Liquid Democracy
In addition to having the subscribing KKCR members elect the Board and removing the “Dirty Laundry” censorship policy, I have another modest proposal. Since KKCR now has a self selecting board and the subscribing members have no voting rights (according to the bylaws) perhaps they could ease back into some democratic practices by allowing subscribing members to at least vote for public affairs program hosts. Here is my modest proposal.
During the on-air fundraising season why not allow allow people who want to do public affairs programming (Talk shows) to have 30 minute slots and allow subscribing members to vote for those hosts they think should have a talk show? Subscribing members could vote online as often as they want to and change their votes as often as they want during the fund raising season. A drop dead date for final voting would determines the winners. This is called liquid feedback. Software is free and open source, developed by MIT in Berlin. Current volunteers can volunteer technical assistance to the hopeful talk show hosts (taking callins, running the board etc.) Those elected by the subscribing members are trained in the technical requirements and the shows are rolled out. That way the hosts would be more representative of the community that funds KKCR. Currently their is no democratic process for deciding who gets a program and according to former talk show host Joan Conrow and current host Felicia Cowden talk show hosts become hosts become so through a inheritance process or being asked to do a program.
Officially (according to the KKRC Volunteer Handbook) one becomes a talk show host by contacting the program director. Period. End of story. The process ends there and the program director is the decider using unknown criteria. This is far from democratic and leaves open the question, “do the people selected really represent community diversity and how do we know?”
Liquid feedback approach would also be a boon to fundraising as subscribing members would be more engaged in the process listening to and voting for public affairs programmers they want to hear on-air.
I understand there will be a slew of pettyfogging suggestions and endless discussions on endless details such as how do people vote that do not have a computers, etc will be raised by anti-democratic elements, but most of the answers are available here http://liquidfeedback.org/
Lets put the community back in community radio and end the demagoguery now!
That might have been valid 20 years ago but now no one on the island who has the talent, ability or even the desire to do any kind of public affairs programing (call-in? urgh) would not subject themselves to KKCR's internal squabbling, backbiting and cliquish behavior. I wouldn't. Joan has said she wouldn't. I doubt you would? I banged my head against the wall for 15 years- I'm done.
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