A Message From the President

We at WAMC are living in the same times you are. None of what we are going through with the COVID-19 pandemic or the Trump presidency is easy for any of us. Luckily, we have an incredible staff at WAMC who have made the weight of our task lighter.Take someone like Ian Pickus, our wonderful news director. Ian must balance a large staff spread out in so many directions and integrate the work of the news division with everything else going on at the station.

First of all, let me take this opportunity to thank each and every person who has made this radio station what it is by putting something into the collective pot. To say that we love you for all you have done is an understatement. When we opened the Locked Box at the beginning of May, hoping that we could avoid an on-air fund drive, we had sort of expected to limp into the formal start of the drive on June 1st. We never saw anything like what you were able to do in such an amazingly short time.

Well, we continue to keep our heads above water here at WAMC. When I say “we,” I mean it. We have been saying, “We’re all in this together” forever. So now we have a fund drive coming up.  Most of us are at home. We don’t venture out without PPE, masks and gloves, and frankly, we are all pretty scared. One thing that I do know is that an awful lot of folks are listening to WAMC for longer periods of time than ever before. Maybe some of them aren’t driving to work and listening in their cars, but people are listening. We know how many of you are writing to the Panel and, anecdotally, how many people are in touch with each of us.

Here comes the Fund Drive. It’s where we live and I mean where all of us who care about this radio station live. We all know that there can be no WAMC unless we all pull together. My job is to be the guy in the back of the crew boat who yells at the top of his voice, “Pull!” I’m yelling and I’m yelling loudly because I know and you kow that we HAVE to do it.

Every year I offer my fearless WAMC predictions. I do that with some trepidation because sometimes I have been wrong. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Here are the rules: I predict some of these things because I want them to happen. Some I predict in order to put the whammy on them so that they don’t happen and some I actually think will happen. It’s up to you to figure out which is which.

As I write this the impeachment process continues.

To many of the people who are WAMC listeners the Trump presidency represents a turning point in American history. Are we like the Holy Roman Empire doomed after so much power and promise? Is this point in our history that proves to be crucial to the future? To those who believe that Trump is a dangerous demagogue it is so important that every piece of information be out there. Believe me it will count. There are those who think that in a time of extraordinary  privilege for some that those on top are determined not to let go of their advantage. The question, of course, is whether Donald Trump, as Nancy Pelosi asserts, is a crook. This is when Americans have to be tuned in and decide whether Trump is worthy or whether he should be thrown out.

In many ways, WAMC is a miracle. You are the reason for that. It’s hard to believe that we just had a fund drive. Was that a dream? $700,000 dollars in the Locked Box -- I certainly never thought that was possible. We reminded folks during the course of regular programming why we needed to get it done and sure enough, it happened. I mean, $700,000 dollars! Of course, there were a few (very few) blue meanies who said that we had some nerve asking for the money. Our answer was that things were simply happening too quickly. The Trump impeachment story, for one, just kept coming. That was not something that we could afford to ignore and, like I said, all we kept getting from our listeners was love. Oh, a few people said that they wished for a longer fund drive and all the fun that goes with those efforts, but there you were!

The Locked Box is open. The day the reaction to that statement is “so what” or “ho hum,” we are in real trouble and I mean REAL trouble. This is not a New York or Los Angeles station that brings in a hundred million dollars a year. This is WAMC which we all made together, right? 

Judy Grunberg is gone, slipped away into the cluster of stars of which she was one. For me, this is a tragedy of the first order. She was one of those rare individuals who makes such a difference that you just don’t know how you can go on without her. 

Donald Trump remains the focus of the news. People are being Trumped out. They’ve had enough. On the Roundtable’s daily panel discussion we hear from countless frustrated people who want him gone. They surely know that the chances of impeachment and conviction are nil but the level of frustration is so high that they just want something done now. I get that. Even if Nancy Pelosi is correct and that failed impeachment proceedings will allow Trump to get reelected, they just don’t seem to care. We see people like the wonderful Congressman Paul Tonko bowing to the popular will and announcing that he, too, favors moving forward with an impeachment investigation. You had better believe that WAMC has been chronicling this in depth. 

On June 3rd we go once more unto the breach. That’s the beginning of our summer fund drive when, once more, we begin what we have always referred to as “The Great Schlep Forward.” Since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the amount of time it takes to make a million dollars has been sliced by a great deal. Sometimes we do it in a day. I have assumed that from Day One of Trump, WAMC has been the main, if not only, place on the radio dial to hear about the latest tragedy and trauma confronting our country. Our Roundtable Panel has gained a huge following, becoming the go-to place for so many people each morning as we discuss the news of the day. We know that tens of thousands of people are listening. As I meet people in the street or read their mail, they tell me that they are addicted to WAMC and the Panel.

There is some real tension between National Public Radio and its member stations. WAMC pays a great deal of money, collected from you, our members, for NPR programming and services – around $800,000 a year. In other words, by the time it’s all done, the proceeds of nearly one whole fund drive are used to pay NPR for what amounts to two programs -- Morning Edition and All Things Considered. 

Now more than ever, we need WAMC. We all know it. Of course, there are a few trolls who find that WAMC’s speaking truth to power is not to their liking. All I can say is “too bad” or “join the lumpenproletariat” (“lump it or leave it.”) We are doing our best under very trying circumstances. We know that Donald Trump is conducting a war against his perceived enemies, including the press. The First Amendment to the Constitution is a backstop against fascism and totalitarianism. I understand that the press can be self-serving and sometimes wrong but when you stop freedom of expression, you stop a civil society and you deal a body blow to democracy. This is the time to stand as tall as we can.

The news is coming so fast that most of us can hardly keep up.

Of course, WAMC played the remarkable House Oversight Committee (Michael Cohen) hearings in their entirety. I listened as much as I could and I came away pretty shell shocked. There is nothing like hearing this stuff for ourselves, unfiltered.

In 1979 I took over the leadership of WAMC. We’ve had a lot of great fund dives. Each was known for something special that happened in that drive. One time a nasty guy called up and pledged twenty five cents with the notation “This is what you station is worth.” It was really great. The wonderful audience added a quarter to every pledge that was made throughout the drive. One can only wonder what the creep was thinking. That’s what you call comeuppance.

Every year, I offer my fearless predictions for the coming months. The rules, as always, are simple. Sometimes I really don’t want something to happen so I predict an event in the hope of putting the triple whammy on it in order to prevent it from occurring. Sometimes I do want it to happen so I predict it will, and sometimes I really believe that it will happen. It is always your job to try to figure out which is which. This year I will look back on last year’s remarkable predictions to see how we did. Here goes:  

Andrew Cuomo seems to have turned over a new leaf. The common wisdom is that the man had a penchant for keeping his enemies in the doghouse, well, forever. That was not his late father’s way. I know that because I was Mario’s weekly interlocutor for a lot of years. Oh, you could tick off Mario but sooner or later, he would let you out of the doghouse. There was the time, for instance, when he said after a testy interchange, “Is that what you think?” I said, “Yes sir,” to which he replied, “Who cares?”

In a few short days comes the fund drive. This is the place where we all live but I’m not afraid. I love our listeners. You know why? Because they are, above all, just plain smart and they are also scared. We have a President of the United States who has surrounded himself with numerous felons. One after another, they are dropping like flies, confessing their sins, on their way to jail. These people are his closest associates. As I write this, there is a major debate over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the country’s highest court. While I suspect that the feckless Republican senators don’t care a whit about Trump, they do care about the crucial Supreme Court appointment that will put their political philosophy firmly in the driver’s seat, perhaps for generations to come. That’s why their PACS and money go to their candidates. Yet, something remarkable is happening. Little bits of money from hundreds of thousands of people are going to candidates and that is making a real difference. Just look at Ted Cruz in deep Red state Texas.

I know that I am not alone when it comes to supporting this station. Far from it -- I keep running into good people who ask what they can do to help WAMC above and beyond contributing to the fund drives or the locked box. The answer is that there are many things that you can do.

If you really want to know what keeping WAMC alive is all about, you have to look no farther than at the WAMC news division. It is no secret that we invest what you give us into the people who gather the news. It really is some operation.

There is no better reason to support WAMC than the turmoil that surrounds this country as you read this. No matter what you may think of the current president, there are some things that cannot be denied. The first is that he has declared war on the free press in this country. The New York Times is the “failing New York Times” and the press in general is the “enemy of the people.” It’s right out of Henrik Ibsen. As Casey Stengel, the great Yankee and Mets manager put it, “You could look it up.” The second is that early in his campaign, Trump made it clear that at least one anti-Trump demonstrator at one of his early rallies should be led out and beaten up and that he, Trump, would pay for the beater-upper’s defense. This is exactly the kind of thing that we saw during the rise of Nazi Germany. Then, when people do whatever they can to put a stop to this type of bullying and Trump sanctioned violence, Trump and his minions argue that they are the offended. Think of a second grader turning to his teacher and whining, “Teacher, Tommy hit me.” 

Thanks to you, the June Fund Drive has come and gone. The Locked Box once again proved that at a time of real turmoil and chaos in this country, a lot of people were able to put their money and their good wishes into a place that would ensure the news and the best in culture and community would face as little interruption as possible. 

WAMC is such a joy to work at. It really is a team. Many people who listen have no real idea of what it’s like to be part of this operation or about some of the behind-the-scenes players. Let me start with the two mainstays of the place, Stacey Perry Rosenberry and Holly Urban. By no means should my writing about these two remarkable women be taken to minimize the incredible work of all the others who work at the station, some of whom, like the editor of this newsletter, Ashleigh Kinsey, I have already written about.

This is a column about moderating Medical Monday on Vox Pop.

The problem is that the people who call in rightly believe they should have more time than I might allow. That’s because the phone lines are all always filled up and you want to give everyone a chance. For example, after a caller makes his or her point and we move on, they may call and tell me that they had more to say. Occasionally they will suggest that their particular political agenda may have influenced the decision to limit their time. Sometimes some of these good folks think that fluoridation is a communist plot or that various diseases are caused by some government action or that the chem trails you see in the sky are really people trying to poison the population. But these accusations are few and far between.

Sometimes programming decisions are mutually exclusive. Take the opera, for instance. 

We know that there are relatively few people who listen to the opera. The big “but” is that those who do listen are passionate about the art form. WAMC has been playing the opera for years. Our philosophy has always been that a great public station will feature programming that may not be readily available and that certainly is the case every Saturday afternoon on WAMC. Imagine you were drawing the audience for opera. The so-called “N” (number) circle would be pretty small compared to the circle representing the audience who listens to news and public affairs on the station. So the question is, should opera take up time during which the majority of listeners would rather be listening to something else? 

Well, the fund drive raised two million dollars. That’s incredible. Two million dollars! We had to buy that tower on top of Mount Greylock once we knew it would be available. If someone else had gotten the tower and we were required to move OUR ANTENNA– even just a few feet – it could have been disastrous. We would have been obligated to reapply to the Federal Communications Commission for our license and we might well have lost our grandfather status on the tower which permits us to reach so many of our listeners.

Every year, I offer my fearless predictions for the coming months. The rules, as always, are simple. Sometimes I really don’t want something to happen so I predict an event in the hope of putting the triple whammy on it in order to prevent it from occurring. Sometimes I do want it to happen so I predict it will, and sometimes I really believe that it will happen. It is always your job to try to figure out which is which.

Dear WAMC friends,

YOU did it. I am truly humbled and amazed and delighted about the success of the Locked Box and the subsequent eighteen-hour fund drive. Shortly after it ended, the newspapers called me up and asked me why things went so fast. I opined that our success could be attributed to the fact that Donald Trump was so abhorred and feared by much of our audience that they needed the radio station like never before. They were happy to put their money behind what they saw as a fearless institution.

I have some very strong beliefs in life. I believe that health care is a right for every American. I just can't fathom why some people think that if you are poor, you and your kids don't have any such right. In fact, universal health care is just one example of something I believe in.