[Peace] Free Speech Radio News is in financial crisis / closure on December 20th without help.

[Karen Medina]

[compiled by Don McClure and Karen Medina]
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Free Speech Radio News is in financial crisis. They face closure on December
20th without help.
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Robert McChesney says: "FSRN is an incredible news organization that
produces more quality per dollar spent than any news medium I know of in the
world. I have been so impressed by the professionalism and quality of FSRN
that I agreed to serve on its board. I dread to think where we would be
without FSRN."

Link to donate:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=20425

>From FSRN's website: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2010:

This is the situation: The majority of FSRN's income comes from the Pacifica
network, and Pacifica has been facing financial difficulties for several
years. For the past 15 months, Pacifica has frequently fallen behind on
their monthly payments to FSRN, but has always caught up when its
Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds arrived. When payments have been
late, FSRN has taken out bridge loans to make do until the next payment.

Unfortunately, this time around Pacifica has not been able to catch up with
its debt to FSRN. It currently owes FSRN about $230,000, but has paid us
only $70,000 of that total. Meanwhile, FSRN has accrued more than $80,000 in
debt to our reporters, staff, creditors, and a bridge loan to keep us
afloat. Pacifica has promised us future funds, but the situation is so
serious that it is not entirely clear how much or when these will arrive, if
ever.

Thus, we cannot in good conscience continue to commission new stories from
our freelance reporters. Neither can we continue to keep the same number of
people on payroll. We are simply not confident we could cover these
liabilities.

So beginning Tuesday, December 7, 2010, we have reduced staffing to a
skeleton crew to keep producing the newscast. This will consist of primarily
2-way interviews, cut-and-copy segments, readers, and content from partner
media organizations like UN Radio, Workers Independent News, the Real News
Network, and others. We will make it the best newscast we can, given the
immensely difficult financial situation we are in.

FSRN will continue to distribute daily newscasts through and including
Monday, December 20th. Beyond that our very existence is in doubt. If, by
Friday, December 17th, we are not able to raise enough money to pay our past
due bills and to fund our scaled back newscast through the end of December,
we will SUSPEND PRODUCTION beginning Tuesday, December 21st.

We need to raise about $40,000 to pay our past due obligations to reporters
and think about continuing our newscast in the new year.

We will continue to deliver a 29-minute daily newscast, but our financial
situation means we cannot presently continue to produce the newscast at our
normal operating costs.
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CLICK HERE TO DONATE AND HELP KEEP FSRN ALIVE! :
https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=20425
*

http://fsrn.org/

An interview with FSRN's General Administrator:
http://fsrn.org/audio/danny-wood-talks-fsrn-administrator-nathan-moore-about-fsrn-funding-crisis/7826
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