Below are excerpts from a letter I wrote to select members of the Seattle City Council last week. My hopes were that it would give them some insight into recent changes at one of the University of Washington's "non-commercial public radio stations," KEXP (formerly KCMU). Combined with other changes that have occurred at the station over the past decade, it clearly shows a continuing pattern of upper management making decisions without the consent of KCMU's rightful owners (e.g. students, faculty, and public), and that the long-term outcome of those decisions will be the transfer of a public asset (KEXP) to private interests.

Although not part of the letter, I believe that the pattern unfolding at our station is not unique to either radio stations or our University but is in fact occurring at public radio stations across the country. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that these very radio stations are the media we depend upon to report news. Their failure to report media-related news, such as changes and decisions that are made within our public institutions, is equivalent to shutting off an alarm system prior to robbing the store.

For KEXP, I feel that all is not lost. There is still time to integrate students, faculty, and the public onto the boards that oversee the station. There is plenty of time to begin the process of review of the station's history through the scrutiny of public records and interviews with those involved in the decision-making process. The point here is not to begin a witch hunt, but to determine why a public asset created to serve the public, without regard to commercial pressures, is no longer doing so, and what are the steps needed to return that asset to its rightful owners.

--Mike McCormick

The Letter to the City Council

Ed note: this letter was written the day before KCMU became KEXP. Media interviews concerning the changes included numerous assurances by KCMU management and representatives of Allen that there would be no changes in programming. KEXP programming--including Mind Over Matters and Eat the Airwaves!--has, in fact, so far remained unchanged.

Hello,

My name is Mike McCormick and I'm the Public Affairs Coordinator at KCMU 90.3 FM Seattle.

This morning (Monday) at 6:00 AM KCMU 90.3 FM Seattle will move off the University of Washington campus (it's been there since 1972), land at 113 Dexter Avenue North, and rename itself KEXP.

What association do you make with the call letters KEXP? Most people I've asked say experience, as in Experience Music Project. But according to the press release, it stands for experimental. It's just a coincidence that the renovated old KZOK studios the station is moving into are being paid for by EMP (besides, wouldn't they have named it KEMP?).

I first heard that we were moving last Thursday afternoon. I was told things were moving really fast and then was given the same info that you could see on the KCMU web link; and I was told that my job was secure. I was told as of midnight that night it would all be official and word would go out the next day via press release and our web page.

I was in shock. The very thing that had been rumored over a year ago, which I'd continually had to repress as finding no supporting evidence beyond hearsay, had happened. Paul Allen and the Experience Music Project were merging with our radio station. To top it off, they were changing the call letters.

About a year ago, it was only a matter of days before KCMU was scheduled to move to The Ave, (big sister KUOW was already moved in and got first dibs on the bed). Then, we heard there was a change of plans. We weren't moving. We were being taken over by the university's C&C Dept. (Computing and Communications). All we heard was they were high tech and going to supply us with cutting edge broadcast equipment and we'd become their radio flagship.

That's when the rumor started. "Paul Allen is buying the station and you guys suck for selling out" became the number one hit on my KCMU voice mail. Being no fan of Paul Allen's (our public affairs is one of the few media venues in town critical of him), that didn't resonate well with me. I called Don Yates, KCMU's Station Manager and my boss, and told him about the messages. He assured me that it was all a rumor and that Paul Allen had absolutely nothing to do with the station's changes. I believed him, but felt uneasy. The rumor was that Paul Allen was buddies with some of the bigwigs running C&C, and it was only a matter of time before we'd be assimilated in Allen's empire.

Time passed--about a year--and we began to forget about a move. Nobody talked about it. So when I got the call this last Thursday that all systems were go, I was blown away. No review process, no public input, no DJ input, no nothing.

For those of you keeping score, that's two-for-two university based public radio stations that have moved off the university campus in less than a year without the consent of the university students or staff, station employees, or local community.

How many of your constituents were consulted before this radio station shell game began?

Two years ago, the ASUW (Associated Students of the Univ. of Washington) created a Task Force to look into the possibility of starting another radio station on campus. (They've felt the two current stations were beyond hope of getting back.) So far, they have faced significant obstacles to achieving that goal. See their web site for details on their efforts. (http://depts.washington.edu/asuwrdio/)

Why can't the students have their stations? Doesn't it seem odd to anyone else that the governing body representing the students of the University of Washington doesn't have access to facilities that were created specifically to train and serve those very students? That these facilities have been relocated, making them physically inaccessible to the citizens who made them possible in the first place? That University students and staff, station employees, and the outlying community were neither served notice nor had any voice in the decision-making process?

We must give these institutions, these tools, back to the people who were meant to wield them. If together we don't act soon to save our airwaves, I promise that very soon our words will be falling on deaf ears.

Sincerely,

--Mike McCormick, KCMU 90.3 FM Public Affairs Coordinator