(4/22 report from Local Station Board member Bob Lederer): Last night (Apr. 21) at the Finance Committee meeting of the WBAI Local Station Board, the General Manager, Berthold Reimers, mentioned in the midst of a quarterly review of station finances that the station had recently received two donations of $5,000 each from the Merrill Lynch financial corporation. He admitted this in response to a question about what was the source of the amount listed under the “grants” line item in the financial statement for Oct.-Dec. 2010. He said the money was sought by a producer, whom he refused to name, to produce a mini-series on hydro-fracking, and that it was arranged through a Merrill Lynch employee who had subsequently left his job. Under questioning from me, he said he had approved the donations, and that “Pacifica” (he did not say who) had done so as well. He also said the programming has not yet aired.
Several of us were shocked and upset about this and said it clearly violated Pacifica’s policy against corporate funding. Reimers was disdainful of the concern and argued that it was just another source of much-needed funds.
In order to gather the information to provide a basis for strong action, I quickly wrote and offered the following motion, which passed the Finance Committee unanimously:
That the WBAI General Manager and Pacifica Executive Director be asked to report to the Finance Committee in writing before the next meeting on the recent donations totaling $10,000 from the Merrill Lynch corporation, including:
a) the amounts and dates of each donation
b) the stated purpose
c) the programming for which the donations were to be used
d) the persons who solicited and accepted the donations
e) an explanation of how those donations are consistent with Pacifica’s longstanding policies and practices prohibiting donations by for-profit corporations.
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Several of us will move aggressively to follow up on this, to demand action to stop this unacceptable violation of the Pacifica mission, to reaffirm the ban on corporate donations, and to take other remedial actions. I would urge everyone to demand immediate answers from local and national management and a reversal of the destructive path that the station appears to be heading down.
Bob Lederer
staff representative, LSB and LSB Finance Committee
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