they don’t think clearly”.

“CMS represented and spoke out at the PNB. CMS representation was present at every LSB meeting”.

“CMS members stood together and supported one another when the time came to speak up”.

“CMS has become a working machine, an organization with divisions of labor and a nucleus that didn’t exist before.”

2013 Accomplishments

1. Temporarily Restore the programming grid – Partial Victory. Morning public affairs- Morning drive time returning with music and news bites, community comment has partially been returned with one more change to come, we need to pressure for a full 30 minutes for the community to call in. The campaign for J. Ball’s return is still in progress. In the after noon – Tom Porter hasn’t return by his own volition. Dr. Brewer is back and Sunyatta’s on her way back. Two hours of drive time jazz has been replaced with 1hr of imported public affairs and 1 hr of Live music. The void in youth programming remains. For the weekend, the Brazilian show wasn’t returned.
2. Intensify GM Evaluation PR Campaign – Partial Victory. The public pressured the LSB to conduct this campaign. Current status is unknown. Follow up is needed.
3. G.M. J. Hughes termination – Partial Victory. Although J.H. was/ is on administrative leave. He is no longer managing station affairs. Follow up needed in coordination with evaluation completion to remove him from payroll.
4. Pressure LSB/IED to select a GM acceptable to the LSB and to give the LSB, paid staff, programmers a substantial role in the selection – In Progress.
5. Research and Lobby the IGM- Victory. Thanks to the work of CMS, we were able to create a profile of the IGM which helped to create a strategy for direct action.
6. Station Signal Outage, Campaign to Restore- Victory. Although we were off the air for an unacceptable amount of time, if it weren’t for our repair calls to Verizon, investigations and continued blogging with the IGM, showing our dissatisfaction and giving her advice, WPFW would’ve been off the air even longer.
7. Strategize Nationally- Victory. We were able to work with groups from other Pacifica stations leading up to and after the PNB meeting. Ongoing campaign.
8. PNB Meeting Actions- Victory. CMS lobbied to re-arrange the agenda for a more fair and equitable allocation of time. CMS also campaigned for a significant listener turnout and a show of unity and direct actions during the entire 4 day session.
9. Return of Luke Stewart to the station- Victory. Luke is back on the air on Thursday mornings from 12a-2a.
10. Communications Committee– Victory. CMS has 5 members who are dedicated to updating the Facebook, Twitter, CMS web page and email blasts.

2012-2013

On Nov. 26, 2012, members and listeners of WPFW Pacifica Radio in Washington, DC first heard programmers announce on air—some tearfully—that they were doing their last shows. These abrupt cancellations were part of a sweeping grid change by station general manager John Hughes that saw the elimination of 35 hours of jazz weekly, the elimination of many popular, quality public affairs shows and hosts and the planned import of corporate-funded, nationally syndicated programming. Starting on that same day, the Concerned Members and Supporters of WPFW responded through this site, thepeople4pfw.wordpress.com, as a vehicle of independent community action and information.

Since then, we have had many victories:

1.  John Hughes has had to reinstate several programs initially removed from the air, even though he has thrust them into awkward, unfamiliar timeslots, including:

“Myndtalk” with Pamela Brewer

“On the Margin” with Josephine Reed

“Voices With Vision” by the DC Radio Collective

”The Collectors” with Brother Ah

“In Our Voices “ with NKenge Toure

2. We have exposed the fact that many of programmers that Hughes planned to import have corporate funding from military contractors and Wal-Mart, in violation of Pacifica’s bylaws against.
3. John Hughes has not been able to bring in many of the planned shows, including “The Take Away” with John Hockenberry,  “Tell Me More” with Michelle Martin and “The Tavis Smiley Show”
4. More than 400 members and listeners have attended community meetings—Dec. 5, Dec. 11, Dec. 12 and Dec. 19—during which they have demanded that programming be restored at the station and that John Hughes be removed.
5. Despite the effort of station management to cancel the meeting,  On Dec. 5, a meeting of 30 station members, listeners and board members took place, during which passed a resolution urging the Local Station Board to initiate the process to fire John Hughes
6. More than 100 letters have been sent to Pacifica Foundation Interim Executive Director Summer Reese concerning the crisis.
7. About 150 people have signed a petition at Change.org condemning the abrupt program grid change and calling for the removal of John Hughes.
8.  On Dec. 19, The Local Station Board passed a motion urging the station general manager to restore the programming to pre-Dec. 3 status.
9. On Dec. 28, many of the candidates supported by Concerned Members and Supporters of WPFW were swept onto the Local Station Board.
10. On Jan.9, Yves Point du Jour was elected chairman of the Local Statin Board, unseating Tony Norman. Two other CMS-supported candidates were also elected as officers: Ola Cole-Laryea as secretary and Marcus Jeter as treasurer.
11. Pressured all involved, to cancel the contract to sub-lease space in Silver Spring, Maryland with Clear Channel.