In case you didn’t notice, you recently lost a little bit of your voice in this town.
Public radio station KHNS has decided that you are not so welcome to the public airwaves the station provides access to. Specifically, the station put new limits on radio commentaries open to all citizens.
Commentaries now will be limited to two minutes (reduced from 3 minutes) and citizens will get four opportunities per year to make comment (reduced from 6). Further, the station now may deny a commentary “that has received extensive news coverage or multiple commentaries.”
Each restriction is a step backward for the station, and for the community.
I’m personally involved in this issue.
In April, I approached KHNS about broadcasting a commentary on why I released to reporters four complaints I had received about the Haines Borough Police Department. KHNS news director Emily Files read the commentary and had no problems with it, and she set up equipment so I could record it.
That’s when KHNS general manager Kay Clements stepped in. Clements said the subject of my commentary – the police complaints – had been sufficiently covered by the KHNS news department and for that reason the commentary would not air.
When I pressed Clements, she said the station had received complaints about a listener commentary on mine that was broadcast in January, on why the borough should hire former Juneau city manager Dave Palmer as interim borough manager.
Clements wouldn’t say who had complained. The interim manager hire was contentious. It went to a 3-3 assembly vote ultimately tipped against the Palmer hire by Haines Borough Mayor Jan Hill. Hill referred to my radio commentary at the January assembly meeting, making a derisive remark about it. It was the second time that a radio commentary I wrote preceded a 3-3 assembly tie vote that Hill was forced to break.
(I had also written one in October on why the public should be able to vote on the chosen harbor design.)
In any case, Clements told me that the station was considering eliminating listener commentaries altogether and that the station’s board would, at the least, be revising its policies on commentaries.
Those revisions were made public in July. The reason given for the new limits on commentaries was this: Commentaries take up too much staff time. That’s right. The station that loves to say during its annual fundraiser how much it serves you really doesn’t have time for you to get on the air.
The reason to prohibit commentary on an issue “that has received extensive news coverage” was never fully explained. If an issue is getting a lot of news coverage, there’s likely a lot of interest in it, which is reason to allow more commentaries, not fewer.
KHNS was once a vital source of all news to the community. With the arrival of the Internet, satellite TV and radio, and myriad other new media, KHNS wisely shifted its emphasis to local news and information. This change was evident about three years ago when the station hired its second, full-time reporter after years of covering Haines and Skagway with just one.
So why would the station – which has stated its desire to be a hub of local news and programming – reduce availability for commentaries by residents? Commentaries are rare but when they’re done, everyone talks about them. It’s a move so illogical that a person must ask, “Did someone put political pressure on Clements?”
I asked Clements if Hill had complained about the commentaries and she said no. Did someone else at the borough? Or did someone else from the community who was leverage?
Consider this: KHNS gets free rent from the borough at the Chilkat Center, a donation valued at about $40,000 annually. Further, the station survives on the largesse of the Alaska Legislature for the lion’s share of its funding. Legislative support comes, in part, from community support in the form of lobbying by local officials.
I’d like to think that someone put pressure on Clements to restrict those pesky commentaries that were stirring up trouble for powerful people in our town. I’d rather not believe that the station’s staff has a low regard for the opinions of its listeners, or of their access to the airwaves.
Here’s what you can do: Contact station board members and say you’d like to return to the station’s former policy on commentaries, or better yet, to loosen restrictions. Wouldn’t it be great to hear a listener commentary on the air every day? If KHNS promoted commentaries, we might get many more local voices on the air, and expend and enlighten discussion of local issues.
Directors include Haines-based directors Russ Lyman, Margaret Sebens, Jeff Bochart, Dustin Craney, and Judy Erekson and Skagway residents Dustin Stone, Tekla Helgason and Deb Potter.
Make your voice heard.
Posted 8/24/17