KPFK's fund drive

[Leifer]

I was listening to KPFK's (Los Angeles) recent fund drive while driving.
I was amazed at the amount of conspiracy theory being offered as an insentive in order to garner listener subscription funding.
...everything from 911 truths, to secret cancer cures......and all in between.
This is my personal opinion, but it seemed like a Jerry Springer/ Alex Jones method to zap suspicious minds into relinquishing/donating their money based on fear.

http://www.kpfk.org/eventcal.html?task=view_detail&agid=2744&year=2012&month=05&day=22

Of the above video, the fund drive played a pre-recorded version of the above video several times that week....I believe once a day (?)
I don't listen to this radio network very often....it's way to socialist for me. But I listen to it once-in-a-while, as I do Rush Limbaugh....to hear what's going on.

Michael Murphy pitch...(2012)

 

[Leifer]

Gerson Method

The Gerson Therapy is a natural treatment that activates the body’s extraordinary ability to heal itself through an organic, vegetarian diet, raw juices, coffee enemas and natural supplements.

http://gerson.org/gerpress/the-gerson-therapy/

http://www.skepdic.com/gersontherapy.html

Unfortunately, there is no compelling evidence that his regimen returns a cancerous body to the state of "normal" metabolism. What there are, though, are numerous stories told by people who think they have had their cancer, or some other disease, cured by the Gerson regimen. There are many satisfied customers. The dead ones, like Sacramento TV newswoman Pat Davis, aren't here to give their testimonials.

 

[Mick West]

I used to listen to it. It's changed in the last few years.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/27/entertainment/la-et-onthemedia27-2010mar27

Wonder how the Bush administration arranged for the destruction of the World Trade Center? Curious why the government planes are releasing toxic chemtrails into our atmosphere? Step right up, because for a record 26 days, KPFK-FM (90.7) not only provided answers but offered to hook you up with that sweet DVD set, unveiling the fuller, darker truth. All for a pledge of, say, $100.
February's pledge slog was more than twice as long as pledge drives of years past. It seemed longer and sadder for losing the focus that has returned to its regular programming.
KPFK's listenership has actually crept up in recent months as interim program director Alan Minsky has assigned consistent hosts to some daytime and drive-time slots. With Margaret Prescod in the morning, Ian Masters in the early evening and Mitch Jeserich's bright "Letters to Washington" at 10 a.m., ratings have inched up to 150,000 a week from their average low of about 120,000.

Content from external source

There's some quite serious allegations out there:

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2011/01/244027.php

KPFK is one of the left’s few major assets in Southern California, and now that asset may be under serious threat. It is being reported that one of three finalists for the position of General Manager at KPFK is current Senior Producer Christine Blosdale. Blosdale is well known for pioneering the most discredited conspiracy-theory laden programming at KPFK, consistently promoting fundraising “thank-you gifts” that are journalistically questionable. Now, the small measure of credibility that the station has retained in spite of Blosdale, is in danger of being lost.

For example, many reports of the recent gruesome Arizona shooting have revealed that the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was influenced by a film that Blosdale heavily promoted on KPFK’s airwaves some years back, called Zeitgeist made by Peter Joseph. Joseph (who apparently does not use his real name) calls himself the leader of the “Zeitgeist movement.” His film features Ron Paul, a favorite of many libertarians and conservatives. The film also makes unproven claims about a government cover-up of the 9-11 attacks, and how a secret group of bankers and elites is controlling the world – both paradigms are favored on the extreme right as well as the extreme left, and are standard Blosdale fare.

It is also known that Blosdale runs her own Public Relations business called Good Karma PR (http://www.goodkarmapr.com). Aside from the obvious conflicts of interest inherent in a journalist running a PR side business, is a disturbing fact that Blosdale routinely provides paid services for people who make appearances on the KPFK shows she produces, who’s films are routinely used as thank you gifts, or whose events are sponsored by KPFK.

Content from external source

 

[Leifer]

Pacifica Foundation's Los Angeles radio station KPFK is once again airing one of their frequent fund drives.
The "donation incentive" theme appears to be nearly 100% driven by alternative health treatment and other off-the-grid, body-and-mind cures. These are all touted as cures that are normally hidden by the corporate establishment, and that KPFK is the only public airwave station exposing this....and that is why people should donate.
As I listen right now, Mike Adams (NaturalNews), Gary Null, Thom Hartmann, etc....even actress Mariel Hemingway.....is helping push a product line called "BoKU International". This is just one example.

Usually the station will offer a "free" gift in exchange for a donation of typically $150 to $300.
Here is an example of their pledge incentives....
http://catalog.kpfk.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=KPC&Category_Code=awa
The irony here is, KPFK programs often comment on the "horrible practice of gov't/corporate back-scratching"....yet.....

Gary Null, one of the most recognizable purveyors of alternative health supplements, books, and advice....is, during the pledge drive, interviewed several times a day (often a recording repeated daily).
Gary Null is known in the circles of skeptics, for his extreme political views, AIDS denial, alternative Cancer cures, etc......and a very dubious self-touted educational background.
Null's education on QuackWatch
Similar educational overview on YouTube:
(some of the above analogies are opinionated)

The irony here is....Gary's constant complaint about how big-pharma overcharges an over-medicated public and the lavish profits that are the result.
.....among other ironies and doubletalk.

I am trying to find the audio I heard on KPFK this week....but he stated that
.....every US phone call for the last 10 years has been recorded and stored in giant databases including all the audio.
....streetlights now have the technology to record everything you say...and streetlights are everywhere.
.....every activist is being followed and monitored.
....smartphones have the ability to listen to your speech and can be monitored by authorities, even when it is turned off.

 

[Steve Funk]

Pacifica Foundation's Los Angeles radio station KPFK is once again airing one of their frequent fund drives.

If you call the fund raising number and tell them you don't want to contribute but you want to complain, they will give you their feedback number.

 

[JRBids]

Gerson Method

http://gerson.org/gerpress/the-gerson-therapy/

http://www.skepdic.com/gersontherapy.html

Isn't that what Michael landon tried -- before he died from cancer?

 

[Mick West]

Los Angeles Skywatch are trying to stack the KPFK board, so then can have chemtrails all the time:

(via email)

Los Angeles SkyWatch is trying to have 2-3 of its members run for the KPFK FM Radio 90.7 radio board to influence the station to cover the very important issue of chemtrails/geoengineering and bring it to the attention of the public. But in order to vote for those candidates, you first need to be a member of KPFK (membership is $25/person tax-deductible). The deadline to become a member is: midnight, Tuesday, July 14. Please help our cause by a) becoming a member of KPFK today at kpfk.org and b) running for the Board. We have found that it is easier to subscribe through PayPal.

Submission of candidacy for the KPFK Board has been extended until Sunday, July 19. [July 26th now] http://Elections.Pacifica.Org

KPFK FM Radio 90.7 is part of the Pacifica Network and LA's listener supported progressive radio station. In the past, KPFK has talked about climate engineering and featured Mike Murphy, however this important topic has been relegated to their periodic Fund Drives, where Mike's videos and some others have been offered as pledge gifts. Unfortunately, the powers that be at KPFK think that there are more urgent topics to discuss than the wholesale spraying of our planet. One of the prime afternoon drive-time political talk show hosts at the station has accused those concerned about geoengineering as being right-wing so-and-so's.

Please contact John Wenger if you have any questions:

John Wenger

Content from external source

 

[Leifer]

It seems KPFK is in big trouble, financially. I doubt they will exist much longer.
Their seemingly "every two month" fund raising has not solved the issue.
A recent "memo" stated.....

 

[Mick West]

It seems KPFK is in big trouble, financially. I doubt they will exist much longer.
Their seemingly "every two month" fund raising has not solved the issue.

Sadly I don't think allowing the conspiracy theories during their fund drive helped their fund raising efforts at all. Regular listeners that might support the their normal programming would feel like it was a different station when fund-raising came around.

 

[scombrid]

My local PBS had Gary Null on as part of an annual fund drive several years ago.

I had never heard of him before that.

I un-pledged my annual membership that year based on what he was spouting about nutrition and such. Utter quackery.

It is the only time I've ever written a letter to complain to a company about something.

The station that brought me Frontline, Ed Moyers, NOVA, etc... sunk to Gary Null during a fund drive.

 

[scombrid]

I would expect that even among people that might be "out there" a bit politically that flat out flogging conspiracy theories during a fund drive could back fire. One of my biggest annoyances with the PBS fund drives had always been that programming other than what was regular on the station would often crop up. But the alternative programming being flat out whacky was what it took to make me end my membership.

 

[Leifer]

Sadly I don't think allowing the conspiracy theories during their fund drive helped their fund raising efforts at all. Regular listeners that might support the their normal programming would feel like it was a different station when fund-raising came around.

I agree, for KPFK/KPFA/Pacifica Radio.
Fund drives also include topics that border on woo, and are not necessarily "conspiracy theories"....and these can also raise thoughts like, "Is this the same station that brings us NOVA and Frontline ???....what's the deal ?"

PBS (TV) fund drives are not all too different from Pacifica, relying heavily on subscription-gathering incentive topics that I'll describe as....
-change your life from within
-self-help motivation
-the hidden power of the brain
....usually presented in the form of books/tapes/cd/dvd/free (or paid) seminars....in exchange for a monetary subscription commitment.
Something about these fund drives must be working, because these type of "subscription incentives" are commonly employed, and have been around for years.
(subscript: this is interesting, perhaps my point in this collection of posts)

Dr Wayne Dyer (now deceased), was a fixture over the years during bi-yearly KCET television fund drives here in Los Angeles. There was a period (8+ years ago) that I did watch and was inspired by his lectures, at PBS funding time. A lot of what he said was simply common-sense and sane mental advice, but then some of it was too metaphysical for me... and my interest became lost.

(from Dyer blog...)
Each night as I drift off to sleep, I adamantly refuse to use this precious time to review anything that I do not want to be reinforced in the hours of being immersed in my subconscious mind. I choose to impress upon my subconscious mind, and therefore the mind of God to which I am eternally joined, my conception of myself as a Divine creator in alignment with the one mind. I groggily reiterate my I ams, which I have placed in my imagination, and I remember that my slumber will be dominated by my last waking concept of myself. I am peaceful, I am content, I am love, I am writing, I am the governing power of the universe, and I attract only to myself those who are in alignment with my highest ideals of myself.

This is my nightly ritual, ........(cont'd)...
http://www.drwaynedyer.com/blog/how-do-you-sleep/

Content from external source

Dyer is prob the best of the woo bunch (my description). You generally won't find him leaping into his deeper metaphysical and spiritual beliefs during "on-air" public TV fund-drives.....though you'll find it throughout his other writings.

On the note pad next to my computer desk, I've penciled-in a higher ranking of PBS fund-drive woo....
Dr Daniel Amen, who has for years, been found (lurking, lol) in America's living-rooms; explaining his brain-power-mental-improvement method and best-selling book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. (1999).....This not even mentioning his Alzheimer and ADD prevention dietary supplements.........
His appearances on Dr OZ, Oprah, the MSM, and public broadcasting for fund-raising.... did not go un-noticed by questioning critics with quirky questions:
why is there woo on my PBS station ?

Television programs
Amen has produced television programs about his theories. One of them, "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life," was aired by PBS affiliates 1,300 times in 2008 during fund-raising drives.
Another, "Magnificent Mind at Any Age with Dr. Daniel Amen," was aired before January 1, 2009. Neurologist Michael Greicius, director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders and principal investigator of the Functional Imaging in Neuropsychiatric Disorders Laboratory at Stanford University stated, "The PBS airing of Amen’s program provides a stamp of scientific validity to work which has no scientific validity."
These programs have been described as infomercials for Amen's clinics. The program's depiction of the "wonders of ginkgo and other 'natural' products such as St. John's wort." was also criticized. Alternative-medicine skeptic and physician Harriet A. Hall and neurologist Robert A. Burton criticized PBS for the airing of these programs. Michael Getler, the PBS ombudsman, replied that "PBS had nothing to do with the 'Brain' program's content and did not vet the program in any way." Local PBS affiliates "make their own editorial decisions based on their own guidelines about what to air," he wrote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Amen#cite_note-burton-33

Content from external source

(a letter from the PBS ombudsman, (quoted below) explains how PBS affiliates choose to "air" their own funding content...aka, "don't blame us".)
Dr Amen's most-aired PBS pitch was self-produced by himself, and PBS may expect it's viewers to figure this out themselves - that none of it is "in-house-produced", by PBS (the content).......(and is actually an infomercial with subscription interludes)

"PBS had nothing to do with the (Dr Amen) "Brain" program's content and did not vet the program in any way. Again, local PBS-affiliated stations are independent, locally owned and operated, get material from sources other than PBS and make their own editorial decisions based on their own guidelines about what to air. But, despite all those things that viewers may or may not be aware of, when that pledge special is broadcast on what viewers do know as their local PBS station, it can cause confusion and challenge."

Content from external source

Here is but a portion of the Robert Burton criticism, on Salon.com, entitled "Brain Scam".

"At the core of (Dr) Amen’s crusade — both in print and on TV — is a type of functional brain imaging known as SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography), a radioisotope-enhanced CAT scan that measures blood flow in certain regions of the brain. Amen relies heavily on SPECT to make an early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s so that it can be prevented. But medical science does not support his view.....
.....When I come across a controversial medical opinion, I try to look at how it might have arisen. Amen, who appears as a medical expert on TV news and talk shows, including CNN and Fox News, the “Today” show and “Oprah,” has not followed a traditional scientific path. He received a biology degree from Southern California College, a Pentecostal school, now Vanguard University (“We believe The Bible to be the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God”), and earned his medical degree from Oral Roberts University School of Medicine, defunct as of 1989."

Content from external source

Here is Harriet Hall,

"Daniel Amen loves SPECT scans (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography). And well he should. They have brought him fame and fortune. They have rewarded him with a chain of Amen Clinics, a presence on PBS, lucrative speaking engagements, a $4.8 million mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and a line of products including books, videos and diet supplements (“nutraceuticals”). He grossed $20 million last year. Amen is a psychiatrist who charges patients $3,500 to take pretty colored SPECT pictures of their brains as an aid to the diagnosis and treatment of conditions including brain trauma, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), addictions, anxiety, depression, dementia, and obesity. He even does SPECT scans as a part of marriage counseling and for general brain health checkups.

SPECT imaging uses an injected radioisotope to measure blood flow in different areas of the brain. Amen is exposing patients to radiation and charging them big bucks because his personal experience has convinced him SPECT is useful. So far, he has failed to convince the rest of the scientific medical community.
"
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/dr-amens-love-affair-with-spect-scans/

Content from external source

Frankly...it was very easy to find a large amount of info about public broadcasting (fund-gathering) that is woo based, or that pertain to topics suggesting woo.
~~~~~

Now...despite the scary thought, that 'fear-based woo-people may fund a large portion of public airwaves'.....
What if this woo actually helped many people, and perhaps saved lives, simply by the power of suggestion.
How P.C. is that ?....and can certainly be argued as a benefit, by either side ?

 

[Leifer]

I apologize...at PBS it's a "pledge drive", not a fund-drive.
(they just take all the "fun" out of....)

 

[Leifer]

I can't seem to find the original statement made by KPFK during their last fund drive, but it was essentially this:

That NPR (or public radio) has been approved to air political ads ....and that KPFK would never do this....so please fund a radio station (KPFK) that 'does not air political ads'.
(not a direct quote, no reference)

Content from external source

But I've never heard a political ad on NPR, in the Los Angeles area.

(2013) "Why you won’t hear political ads on public radio/TV anytime soon"

I think that this is a false claim by KPFK.....unless I'm informed otherwise. I've searched Google a lot, but found no instances of political ads on NPR, nor 'overt political sponsorship'.

 

[Cello]

This is my profession, I work for both NPR and Commercial Radio. NPR does their best to stay neutral but in order to do that has to air all sides of a topic. Sometimes you hear a voice and an opinion you don't agree with but it's necessary in order to make sure we represent ALL of the public. Believe me, it isn't easy and I can't tell you how many times I've been called a "commie" for working with NPR. I've actually thought of pitching an idea of a podcast with people on both sides of the conspiracy theory fence having rational discussions.

As far as KPFK goes, it seems they are operating legally within FCC standards. Since their funds aren't matched with government grants, they are free to spread their word and raise funds as they choose.