Re: The Fate of WEVD-partisan opinion

[Rachael Kafrissen <rokhl...>]

Winston,

First off I want to apologize if I came off sounding overly harsh. I do realize
that leading a large organization involves making tough decisions.

You bring up an interesting question of what exactly are the Forward
Association's "obligations" to its listeners and the general public. The Forward
Association is not, as you assert, a private company. It is not quite a
non-profit, either. As best as I can tell they are cuirrently structured as a
cooperative "and the profits are either reinvested in the newspaper or  donated
to social and cultural causes. No member of the Association is entitled to
receive any portion of its assets, even if the Association were ever dissolved.
As part of its restructuring, the Forward Association will return to its
historic status as a not-for-profit organization under IRS regulations that
recognize its social and cultural purpose." (I take this verbatim from the
savewevd web site). This doesn't sound like your typical profit and market
driven business. If anybody on the list can shed more light on the exact nature
of the Association's tax status I would appreciate it. But it would seem that in
fact their status DOES entail some obligations to the general public- even
before the soon to happen re-conversion to true non-profit status. The charter
of the Forward Association probably also (I imagine, please correct me if I'm
wrong) states its purpose as serving a specific community, not turning the
biggest profit possible. But even purely commercial stations have some duties to
the public, like doing community reporting and having a certain amount of
"educational" programming, in order to renew their licenses. (This is often
nominal, I'm well aware).


There is a second issue, an obviously much more subjective question which, as I
stated up front, I am very opinionated on, that is, what obligations does the
leadership of the Association have to us- the American/New
York/Yiddishist/Jewish/take your pick/ community it serves. And I think this
links to the third issue you brought up- the presumption that if there is a
demand for a certain type of programming the market will supply it. Perhaps we
will have to agree to disagree, but this just does not seem to be true. Again,
in a business climate of unstoppable conglomerization, where it becomes
prohibitively expensive to be an independent broadcaster, for example, because
of the enormous price of a station license which now only huge corportations
like Disney can afford, and the aggressive push against microstations, it is
very unlikely that we will see a new station like WEVD. Because it is often
financially impossible and just impractical to create new institutions,
especially on the scale of a radio station, and one with such a connection to
its audience, I question whether this move was the best way to fulfill the
Association's goal to serve a certain community.

I suppose the leadership of the Forward Association has decided that their goals
are newspaper related and/or they can be best achieved through newspapers.  That
saddens me, and I guess the time to mourn was really when the bulk of WEVD's
trademark programming was removed in favor of a news/talk format. But I keep my
vote firmly in place for the side that recognizes the importance of institutions
and our connections to those institutions and which asks *community leaders*
with a duty to the public to at least recognize that importance.

-Rokhl


>
>
>
> -----------------------------
> SORRY THERE ARE NO ISSUES HERE...i understand the dissappointment and the
> sadness at the demise of wevd's jewish content.  I understand the loss to
> the Jewish community.  BUT COME ON!!!! this is a private company that made a
> decision for itself.  they have that right.  it is one of the preveleges of
> ownership.  if there are enough who want that kind of programing, form a new
> station.  obviously there were no longer enough listeners to get the ratings
> for commecial support.  ECONOMICS 101.
>
> Winston Weilheimer
> Host/OWNER
> NUSACH INTERNET RADIO NETWORK
> Nusach, THE ORIGINAL SOUL MUSIC!
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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