KPLU: Stations’ secrecy sabotages stakeholders

KPLU has more than 400,000 listeners. $20 apiece would beat the University of Washington’s offer. Instead of honoring its agreement to inform KPLU ahead of meetings when the station would be discussed, Pacific Lutheran University’s board of regents, for ten months, kept talks secret. They kept their approval of the Letter of Intent to sell secret for weeks while they awaited the UW Regents’ approval of the Letter, so there’d be a binding contract when announced, presumably preventing a community purchase.

UW also was sneaky: as a public institution, it’s required to give public notice of the agenda for its board of regents meetings, but the notice of the meeting about buying KPLU was that the “KUOW License” was on the agenda. Such misnomer violates the spirit of open meetings laws.

Shrouding KPLU’s sale in secrecy, contradicts the principles of public radio. None of the stakeholders (community advisory board, station staff, listeners, donors) were consulted. This deal’s all about KUOW acquiring the KPLU repeaters so KUOW’s news programming will be heard throughout western Washington, while the benefits of an independent news source and the format of news mixed with music is lost to the community.

PLU claims the sale isn’t for financial reasons. Then why secrecy? Why rush?

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 3:01 PM with the headline "KPLU: Stations’ secrecy sabotages stakeholders."