For Valley PBS to succeed, Fresno residents must get more involved in its management

As a career advertising practitioner, I’ve produced hundreds of TV spots for clients to air on commercial stations. If a client paid their fees, my role, like that of an attorney, was to present my client’s “case” in the court of public opinion as convincingly and as memorably as possible.

However, as a long-term member of the ValleyPBS Community Advisory Board (CAB), my role has been quite different. Rather than push a single point-of-view, my charge per the CAB bylaws has been to gather diverse thoughts and opinions from viewers and report them objectively to the ValleyPBS Board.

ValleyPBS is currently struggling on a number of fronts. One of the first orders of business must be to revive our Community Advisory Board (CAB) by filling all of its 17 positions with individuals who truly value PBS programming, and who are willing to work to see our region’s only public TV station succeed. As it stands, our CAB has only nine of its 17 positions filled, so there’s room to consider new members from Merced to Kern County.

Once the CAB is at full strength, we must go beyond fulfilling our primary role of serving as the eyes and ears of the station. Our station’s bylaws require a joint nominations committee, including three members from the ValleyPBS Board of Directors and four from the CAB, to identify and qualify prospective members for the governing Board of Directors. This step is essential right now since the ValleyPBS Board of Directors is alarmingly understrength. To date, the station’s governing board has seated only six of its potential 16 voting members, so if we have the best interest of our region at heart, our goal should be to grow and diversify both the community advisory and the governing boards simultaneously.

Regarding KVPT’s CEO controversy: Following the 2014 departure of Paula Castadio, only the station’s second CEO since Colin Dougherty founded the station in 1977, the ValleyPBS governing board has appointed five different CEOs in fewer than seven years. Most recently, the Board of Directors has once again chosen its current CEO without conducting a thorough executive recruitment effort.

To make matters worse, this unstable management phase has been accompanied by an apparent slide of KVPT’s editorial objectivity. It now appears that the station largely serves commercial agribusiness interests with many of its locally produced programs such as “Tapped Out: The History and Battle over Water in California’s San Joaquin Valley” and “American Grown: My Job Depends On Ag.”

Some viewers have noticed that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s declared purpose for ValleyPBS appears to have been compromised. That purpose, as the Communications Act of 1934 clearly states:

“To facilitate the full development of public telecommunications in which programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence, and innovation, which are obtained from diverse sources … with strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”

KVPT’s current shortage of CAB and governing board members demonstrates there is real need for greater community involvement. So if you’re concerned that your PBS station is running the risk of playing partisan politics with its local programming, please act now. Our CAB welcomes more and diverse voices in support of ValleyPBS and its congressionally mandated purpose.

In 2002, I produced a series of four 30 second PSAs on behalf of KVPT. Each spot ended with the tagline, “For 25 Years, Irreplaceable.” That line meant something to viewers on the station’s 25th anniversary, and it means something today in its 44th year.

Much like our Valley’s water, our region can’t afford to waste this once nationally recognized, world-class public television station. ValleyPBS needs your support, now more than ever. Please don’t let it slip away!