Would Pacifica cut off its nose to save face?

Two posts we saw recently that we liked:

"It's ironic that those who are not  willing run ads on WBAI, are willing to lease it via a PSOA or an LMA, or even to sell WBAI. "

Another one in much the same vein, was attributed to WBAI Producer Mimi Rosenberg:

"Food For Thought & Concern:

Pierre Omidyar to fund new "progressive" media venture (review article provided herein) linking up with Greenwald; certainly another missed opportunity, as are many to possibily pay off rather minuscule debts of WBAI in the scheme of things and seeking some meaningful infusion of dollars to preserve the intent and character of WBAI.

But as usual an incompetent, extremely narrow focused and resourceless management rests content with merely placing WBAI on the "auction block."

Of course to shop investors, seek loans etc., for WBAI there has to be a meaningful plan for its sustainability and in some ways the standard fair for any nonprofit is regular direct mail solicitations, including utilization of digital communication; bringing on board development specialists, with real expertise and drive; and special events fundraisers in conjunction with expansive advertisement campaigns. These haven't been addressed in any meaningful way and consistently, nor has management ever sought to delegate to people with proven competencies and skills fundraising efforts, since they simply don't have the skill set themselves.

Further, we are not making $30,000 a day based upon the endless harangue to solicit those people in the listening audience desperately searching for "health" or the promise of eternal youth. But, even if we were the habitual on-air fund raising doesn't work in the final analysis and destroys the listener base and frankly the credibility, and political and intellectual value of the station. But, rather at this juncture we are in a holding pattern, certainly the producers can or will be dumped at whim as the station is prepared to auction off the station, with perhaps the most superficial RFP I've ever seen and unfortunately even within that venue it may completely devalue its legal obligation of assuring the preservation and carrying out of the mission and as well with its blistering sectarian positions and rank antipathies even disregard an entity that may have the most resources to bring to the bargaining table in conjunction with its obligation to assure the actualization of the mission."


Note, in reference to the above, the following:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/ebay-founders-next-venture-funding-watchdog-journalism/2013/10/16/3e91b33a-3695-11e3-8a0e-4e2cf80831fc_story.html

(AP/Bennet Group) - Pierre Omidyar, the founder and chairman of eBay .

Pierre Omidyar
Born Pierre Morad Omidyar
June 21, 1967 (age 46)
Paris, France
Residence Henderson, Nevada, U.S. [1]
Alma mater Tufts University
Occupation Founder and Chairman, eBay Inc. Founder and CEO of Honolulu Civil Beat
Net worth $8.7 billion (March 2013)[2]
Spouse(s) Pamela Kerr Omidyar

Pierre Morad Omidyar (Persian: پیر مراد امیدیار‎, born June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian American entrepreneur and philanthropist, who is the founder and chairman of the eBay auction site.[3] He became a billionaire at the age of 31 with eBay's 1998 Initial Public Offering (IPO).[2] Omidyar and his wife Pamela are well-known philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004 in order to expand their efforts beyond non-profits to include for-profits and public policy. Since 2010 Omidyar has been invoved in online journalism as head of investigative reporting and public affairs news service Honolulu Civil Beat.[4] Personal life[edit]

Omidyar was born in Paris, France to Iranian immigrant parents who had been sent by his grandparents to attend university there.[5] His mother Elahé Mir-Djalali Omidyar (Persian:Elāhe Mirjalāli Omidyār), who did her doctorate in linguistics at the Sorbonne, is a well-known academic.[6] His father was an Iranian surgeon.[7] The family moved to the US when Omidyar was a child.
Growing up in Washington, D.C., Pierre's interest in computers began at the Potomac School, which started to increase when he was in the 9th grade. He attended St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. He graduated from St. Andrew's in 1984, and in 1988, he graduated with a degree in computer science from Tufts University. Shortly after, Omidyar went to work for Claris, an Apple Computer subsidiary, where he helped write MacDraw. In 1991 he co-founded Ink Development, a pen-based computing startup that was later rebranded as an e-commerce company and renamed eShop.

eBay and later career[edit]
In 1995, at the age of 28, Omidyar began to write the original computer code for an online venue to enable the listing of a direct person-to-person auction for collectible items. He created a simple prototype on his personal web page, and on Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 1995 he launched an online service called Auction Web which would eventually become the auction site eBay.[8]
It was hosted on a site Omidyar had created for information on the ebola virus. The first item sold on the site was a broken laser pointer. Omidyar was astonished that anyone would pay for the device in its broken state, but the buyer assured him he was deliberately collecting broken laser pointers. Similar surprises followed. The business exploded as correspondents began to register trade goods of an unimaginable variety.

Omidyar incorporated the enterprise; the small fee he collected on each sale financed the expansion of the site. The revenue soon outstripped his salary at General Magic, and nine months later Omidyar decided to dedicate his full attention to his new enterprise.
By 1996, when Omidyar signed a licensing deal to offer airline tickets online, the site had hosted 250,000 auctions. In the first month of 1997, it hosted 2 million. By the middle of that year, eBay was hosting nearly 800,000 auctions a day.[8]

In 1997, Pierre Omidyar changed the company's name to eBay and began to advertise the service aggressively. The word "eBay" was made up on the fly by Omidyar when he was told that his first choice for his web site, "echobay", had already been registered. Not wanting to make a second trip to Sacramento, he came up with "eBay". The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade Pez candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book[9] and confirmed by eBay. The service was free at first, but started charging in order to cover internet service provider costs. eBay still charges 10% of sales as a final sale fee.

Jeffrey Skoll joined the company in 1996. In March 1998, Meg Whitman was brought in as president and CEO, and continued to run the company until January 2008, when she announced her retirement. In September 1998, eBay launched a successful public offering, making both Omidyar and Skoll billionaires. As of July 2008, Omidyar's 178 million eBay shares were worth around $4.45 billion.[10] Omidyar is also an investor of Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, California.
In 2010, Omidyar launched online investigative reporting news service Honolulu Civil Beat covering civic affairs in Hawaii. The site has been named Best News Website in Hawaii for three consecutive years.[11] On September 4, 2013, Honolulu Civil Beat started a partnership with The Huffington Post, launching the weblog's latest regional addition, HuffPost Hawaii.

Omidyar Network[edit] Main article: Omidyar Network This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2013)

Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic, social, and political change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $270 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple investment areas, including property rights, government transparency, and social media.

Wealth[edit] According to Forbes, Pierre Omidyar is worth $8.7 billion (US) as of March 2013, making him the 123rd richest person in the world and 42nd richest U.S. resident. He is the richest Iranian and the fifth richest French person.[2]
Awards and honors[edit] Honorary degree, Doctor of Public Service, Tufts University (2011)