Round Up: “Ups and Downs…”

When Pat Harrison, CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) put out the statement on August 1st that CPB would start the process of shutting down, I was sad. I have had a 15 year relationship with this 60 year old organization. It wasn’t always easy. Occasionally an Inspector General would question some of the information in our extensive financial reports to ensure that what we were recording was an eligible expense or revenue. 

The system where you file reports for CPB is called ISIS (the Integrated System Information System). ISIS is a beast. I went in yesterday and downloaded all of my SAS (Station Activities Survey) reports in case the website goes away so that KWMR has a record of what was filed.

I felt sorrow in a way that one does when there is a death too soon. It wasn’t an honest demise after a long life when the creature has had a good long existence, it was a life cut off by the carelessness of others. A special type of sorrow.

And such is life, while dealing with sad things, there are often moments of light. Things that give us hope. The generosity of so many KWMR supporters is giving me hope for the future of community radio in West Marin. Thank you all for taking Lee Giammona’s lead and increasing your monthly giving (email me if you want to do this, you can’t do it yourself), and for those making first-time contributions to KWMR.

You may have noticed that you are hearing Democracy Now on KWMR at 7 AM now on KWMR. Thanks to our ace team here at KWMR (James Mohri and Ian McMurray) we are able to bring this program to you at no charge. The survey was overwhelmingly positive about bringing DN to the West Marin airwaves.

And the icing on the good news cake is that Liberacha is rejoining the Happy Hour line up, at least monthly! She is inhabiting a new Sonic Bunker where she can produce some juicy programming for KWMR. Tune in on Friday at 5 PM! I interviewed her and you can hear that conversation on The Lowdown tomorrow (8-9 AM Wednesdays).

CPB has always been a bit older than me, and now I will outlive this great institution that has facilitated so much critical educational and cultural  programming, from Sesame Street to Ken Burn’s documentaries and community radio and TV. 

RIP CPB.

Amanda Eichstaedt
Station Manager and Executive Director

p.s. You can track what is happening via Protect My Public Media.

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