Pacifica Radio Appoints Don Rojas to Lead WBAI 99.5 FM in
New York
November 27, 2002
Contact: danc@pacifica.org
For Immediate Release
NEW YORK (Nov. 27) -- Veteran journalist, activist, and new
media innovator Don Rojas has been named as the new general
manager of Pacifica Radio station WBAI 99.5 FM in New York
City, Pacifica officials announced today.
 The
appointment of Rojas concludes an exhaustive six-month search
process that reviewed some 50 applicants and involved a broad
array of WBAI staff, listeners, community groups, as well
as local and national board members.
”We are delighted to have chosen someone with the depth
of media experience and the international stature of Don Rojas,”
said Dan Coughlin, the executive director of the five-station
Pacifica Radio network. “Don brings to WBAI
and Pacifica an expansive
vision and a proven commitment to the cause of peace, democracy
and justice for all.”
With a distinguished career in journalism and communications
spanning more than 30 years, Rojas’ background covers
stints as the former editor of the New York Amsterdam News,
director of communications of the NAACP,
and founder/CEO of the award-winning Internet portal, The
Black World Today (http://www.tbwt.com),
and its Internet radio network, BlackWorldRadio.com.
”I’m honored and excited to have been selected
to lead WBAI into a new era,” said Rojas. “The
station’s historical role as an independent and uncompromising
voice for peace and justice is even more critical today in
the context of an imminent war in the Middle East, rampant
corporate crime and corruption, rising poverty, assaults on
our civil liberties and major media’s capitulation to
the right-wing’s agenda.”
In the early 1980s, Rojas worked in Grenada as press secretary
to the late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and in the mid 1980s
as an executive at the International Organization of Journalists
in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He has reported from numerous countries
in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean,
has edited four books and has lectured on the history of journalism
and on Third World affairs at several universities.
Rojas, 53, succeeds outgoing WBAI General Manager Valerie
Van Isler, who is joining Pacifica’s national operations
staff. Under her 11-year leadership, WBAI became the largest
and most successful station in Pacifica, posting the first
one million dollar drive in the network’s 53-year history
and winning more than 50 major national programming awards.
Van Isler also led a capital campaign to build WBAI’s
first home in more than 25 years.
Following a recent period of turmoil at WBAI and other Pacifica
stations, a new national board has succeeded in stabilizing
the network, improving its finances, and restoring its progressive
perspective. In 2000 and 2001 listeners and rank-and-file
staff fought against the network¹s board of directors
in an effort to prevent the sale of the stations and restore
the network to its historic peace and social justice mission.
”The entire Pacifica Radio network is back on track
and moving forward with increased momentum,” says Dan
Coughlin. “We’re raising more money thanks to
the tremendous support from our listeners and we’re
setting up structures of internal democracy and full transparency.
I’m confident that under Don Rojas’ leadership
WBAI will grow from strength to strength.”
For his part, Rojas recognizes the challenges and the opportunities
that lie ahead for WBAI. “As a progressive institution
in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, the
station has the potential to become a microcosm of New York’s
rich diversity, both in the quality of its programming and
in the composition of its listeners, staff and volunteers
-- a harmonious multi-cultural radio community that can, indeed,
become a model for the entire country. To realize this potential
will require tolerance, maturity, mutual respect and solidarity
in action from all the members of the WBAI family,”
he said.
Founded in 1949, Pacifica Radio is the nation’s first
listener-supported, community-based radio network. Today it
is the largest progressive media outlet in the United States.
Along with WBAI in New York, it includes KPFA
94.1 FM in Berkeley, KPFK
90.7 FM in Los Angeles, KPFT
90.1 FM in Houston and WPFW
89.3 FM in Washington DC and some 50 affiliates in 27 states.
The network features Democracy
Now!, a daily news magazine hosted by Pacifica’s
award-winning journalist Amy Goodman.
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