Media activists played a key role in the forced exit of WBEZ CEO Torey Malatia

Posted by Scott - July 29, 2013 (entry 704)

former WBEZ CEO Torey MalatiaThe story of Torey Malatia's long overdue firing by the Chicago Public Media trustees was broken first by media critic Robert Feder at his facebook page, and is covered and discussed at Crain's Chicago Buisness and elsewhere as well. It is important to understand two things that are being overlooked in the coverage of Malatia's exit. 1) Media activists played a key role in his removal, and 2) the larger related problem -- the democratic deficits in WBEZ's decision-making process -- remains unaddressed.

The station's "Smiley & West" debacle is but one result of those deficits. Last fall, Torey Malatia’s decisions forced “Smiley & (Cornel) West” onto two local commercial niche stations with a combined average audience one third smaller than WBEZ’s. How should this be interpreted by marginalized groups the station is supposed to serve? Tavis Smiley declared, “(I)t is easier for an African American to be president of the United States than it is to host a primetime radio program on Chicago Public Radio.” In classic Orwellian newspeak, WBEZ claimed it was acting in the interest of "inclusiveness”. This type of thing is old news to WBEZ; Malatia was also in charge back in 2003 when Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting cited WBEZ for having no daytime weekday programs with non-white hosts.

It is important to remember Malatia's main concern that "Smiley & West" had "developed much more of an ‘advocacy’ identity”. On this point he compared “Smiley & West” to the Pacifica radio program “Democracy Now!” -- a daily independent broadcast news and discussion show hosted by Amy Goodman that airs on over a thousand public and community stations - but not on WBEZ. Malatia then also compared “Democracy Now!” to “The Rush Limbaugh Show”, a choice that lead to a sharp public response by the democratically-elected Pacifica radio governing board. Pacifica stated, "It is disappointing when the term advocacy is used as a smear to trivialize the presentation of intelligent and passionate discussion that is sometimes critical of the American status quo."

Over a thousand Chicago media activists gave WBEZ and Malatia a resounding "thumbs down" by calling and writing the station and/or attending an event last November organized in opposition to Chicago Public Media's modus operandi.

In Chicago, as elsewhere, the commons of public media, like public education, are besieged as never before by an epidemic of corporate engineered privatization. Part of that attack is to de-legitimize any role of regular people in shaping the media and education systems that they rely on. The more important question is not who the CEO of WBEZ is but rather who should have ultimate control over Chicago Public Media's decisions: working and poor Chicagoans or the wealthy corporate elite currently pulling the strings?

Background on Malatia's "Smiley & West" debacle here and, via Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Steve Rendall, here.

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