Talk:WBAI

NPOV violations rife
Much of the second half of this article is a classic example of POV writing. Value judgments, many very debatable abound. I understand the station is a contentious place, but this article needs a real good scrubbing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.237.251.229 (talk) 21:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Coup
I really think something should be said about (a) the controversy that shut down the station in 2002 and (b) the drift toward openly racist (anti-white, anti-Jewish) programming that has exploded at WBAI in recent years. -- 66.65.116.205 05:34, 27 January 2007


 * I have added info re the 2000 Christmas coup.

Dogru144 14:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yours is but one version of the story. Many other individuals and groups within WBAI and Pacifica tell it differently. It is one-sided and at parts, non-factual. For example, Utrice Leid was the third person was offered the job of Station Manager -- both Jose Santiago and David Rothenberg turned it down. She was the first to accept, and never 'announced' any such thing. There's much more, including the naming of some people who were not banned -- why? About 8 people were banned, and another 190 or so weren't I believe there is a purpose -- that Wikipedia should not be a part of -- in relating such factional information.

JimFreund (talk) 22:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Alumni
I removed Yoko Ono as alumni because she never worked there. I do recall her answering calls during one fund-raising drive for about 2 hours, and she'd been a guest on several shows, but never as a producer, or staff member -- paid or unpaid. I've added any number of personell who've been at WBAI over the years, and corrected some spelling errors on names. I also added several people (including myself) who were founding members of EMRA. Even so, I think I'm missing one or two. JimFreund 18:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Your memory does not serve you well, Jim, or perhaps this was before your time at the station, but—although Yoko Ono was never a paid staff member—she was a regular volunteer who worked in the music department (under John Corigliano) for quite some time. When we had our first marathon, Yoko came to me and asked if she could do something on the air. I was taken aback by her request, because Yoko was (or appeared to be) a very reserved person. I gave her the nod and she did a segment where she sang Japanese children's songs. I have it on tape. So, unless the Alumni list is strictly for paid staffers of the past, Yoko's name should be reinstated.- Chris Albertson Fred Nurdley (talk) 13:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I will bow to Chris Albertson's knowledge on this. As you say that would be before my time as were you. I only know from 1967 onward, and if you say she worked there in your tenure, I'll buy that. So her name should indeed be reinstated. However, I have heard listeners and alumni say tat she was there in the 70s, and that I can state wasn;t the cas; although I remember one day when she and John Lennon spent a couple of hours answering phones. JimFreund (talk) 18:54, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

A while back I added Ayn Rand as alumni. I regularly listened to her weekly broadcast in the 1960s. She appears to have been removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.56.1.104 (talk) 02:14, 16 July 2016 (UTC)  I am John Lobell

1968
By many accounts, the reading of the child's poem about the Ocean Hill school board dispute on Julius Lester's radio program gave modern Black political antisemitism its first prominent public exposure. AnonMoos (talk) 07:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley)
I am stunned that there is no mention in this page about the radio shows done by Emmanuel Goldstein (aka Eric Corley). He has a show that currently airs on WBAI, and, in fact, has had shows there since back to 1989. He's definitely a controversial person, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be mentioned anywhere on the page. He currently does the show Off the Hook on WBAI, and had done an irregularly-scheduled show called The Fifth Corner (unrelated to the TV show you will find if looking for it here on Wikipedia).

I don't have all the info of what might be needed to be added here, or how much, but it's definitely a glaring omission. I hope someone that has more info can edit the page. 99.51.93.32 (talk) 01:58, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

His show is mentioned, along with a link to the larger wiki article. Might be worth adding a little bit more info, maybe. Current text: WBAI's morning drive time news magazine presented by several hosts including Mario Murillo and Esther Armah. Also included are a regular science fiction program: Hour of the Wolf presented by Jim Freund, Off the Hook, a program presented by the 2600 hacker group, The Personal Computer Show with Joe King and Hank Kee, assisted by Mike, Stevie Debee, Dannyb, and a bunch of friends (which first aired August 6, 1984), and the economics journalism of Doug Henwood. - wiki-ny-2007 (talk) 03:16, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

This page needs updates
This page needs some serious updating. A lot has happened over the past decade, and will happen again soon. As someone involved I am not going to edit the WBAI page, but if there's a disinterested party who could bring it more up to date that would be good. R. Paul Martin (talk) 12:57, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That would be a full time job. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.227.243.166 (talk) 14:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

FCC v. Pacifica
In case anyone think it a mistake, I hereby note that I changed a reference to George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" to the correct routine, "Filthy Words". It was the latter, not the former as commonly believed, that sparked the FCC v. Pacifica case.

--ChasFink (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Still needs major work
I'm surprised with all the intellectual firepower encompassed by the paid and volunteer staff at WBAI (and Pacifica), as well as within its listenership, which I'd wager includes a great many experienced Wikipedia editors, that no one has taken on the task of updating and editing this article which contains many long-standing requests for citations, etc. I made a number of changes but I've never been living within the station's range since it became part of Pacifica, and hope that someone both dispassionate and more conversant with the station's history would spend a few hours sorting it out. Activist (talk) 23:13, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

etymology
this needs to be included68.151.25.115 (talk) 19:18, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

This article needs to be updated with info on controversy over WBAI's back-owed rent situation and how that might force all Pacifica Foundation station off the air.
Apparently the owner of WBAI's lease has been accused of price gouging over broadcast antenna lease costs and has attempted to cease all assets of the Pacifica Foundation to reclaim back owed rent on the antenna lease. Here are some articles covering the details:


 * Radio Broadcaster Pacifica Teeters on Edge of Bankruptcy - https://www.wsj.com/articles/radio-broadcaster-pacifica-teeters-on-edge-of-bankruptcy-1514907785


 * KPFA could be forced off air, with Pacifica in stalemate over damaging lawsuit - http://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/01/03/kpfa-forced-off-air-pacifica-stalemate-damaging-lawsuit/


 * Breaking: Berkeley's KPFA Radio Facing Ruin as New York Real Estate Corporation Considers Seizing Station's Assets to Settle Lawsuit - https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/12/28/berkeleys-kpfa-radio-facing-ruin-as-new-york-real-estate-corporation-considers-seizing-stations-assets-to-settle-lawsuit

---2600:1700:56A0:4680:AC67:F809:37FC:6D85 (talk) 18:14, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I just updated the "Turmoil and change" section to cite, which announced a settlement to the lawsuit and tentative plans to move. I remember reading something after the move was completed, but I could not find an article mentioning that.  If you do, could you please update the article accordingly -- or including the reference here and try to get someone else to update the article?  Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

listenership size and the checkerboard
Audience size should be mentioned. A recent source, I think from the Columbia Journalism Review, regarding Leonard Lopate, attributes to someone from the station in 2018 that about 5,000 people listen to the station during the course of a week; I'm being approximate here. A rumor inside the station in 1969–1970 was that the station was the second most popular FM station in the nation (I think first was a music station). The station couldn't afford to pay for ratings but occasionally heard about them; I think there were helpful people at other N.Y.C. stations.

Program scheduling has been described as a checkerboard. I don't remember the source where I read this, but it's apt. Often, in the course of the day, what aired in one hour had almost no specific relevance to what aired in the next hour. I listen to a big-city NPR station that is much less of a checkerboard; programs have more relevance to each other in content. The 'BAI switchboard (what would now be a reception position) used to get inquiries and complaints from people who listened during the day and tuned in after midnight or vice versa and were quite surprised that it was so different, as if there was another station on the 99.5MHz frequency.

I have a hypothesis about why the modern drop in listenership scale, but no source for this. Technology has developed the World Wide Web and people who used to listen to radio, and who were willing to wait for the program that had the content they wanted and that was broadcast at a certain hour of a certain day each week, to be known by reading a monthly guide that came in the mail if they sent money, now can download podcasts from many sources and play them at times of their convenience or can Google for the subject and find a website of interest immediately upon being curious about a subject. Unless WBAI's or Pacifica's website comes up high in response to a Google search for a given subject, almost no one will visit those two websites for the subjects of interest. A strategy for WBAI may be to focus on continuing to develop programming for distribution to many stations, rather than rely on a single city. Another may be to focus on cultural programming that's best suited for radio and no other medium, like music and radio plays, and use that to increase audience size and income, and set aside time for politics and other talk that would be an easy-to-remember time block or two of every day, like the way people remember the time of evening TV newscasts. I don't know if there are sources discussing possible programming and website strategies.

I don't know if I have a conflict of interest in editing this article.

Nick Levinson (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Most of what you're wanting to include is entirely original research and should not be included. If you can find a reference giving listenership in relation to other stations across the country, that could potentially be included; same with the checkerboard schedule. Primefac (talk) 16:28, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm asking for sourced content on subjects I think are inadequately covered and for which sources likely are available, perhaps books or contemporary trade journals. At least one book from the late 1960s or 1970 on Pacifica or 'BAI is not cited and there likely are many mass media articles from the station's heyday. What I wrote above would be original content only if it got into the article without sourcing. Thanks for reminding editors. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

WBAI location
I'm confused. The reference cited is. I just checked: This is the FCC's Public File for WBAI. It says "Main Studio Address: 388 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn,NY 11217". The studio address currently appears later in the article, without a reference. You mention WP:NOTYELLOWPAGES, but I don't see anything there that says we should not include street addresses. AND their studio address appears later in the article without a reference. If it's going to be there, it should have a reference. It may be appropriate to eliminate the studio address from the lede. Whether it should appear later in the article is a separate question. If it does, it should have a citation, I think.

And thanks for correcting the error in the change to 99.5 "mc" in 1947 not 1948.

Comments? DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:13, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Gary Null
There is nothing about Gary Null in this article, however:

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2019/10/07/wbai-shuts-its-door-progressive-politics-radio-station-new-york-city

"Reached by phone, health guru Gary Null, who has probably raised more money for WBAI than any one person in its history, says..."

This should be in the article but since it is an overall statement about the history of WBAI and its fundraising, I don't know where to insert this on the timeline. Where should this go? Newsconsumer7 (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia article on "Gary Null" says he "advocates pseudoscientific alternative medicine and produces a line of questionable dietary supplements. ... He is a HIV/AIDS denialist ... [and] has provided potentially dangerous and outright dubious medical advice to a variety of patient-callers". That article on him has 60 different notes.  The associated Talk page says, "The Arbitration Committee has authorized uninvolved administrators to impose discretionary sanctions on users who edit pages related to pseudoscience and fringe science, including this article."


 * His relationship with WBAI is the subject of the first paragraph of the section of that article on "Gary Null". It says in part, "His show was broadcast first on WBAI, then on the VoiceAmerica Network and over the Internet. Null's show subsequently returned to WBAI, leading to protests from ACT-UP New York and other AIDS activist groups concerned by Null's promotion of AIDS denialism."


 * I would NOT take anything attributed to Null at face value, and I recommend we NOT quote that claim that he "has probably raised more money for WBAI than any one person in its history" unless we get independent verification, e.g., from accounting records from WBAI or from the Pacifica Foundation, and probably not even then. It seems like a distraction from the main theme of this article. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for responding. Is the source Gary Null? As far as I see, the source is that NY media outlet. That can hardly be a worthless source by Wikipedia's standard, so it should be included somewhere. You could argue this source is, uh, not the best. Then again, if it's true, this info is a big deal. Here is a blog post that is related. I don't know if we can include a blog post. What I read about using blog posts as sources does not lead to any firm conclusion, but I think what this blog says is plausible since the author worked at WBAI. Newsconsumer7 (talk) 18:12, 16 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The source is NY1, but that doesn't mean that Zack Fink, the journalist apparently wrote that story, checked his facts on that claim. In general, I believe that the vast majority of Wikipedia articles present more balanced analyses of the subjects at hand than any given single article like the current articles on WBAI and Gary Null.  If the latter article is reasonably balanced, then characterizing Null as a "health guru" is misleading if technically accurate, I think.  (NY1 is not listed in Deprecated sources, but that doesn't mean it's more balanced than the Wikipedia article on Null.)


 * I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that this comment "should be included somewhere." No Wikipedia article should cite every source that might be relevant, especially claims that may be controversial.


 * What about sending an email to the station manager, asking for suggestions on how the Wikipedia articles on WBAI and Gary Null might be improved while also asking about Gary Null in general and that quote in particular? If you do that, would you mind copying email(s) you send and any replies you get into this Talk page?  If you do NOT get a reply in, say, a week, you could try calling the station to ask about it, then resend the email.  If they suggest changes to this article, you can then ask for documentation if they do not offer it.  Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:18, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Pacifica was created in a vacuum
The concept of non-government non-commercial broadcasting was an invention of Lewis Hill, the person who started Pacifica in Berkeley California at KPFA, 94.1. To me, a person who cared about the power of radio, the Pacifica idea was very powerful. It was a time when the United States had a few school board owned radio stations, and a ton of commercial radio stations, but no non commercial network. National Public Radio didn't exist. Pacifica was very important. I still think it is. 102.177.105.70 (talk) 16:04, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * What does that say about what should be in Wikipedia? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Pacifica radio was created by a few people who believed radio could carry more than advertising and government educational material. National Public Radio didn't yet exist. Jeremy Lansman (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2022 (UTC)