KNKX Leader Resigns as the Radio Station Turns to Political Advocacy

 Public radio station KNKX is in trouble.

 Last month, KNKX Director of Content, Matt Martinez resigned.   Online access to the station is plummeting.  KNKX news content has become highly politicized. Racial and identity politics has made deep inroads into the station.  Diversity of viewpoint is being suppressed.  And a new social justice reporter is spreading anti-Israel tweets.

Resignation at the Top

 A month ago, Matt Martinez, Director of Content for the station, resigned abruptly, leaving a highly powerful/responsible position to become a producer at On Being, a non-profit Minneapolis podcast producer.   There was no official announcement of his leaving KNKX.

 Over the past five years, Mr. Martinez has supervised all station content including news, music, on-air production, and web offerings.  During that time, the newly reborn station has suffered steady declines in on-air ratings and online traffic.   But most seriously, Mr. Martinez took the station in a politicized direction rather than provide a venue for diverse viewpoints and ideas.  And the citizens of the region are much worst for it.

KNKX was reborn as a new station in 2016, with the potential to grow and invigorate public discourse.  Instead. its listener and on-line followers have declined and the station has lapsed into identity politics.  KNKX management bears responsibility for this lost opportunity to serve the community. 

Racial profiling at KNKX

 A revealing example of Mr. Martinez’s priorities was found in his interview on Current.Org, where he discussed “uncomfortable truths about race in public radio.”    In that interview, he complained about KNKX’s “very white audience”, “white-led organization”, “mostly white newsroom”, and “all white announcers.”    After lamenting about the racial make-up of the audience and KNKX staff  he noted that he “was shaking while I was saying those words.”  

Replace white with another race and you see how inappropriate his comments were.  Furthermore, they were inconsistent with the truth.

In his interview (you can watch the video at the link above), he admitted that the racial make-up of the KNKX audience almost exactly matched the demographics of the region.  Since he, a self-identified “person of color", was one of the two key leaders of the station, it could hardly be claimed that the station was “white-led.”  Furthermore, the KNKX News Director is also a “person of color” and the Board of Directors has members of all races and backgrounds.   His statements were without a factual basis. 

There is a term for downgrading people of some races and wishing to give preference to individuals of other races.  It is called racism.  

And such attitudes have no place on a public radio station or anywhere else in a democratic society.   Mr. Martinez’s perspectives about race pervade the station’s diversity statement, which states that public radio stations “ have been white-centered and have catered to mostly white audiences, staff, and donors. This has been the case at KNKX and KPLU throughout our history.” 

Not only is this fixation on racial profiling ethically repulsive, but it is particularly inappropriate for KNKX, a long-time jazz station that has featured and fostered multiculturalism for decades.  Disturbingly, the diversity statement includes a sentence of universal guilt ("we have fallen short").  Surely, Joey Cohn, the long-term leader of the radio station, knows better.  His staff deserves kudos, not unfair criticism of their appreciated efforts.

Bias in the newsroom

 But the politicization of the station does not end with inappropriate racial comments and attitudes.   During the last few months, Mr. Martinez hired a social justice reporter, Lilly Ann Fowler, who has an active Twitter account that expresses highly politicized views. Specifically, she has repeatedly retweeted messages critical of Israel, such as:

And there is Ms. Fowler’s history of tweets calling for an end to Israel or criticizing ultra-orthodox Jews.

One might ask whether individuals calling for the end of Israel and making fun of religious Jews should be on the news staff for a major National Public Radio (NPR) station.  

The NPR code of ethics is quite clear: members of NPR news staff should not use social media to express their political opinions.  Doing so undermines the confidence of NPR listeners in the objectivity of NPR as a news source.   The NPR Ethics Handbook states:

“Refrain from advocating for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form. Don't express personal views on a political or other controversial issues that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org”

Rejection of viewpoint diversity and factual information when it contradicts the political narrative

 KNKX, under Mr. Martinez, has skewed politically in its coverage and tone, evincing substantial bias in its journalism.  And part of this trend has been the suppression of viewpoints not popular to those with a far-left perspective. 

My case is a potent one.    Because some misinformed environmental activists did not like the peer-reviewed science expressed on my blog and radio segment, they put pressure on KNKX management to end my weather program.   In response, I was told to refrain from talking about climate change during my radio segment.   KNKX listeners were being denied the best information on climate change because uninformed special interest groups objected.

Then the 350Seattle social justice advocacy group circulated an online petition to get my segment terminated.  Instead of defending good science and diversity of viewpoint, Mr. Martinez agreed to have my science, BOTH in my weather segment and in my blog, reviewed.  And he assigned the responsibility to oversee the review to a long-time member of 350Seattle.   In the end, even the reviewer had to agree that my science was solid.

The message was clear:  KNKX management gave little weight to truth, science, or democratic principles. They were more interested in placating activists and proving their “progressive” credentials.

Mr. Martinez and Station Manager, Joey Cohn, would soon take appeasement of the mob to a new level. On August 5, 2020, I published a blog (Seattle: A City in Fear Can Be Restored) that examined the decline of Seattle and the lack of political leadership. In that blog, I spoke out against political violence and noted similarities to 1930s Germany.  Within hours of the release of that blog, I received a call from Mr. Martinez and Mr. Cohn telling me that my weather segment was terminated.

They also put out a non-factual, hurtful statement on the KNKX website accusing me of “distorted, offensive parallels between protesters and Nazi Brownshirts”.  Diversity of viewpoint was clearly unacceptable to KNKX leadership.   Neither was the truth.  KNKX became the poster child of Cancel Culture.

Canceled

The truth is clear and powerfully supports my blog.  

The violent, black-bloc rioters I described have a political agenda to destabilize democratic society.  Just as the brownshirts had in undermining the Weimar Republic. They have brought Portland to its knees and done immense damage to Seattle.   Recently, a group of these individuals attacked Jews in Seattle (discussed here and here) and during the summer they preferentially targeted Jewish-owned businesses.  The destruction had the implicit support of several members of the Seattle city council, not unlike the brownshirts working with the Nazi party.  

The violent protestors had an agenda very different from the peaceful BLM protestors concerned about police violence and in promoting a more equitable society: the replacement of American society by a socialist/Marxist entity.  KNKX management took a side on this, implicitly supporting the violence.

Diversity of viewpoint is something you will no longer find at KNKX.  Their front page is dominated by social justice stories dealing with identity politics.   Take a look at a representative example below.    KNKX covers few stories on key issues, such as the pandemic, leadership failures, environmental issues, public safety, and the like.  Stories on identity politics are everpresent.  No wonder competitor KUOW has surged ahead of them in virtually every measure of audience interest.

 Interest in KNKX Declines

KNKX is losing online traffic.   As shown by the Google trends website, interest in KNKX has declined greatly during the five-year tenure of Mr. Martinez (see below, click to expand)

Confirmation of the profound loss of web interest is provided by the Amazon Alexa rankings site for the past 90 days, which shows a ranking loss of over 50,000  (see below).   KNKX advertisers must surely be noticing this.

Time to Reform KNKX

With the exit of Mr. Martinez, there is both a need and opportunity for KNKX to remake itself to better serve the community.   Joey Cohn, the General Manager, has particular responsibility for what now happens.

Political bias must be rejected.   Diversity of viewpoint should be respected.   Better programming that allows the community to engage in honest and fact-driven interactions should be fostered (such as panel discussions of important issues and call-in programs).  KNKX leadership must not longer be enthralled by the far-left mob and identity politics.  And yes, hopefully, my weather segment will be re-instated.

Media organizations, such as KNKX, have a special responsibility to maintain the foundations of our democratic society.  Democracy is a vulnerable institution.  It depends on the protection of diversity of viewpoints.  And it depends on factual information being communicated without the obstruction of political bias.

 Each of you can play an important role in transforming KNKX into something better.

First, let the station manager, Joey Cohn, know of your disappointment with the station’s trajectory (jcohn@knkx.org, 1-877-677-5659).  Similarly, Claire Grace (info@knkx.org), the head of the KNKX board.   Their listener support email is info@knkx.org and phone 1-877-677-5659.   

Second, if you are a financial contributor to the station, you might make further donations contingent on reform. 

KNKX can be repaired, but only if listeners and the community take a stand.