As a KEET volunteer of over 15 years and employee for just under three years, I read your article (“KEET at the Crossroads,” June 20) with interest. I left the station in October of 2012 under circumstances which were both puzzling and sad. I loved my job at KEET. Probably too much for my own good. So what I am about to relate could be characterized as sour grapes.
That said, I am a true believer in the station and in public broadcasting. However, going from volunteer to employee was an eye-opening experience. Senior staff seemed more focused on running out the clock than advancing KEET’s mission. In my opinion, KEET’s leadership almost completely lacked (and lacks) the energy, motivation and insight for the many challenges ahead. Leaders at KEET have adopted a deer-in-the-headlights approach to the onrushing media sea change and financial crunch. With predictable results.
Mr. Schoenherr pegged Corporation for Public Broadcasting support at 46 percent in a February 2011 San Francisco Chronicle article. Perhaps the one-time gift of $200,000 has brought that down to one-third of the annual 2012 budget, the amount he mentions in your article. But this is an event not likely to be repeated and not a basis for a solid financial future. He says a merger is unlikely. He doesn’t say that the station may have very little choice in the matter.
Even more troubling, it seemed very much like the people who cared the most were treated the worst. Many of us joked about “working on the plantation.” That was very much the prevailing attitude of superiors. Staff meetings were rarely held. When they were, the word was often put out beforehand that certain topics were off the table. New ideas were discouraged or given short-shrift. Fundraising goals were never openly stated and presumably never met. With the possible exception of the two most high-profile events, the director of development and the general manager were rarely present at fundraising activities. For such a small station, all hands must be on deck to be effective. This was almost never the case, in my experience.
A callous disregard also extended to station volunteers. Certain long-time volunteers and community members were deemed “unsuitable” and simply never asked back to fundraising events. Others were more directly disrespected and devalued. As a result, it became difficult to recruit them for fundraising activities. This led to the curtailing of the twice-yearly local pledge nights — down from seven to 10 days in the past to as little as three days today. It was decided that it was simply easier (less work) to put up the national fundraising feeds than to find and schedule community members. This was a crucial misstep. The station was simply left to the mercy of government for major support, making the least effort possible to be involved in or relevant to the community it supposedly serves.
The station’s local productions were (and continue to be) among its bright spots. But even these were a challenge to mount as senior staff seemed openly hostile to them. I was told by the station’s engineer that they were “more trouble than they are worth.” In one case, the former outreach director was reprimanded for buying food for the hardworking volunteer crew of North Coast Sessions. Yes, some great local television got made — of which the station can be very proud. But only in spite of itself.
Also plaguing the station was (and is) a singular lack of oversight. I found KEET’s board of directors to be both lazy and inattentive, meeting once a month to swallow wholesale whatever platitudes were served up by senior staff. They set fundraising goals which they did not meet and which once unmet were simply abandoned. The board did not behave like a body charged with making hard decisions. There is no better evidence of its poor stewardship than the mess the station finds itself in now.
Even so, I would urge your readers to continue to support KEET. It is a treasured resource and one that would be sorely missed. However, such support should be made conditional on the replacement of KEET’s tired leadership and the deadwood on its board. KEET needs people who are ready, willing and able to it into the future. Otherwise, it seems unlikely there will be one.
This article appears in Marimba!.
I volunteered at KEET-TV alongside Matt Knight for almost five years. KEET is a great resource to our community and I completely emphasize with him on this. There is a serious disconnection between the board and the people who actually run the station. When Matt Knight left KEET it was truly sad indeed, not only for him but for all of us volunteers. Matt was a true joy to work with and his departure from the station left the atmosphere less then desirable to volunteer in.
I agree it is important that we as a community continue to support KEET, but the board should be reviewed periodically to make sure that the station is caught up with the times.
Certainly it is not just a matter of KEET serving a smaller more rural coverage area. It is also a matter of a lack of innovative effort on the behalf of KEET management. It is simply a fact that times have changed and those changes are NOT favorable to entities like KEET.
On one hand, the digital age is taking its toll on both on air broadcasting and printed media. Who needs a newspaper anymore when nearly 90% of its content is provided for free online? And who needs a TV station when the same is true of broadcast media. A whole lot of it is available online in a much more convenient package (watch anything anytime anywhere on any device). This is the direction that media has to move. For premium or unique content there are always paywalls and people WILL pay for online content which has value and is unavailable anywhere else. In the case of public television, the best of it ends up on Netflix sooner or later and probably on other subscription services as well.
On the other hand the continual advance of corporate control of government is resulting in less and less support for public services like PBS that are deemed to be “inefficient” or “nonessential”. That means less federal support and that situation is only likely to get worse as well.
So both technology and politics form a strong headwind for KEET that they are unlikely to be able to overcome. There are going to be a lot of losers and few winners in this transition, but if anyone wants an example of a winner, look no further than JPR. JPR has done in the public radio realm what KEET needs to do in the public television realm. KEET needs to strongly consider the following: Place an emphasis on DIGITAL. Expand, expand, expand and I mean geographically. I think an outright merger with KXIE is in order although that would be a bitter pill for both entities. If they don’t they are VERY unlikely to be around ten years from now. Combined, they would gain the critical mass to better serve BOTH communities AND many more surrounding communities both on the coast and in the valley and beyond AND become a major regional online content provider. There is no way they can coast through this. They will either have to grow or die. And neither have the resources to survive on their own, let alone grow. Like JPR, they need to be “lean and mean”. They could continue to maintain offices both here and in Redding, but there needs to be one parent company dealing with PBS upstream and with contract issues.
KEET is a huge asset to Humboldt county. KEET management has a huge responsibility. If they don’t get this right and soon, they will not be around anymore. There will very likely be a new PBS outlet in our area, but it will almost certainly be controlled from outside like JPR is. The choice is KEETs. They can walk into the 21st century or the 21st century will walk over them.
We lost Humboldt Creamery because of management failure, we don’t need to suffer another traumatic loss of another non-profit in our community for a similar reason. REMEMBER, Humboldt Creamery is still here, but it is controlled by outsiders. Do we really want this to happen to KEET? With a combination of KEET and KIXE, it wouldn’t have to. That combination would guarantee sufficient local support for PBS guidelines AND at the same time guarantee continued local control, albeit in a regional context. But that is far better than outright control by some distant entity. like JPR. The colaboration effort is a good start, but KEET management really needs to think seriously about taking this further. Much further. In short, they need to have a REALISTIC vision for the future.