8th email: From Malatia

date Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 3:04 PM
subject RE: FW: Cancelling my pledge to WBEZ

Dear Jeanne Marie,

You are very patient, and I am grateful.

I should like to simply make some corrections in the basic premises in the e-mail you’ve just sent me.

You should know that no cuts occurred to WBEZ or to Vocalo, or Sound Opinions, or Third Coast Festival, or This American Life, or Chicago Matters, or our other projects in the new fiscal year budget. We did not expand these projects, and we did not take on brand new projects but we did not cut them as you say.

Vocalo’s shortfall was relatively small at $300K; WBEZ’s was relatively large at $900K.

If there WERE to have been cuts, it would have been primarily motivated because of the nearly $900,000 that WBEZ fell short of budget. That’s because absorbing $300K is eaiser than absorbing 900K. Had Vocalo.org resulted in the ONLY CPR shortfall, cuts would have never have even been discussed.

In spite of discussions about cuts, the Board and senior staff decided NOT to institute cuts. No staff was laid off. All staff received a 3% increase. All other expenses for 91.5, and ALL of the CPR projects remained level with—not below— this past fiscal year. I told Michael this, but it also did not appear in print.

All unrestricted grants and donations fund the general operating budget of CPR, and always have. This is true of all non-profits in the Milky Way galaxy, as you know.

Lastly, you deterimine what non-profit you donate to, and there is no other avenue for a donation to reach a non-profit except through you. If you don’t care for Sound Opnions, or This American Life, or Third Coast, or Chicago Matters, or Vocalo, and don’t think CPR should be producing it, or them, and you therefore withold dollars from CPR, then that’s that.

You, Jeanne Marie, are the final word on that, and always have been. We are on the same page with that idea, no question.

Thanks and have a great weekend,

Torey

Torey Malatia

President and General Manager

Chicago Public Radio
WBEZ 91.5 FM, Chicago;
WBEW 89.5 FM, Chesterton;
WBEQ 90.7 FM, Morris;
W217BM, Elgin