WEFT Revue series: "What is WEFT?"

Article 2: "Community Radio, WEFT and Democracy."

This article originally appeared in the May/June 1999 WEFT Revue.

By Paul Riismandel

Decision making has almost always been a controversial issue in community radio, from the earliest days at the first community station, Pacifica’s KPFA in Berkeley, to the present. In fact, it has been an especially hot topic recently at KPFA. At the end of this past March, the executive leadership of the Pacifica Foundation fired KPFA’s popular station manager without consulting the station’s management or local advisory board. April 15 was the 50^th anniversary of KPFA. But instead of celebrating, one thousand people—including listeners, staff and volunteers—staged a demonstration in front of the station’s studios in protest of the foundation’s action and how it was taken.

I revisit the example of KPFA—whose history I explored in the first article in this series—in order to demonstrate how important the issue of governance—how a station is run and decisions are made—is in community radio. Clearly, the thousand folks who showed up to protest the firing of the station manager were upset at least partly due to having been excluded from an important decision making process.

It also becomes clearer that the ‘community’ in community radio defines more than just a station’s audience. It is true that community stations like WEFT rely on community volunteers to operate the station, and also rely on listeners to fund their operations. But at WEFT the community also plays an important and direct role in governing the station.

WEFT is a democratically run radio station and adheres to this as matter of principle. A little more precisely, WEFT operates under a system of representative democracy. Major policy decisions and most day-to-day decisions are made by station volunteers organized into committees. With one exception, WEFT has two types of committees: open and elected. The type of committee determines what type of decisions the body can make and what kind of action it can take.

WEFT’s largest committee—the committee of all volunteer members—is the exception that doesn’t fit into either category. Known as the Associates Committee (AC), the members of this committee—WEFT associates—are not elected, but membership is not entirely open, either. In order to become a WEFT associate one must pay the WEFT annual membership fee, maintain a volunteer commitment of some kind, and attend a number of station-wide Associates meetings. In exchange for this commitment, members of WEFT’s AC have the power to oversee most of the station’s day-to-day activities, set station-wide volunteer policies, and elect representatives to WEFT’s elected committees.

Elected committees have limited memberships that are elected by the station volunteers and/or members. The top governing committee is WEFT’s Board of Directors (BOD), which is the legal ownership body of WEFT, ultimately responsible for the station’s finances. It is also an elected committee. WEFT’s BOD has fifteen members total, where five are elected by the station’s volunteers, five are elected by the BOD itself, and five are elected by the membership of the station. This means that a full third of WEFT’s most powerful governing body is selected by members of the community who have become members of the station by donating $40 or more. These same WEFT members can also serve on the BOD, making the BOD also one of WEFT’s most potentially inclusive committees.

All of WEFT’s programming decisions are made by another elected committee: the Programming Committee (PC). This committee is made up of nine total members: four elected representatives from the AC and five from the BOD. This committee is responsible for every element of WEFT’s on-air presentation, and therefore has quite a bit of work to accomplish, alongside facing often difficult and controversial questions to decide. These programming decisions probably are also the most interesting to the WEFT listener and member. Therefore, a forthcoming article will explore in-depth how the PC makes programming decisions.

WEFT’s open committees are just that; they may be joined by any station volunteer, with the limits on membership being the amount of work to accomplish. Open committees may set some baseline criteria for being a member (like attending meetings or doing a job), but such criteria are always decided on democratically by the committee itself. These committees are responsible for the basic work of the station, like maintaining equipment and the building, and cannot set operating rules or policy for the station. There is no set limit to the number and type of open committees—their existence is determined by what needs to get done. A good example of an open committee is our Music Committee, which is responsible for obtaining CDs from record companies, reporting lists of what is played on air, and maintaining our music library.

All committees have the power to appoint individuals or small groups to take on organizing and doing smaller tasks that would be unwieldy or absurd to have an entire committee do (who needs 70 station volunteers to make decisions about light bulbs?). In some cases the BOD can hire employees to take on duties that it is simply impractical or impossible for a volunteer to do. WEFT’s part-time station manager is one such employee, who has the power to make some decisions, but ultimately answers to the Board of Directors.

Finally, all decisions made by WEFT committees are made democratically, under some sort of majority rule. Depending on the situation, votes are taken by a show of hands, secret ballot, or by acclimation. However the emphasis in WEFT’s decision making is not so much on the vote as it is on the process preceeding vote. Discussion and deliberation are crucial elements of this process. Instead of having winners or losers with any given decision, the goal is to reframe a question so that the needs and overall well-being of the station and its listeners are the primary focus of the decision.

Space limitations prevent a fuller explanation of WEFT’s governance, but I hope I’ve given a basic understanding of how WEFT goes about things. I also hope that you might see how to get involved with how WEFT is run, be it as a WEFT associate, voting for members of the BOD, or even as a member of the BOD. Like the democracy of our various governments, WEFT’s democracy does not always work like a well-oiled machine—but it does work. I can’t stress enough that the element that makes or breaks democracy is participation, from the volunteers to the members. If someone thinks it’s not working, the best way to fix it is to get involved and participate. At least at WEFT anyone has this opportunity.

I welcome your comments and questions on this article or series. I’d also like to know what elements of WEFT and community radio you’d like to read more about. Send your missives to me care of WEFT, 113 N. Market St., Champaign, IL 61820, or send me e-mail at p-riism@uiuc.edu.

©1999 Paul Riismandel, all rights reserved.

Please contact the author for permission to republish at another site or in another form.

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