"Among Pacifica’s debts are more than $2 million in broadcast fees owed to Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!,” the network’s most popular show. To cover Pacifica’s operating costs, the network has drained most of its accounts, hobbling the organization and raising the doomsday scenario in which it would have to sell WBAI’s broadcast license.
“For the last 10 years working at WBAI has been a nightmare,” said Jose Santiago, the news director for two decades. “I compare it to the nation facing Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Their priority is to stay in power and bash each other in the head, and nothing ever gets done.”
The station has just 14,000 members, who last year contributed $2.5 million, according to a preliminary financial statement from Pacifica.
“Pacifica has fallen below the level of sustainability in the size of its audience,” said John Dinges, a professor at the Columbia Journalism School and a former managing editor at NPR News.
“Democracy Now!” is Pacifica’s largest single creditor. Ms. Reese said that Ms. Goodman had been unwilling to restructure the debt, but Ms. Goodman, speaking last week after raising money on the air for two Pacifica stations, said she wanted to negotiate. “We are committed to the future of Pacifica,” she said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 22, 2013
An article on Wednesday about financial troubles at WBAI, the New York radio station, and its owner, the Pacifica Foundation, referred incorrectly to the foundation’s creditors. The foundation is indebted to the station’s show “Democracy Now,” but not to Amy Goodman, the show’s host and executive producer. The article also referred incorrectly to the reason that Pacifica drained most of its accounts. It was the Pacifica radio network’s operating costs as a whole, not the broadcast fees owed to “Democracy Now.” "
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