KNPR BOARD DIDN’T KNOW ANOUT DEFICIT UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE • RICK LEWIS “GROKED” THE WORLD FROM A MOUNTAIN TOP

Jerry Nadal

According to an interview with KNPR's interim CEO Jerry Nadal on Nevada Public Radio daily interview program State of Nevada, the Board of Directors was apparently asleep at the wheel as debt mounted and revenue stalled.

During the program on Thursday (9/26) Nadal, a longtime member of the Board, told independent journalist John L. Smith:

“[Board members] got financial statements every month but it was very high-level consolidated statements. The board didn't get into the nitty-gritty, day-to-day running of the station.”

Audio and a transcript of the interview can be heard and read here.

The tripwire that led to revealing the financial crisis and the resignation of former CEO Flo Rogers, apparently happened in early August.  Members of the Board saw that KNPR’s “rainy day fund” was out of money and there were no other revenue sources to pay the bills. The number KNPR’s donors had stalled at around 11,000 members.

Now Nadal and the board are still trying to figure out what happened. They have hired forensic accountants to review past audits and other financial documents. Also they are conducting an internal fact-finding effort.

Smith asked Nadal if he now knows the amount of the debt KNPR has:

Nadal: “[We] still don't know that accurate number...I can tell you the status of our finances is pretty dire right now.”

Perhaps board members were lulled to sleep by KNPR’s performance in the Nielsen PPM ratings. According to Nadal, KNPR is now one of the top five stations in the Las Vegas market and Morning Edition is the number one station in morning drive. (Spark News also has reported that KNPR is the top radio news source in the market.)

Smith asked Nadal if there would be changes in KNPR’s programming because of the financial shortfall:

Nadal: “I don't think that, from an audience member standpoint, you'll notice anything different. I think we want to maintain all the programming that we have.”

However the future of KNPR’s Classical music station KNCV is under review. Nadal told Smith “[KNCV] has not been where we think it probably should be, to be [self] supporting.

RICK LEWIS DIES AT 71 & “SAILS INTO THE MYSTIC”

Rick Lewis at Minnesota Public Radio

Another member of Public Radio Greatest Generation – the men and women who laid the foundation for today’s public radio – has died. 

Reportedly, Rick Lewis died from a heart attack in Ecuador on September 7^th.

In Current’s wonderful obituary of Lewis, written by Karen Everhart [link], at the time of his death, Lewis was living in a village in northern Ecuador, where he had retired in 2012.

We won’t repeat Current’s fine tribute to Lewis, but we will provide our own history with him.

We first met Lewis in the early 1990’s just after he was part of the team that created Marketplace. 

American Public Radio (which became Public Radio in 1995) had a major financial stake in Marketplace. At the time we were APR’s Director of News and had considerable contact with Lewis.

We were impressed by Lewis’ foresight and analytical mind. We saw Lewis’ guts and perseverance needed to establish Marketplace.

Most all, we liked Lewis’ often humorous observations about the ironies of life. Lewis cared deeply about his work but he never took it too seriously. He added laughter and good will to whatever he was doing.

Lewis became the GM of WOI AM/FM in Ames, Iowa in the mid 1990’s. His impish humor was on display in his email signature, where he said:

“Greetings from Iowa – Gateway to the Large Rectangular States.”

The last time we talked with Lewis was when he was working at WLRN in Miami, maybe 15 years ago. After that, we lost contact.

Lewis moved to Ecuador where he could “grok” the mysteries of the Andes Mountains and the meaning of life.

Some readers might not be familiar with the term “grok.” It was introduced by author Robert Heinlein in his 1961 sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry and lose one’s identity.

While in Ecuador, Lewis began blogging. In his blog – BrokeDownPalette [link] – Lewis brought his keen observational skills to new heights. 

As a tribute to our friend Rick Lewis, here are his words and photographs from his blog.

  

From Rick’s final post, published August 7, 2019.

“When I came to Ecuador in 2012, I left the American fascination with weather behind, along with its extremes on the North American continent. I can still find and pay a visit to hot or cold weather if I’m in the mood—but that’s Celsius on the cell phone, so not that intense—and I can also leave it quickly behind.”

“I didn’t want to become one of those elderly retirees who keep a careful and pointless journal of daily highs and lows and rainfall.”

“That said, I am more than interested in the unobstructed march of climate change and its impact on everything from crops to world hunger to the disappearance of entire species—ultimately, we humans. These are things that matter. Still, here among the peaks of the Andes, we’ll be around long after Miami has gone the way of the Lost City of Atlantis, and Hawaii is a mildly interesting coral reef.”

“The most rock-solid weather prediction is still George Carlin’s, in his classic comic role as the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman: “Tonight’s forecast: Dark.”

The origin of the blog’s name “BrokeDownPalette.”

“Around 1990 or so, when I became the last person in the world to learn of the Grateful Dead, I was enamored of a song the band often used as an encore: ‘Brokedown Palace.’”

“ It was a wistful, introspective sort of number about birds and a river and farewells that stuck with me over the years, and so when I decided to paint some word pictures—well, you can see where the title came from.”

Rick Lewis reflects on NPR.

“I clearly remember the day I first visited the offices of NPR in Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s, long before I would return one day to work there.  I was invited to sit in on the daily story meeting for All Things Considered, the network’s only news program at the time, where staff members brought ideas to the table.  Suggestions were offered, batted around, challenged and improved upon as the evening’s show began to take shape.”

“Richie Adams, a producer and newscaster, suggested an interview with the editor of a collection of the year’s political cartoons that had just been published.  His colleagues fell on him, as was traditional:

Cartoons are visual!  This is radio!  Why should we do this story?

Adams said evenly.  “They’re not funny.”

“What’s past is prologue.  More than forty years later, just take a look.”

Rick Lewis uses radio towers as a metaphor about human nature.

“Radio towers, often located in remote areas under the watchful eye of no one, are a magnet for both children and childish adults who can’t resist climbing them. That’s the reason for the tall fences. If someone climbs the tower anyway, or gets electrocuted, it just means the fence wasn’t high enough.”

“In the eyes of the law, the tower owner is likely to be liable for possessing a nuisance that was irresistibly attractive. The climbers are off the hook – if they live. By the same token, if children trespass on a farmer’s land and are injured, it’s likely that the farmer, not the trespassers, will be prosecuted.”