SaveKPFA Cooks the Books

Before publicizing the below article, Tracy Rosenberg showed it to SaveKPFA, offering them the opportunity to retract gross inaccuracies which she identified as "exceedingly bad journalism" or "deliberate deception."



Why is a journalist deliberately cooking Pacifica Radio's books?

by Tracy Rosenberg
September 16, 2014

The turmoil engendered at Pacifica Radio earlier this year has sunk to a new low last weekend, with a shockingly deliberate exhibition of cooking the books by Upfront host and current treasurer Brian Edwards-Tiekert, distributed in an email newsletter by the "Save KPFA" group.

The blatant lying to members of the foundation is dishonest reporting on Pacifica's financial condition and a shocking display for a journalist who asks for the trust of the public as a reporter.

The Save KPFA newsletter, adorned with Pacifica's logo, said 'according to a report from Pacifica National Finance Committee chair Brian Edwards Tiekert "produced the largest loss the Pacifica National Office has posted since the height of Pacifica’s civil war in 2001."'

Nope. Edwards-Tiekert and the Pacifica CFO are listing for last year $650,000 of expenses from a program contract that expired before the year began -- and lying about the expiration date of the agreement -- saying it expired in September of 2013 when it expired in September of 2012.

In other words, in order to make his predecessors look bad, the Pacifica treasurer and the CFO are including bills in last year's totals and leaving them out of this year's totals, although they stem from an agreement that was just as expired in 2013 as it is in 2014.

The $537,000 deficit ascribed by Edwards-Tiekert to the national office in 2013 is caused by $650,000 in unpaid bills from a contract that expired on September 30, 2012 . Of course things look better if you include $650,000 in bills in 2013 and don't include them in 2014.

Call it "factional accounting". Call it deliberate deception. Call it exceedingly bad journalism.

But call it. Pacifica Radio and its long-suffering supporters deserve better than three-card monte from the board officers.

TRACY ROSENBERG
September 16, 2014

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KPFA 94.1 FM is one of five stations of the Pacifica radio network which are located in major cities across the country. The other stations are WBAI 99.5 in New York, WPFW 89.3 in Washington DC, KPFT 90.1 in Houston, and KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles. There are also about 160 affiliate stations.