FALLOUT CONTINUE FROM MASS PURGE AT KHSU • IS ANYBODY HOME AT PACIFICA’S HOUSTON STATION?

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Campus cops secure the door at KHSU

Public broadcasting’s biggest mass firing of over 50 staff and volunteers continues to reverberate across the country. According to an article last week in The Sacramento Bee [link] the actions taken by Humboldt State University (HSU) have ignited blistering responses from elected officials.

California State Sen. Mike McGuire told The Bee: “KHSU is the heart of this community and that heart was ripped out.”

McGuire joined state Assemblyman Jim Wood, former state Sen. Wes Chesbro and former Assemblywoman Patty Berg in a letter to California State University Chancellor Timothy White criticized HSU administrators for their “reckless, secretive and short-sighted” actions on April 11 when the mass termination occurred.

The letter to Chancellor White the officials said, in part:

“The way this went down was completely avoidable and a slap in the face to Humboldt County and the North Coast. Major decisions made behind closed doors, and with zero transparency, simply do not work for this community. There was absolutely no reason for this situation to unfold as it has and we want it to stop.”

Craig Wruck, architect of the mass firings at KHSU

A spokesman for the Chancellor’s called HSU’s purge "a campus-based decision." 

Also Chancellor White will soon talk with the lawmakers.

But there is little anyone can do. 

Nobody can reverse the decision and make KHSU like it was before. 

No one can erase the blemish on HSU in the community. 

It is unlikely anyone will purchase underwriting announcements or pledge to KHSU. 

The administration has said they will not put any more money into the station. So, to put it bluntly, KHSU is “screwed.”

On April 11 HSU announced that “…even with the changes at KHSU, “listeners will continue to have access to high-quality national programming and news.” But with no employees, no money and no credibility, it is hard to see how they will live up to their promise.

President Lisa Rossbacher approved Wruck's purge

One previously unknown fact that emerged from The Bee’s reporting is that University president Lisa Rossbacher has announced she will retire from Humboldt State as of June 30. 

The architect of the mass firings, HSU VP for Advancement Craig Wruck, will retire in May. 

Apparently neither Rossbacher or Wruck considered the optics of their quick exits.

HSU’s administrators continue to cite an 18-page review of KHSU by California State University auditors. 

It was released days before the purge as a justification for their actions.

INSIDE THE KHSU AUDIT

Spark News examined report and its 19 recommendations by the California State University (CSU) auditors and found nothing that justifies HSU’s actions.

If fact, the auditor’s report is based on solid research, is clearly written and makes sense most of the time. If you like reading audits of university internal decision making, this report is for you. You can download it here.

The CSU report begins with an important question: What business are we in? The auditor’s answer is “higher education.”  From that point, the report sees the entire KHSU situation through that lens.

The fatal flow of the CSU report is that it says nothing about being in the business of radio. Despite dotting all of the “I’s” and crossing all of the “t’s” the auditor’s findings have little to do with the real world.

Here is an example. Quoting from the report:

“Over the years, the mission and goals of KHSU appear to have drifted from the station’s initial purpose, which was providing training and coursework opportunities for students, to the current objective of providing educational and entertaining programs to the community with very little student involvement.”

“In 1971, the journalism department began offering radio news workshop classes at KHSU. The students in the workshops produced KHSU newscasts during the fall and spring semesters”.

“The station remained almost exclusively a student training ground until 1982, when it boosted its power to 100 watts. At that point, the station began a gradual process of professionalization.

That finding led to this recommendation:

Therefore, from a solely academic point-of-view, KHSU’s evolving professionalization became a problem, not an opportunity.

KPFT HITS A NEW LOW IN HOUSTON

According to Nielsen Audio’s March PPM report for Houston-Galveston market, Pacifica’s KPFT barely met Nielsen’s minimum standard to be listed in ratings.

In March, KPFT was listed with 10,900 estimated weekly listeners in a metro area of around six million people. Those weekly listeners spent so little time hearing KPFT that the station had a 0.0 AQH share. This means that, at any given moment, there are ZERO people listening to KPFT. Talk about being insignificant!

Also in Houston, NPR News/Talk KUHF keeps nipping at the heals of longtime commercial radio news leader KTRH.

KUHF’s Classical music voice on its HD-2 channel continues to prove that HD is valuable only when it is repeated on a FM translator.