WAMU 88.

5 - COMMUNITY COUNCIL MEETING

Minutes
Wednesday, September 9, 2020

WAMU Community Council Members Attending:

Navroz Gandhi, Susan Weiss, Michele Manatt, David Bradley, Avis Thomas-Lester, Peter Tannenwald,
Nakeisha Neal Jones, Raymond Weeden, Heather Voorman, Christy Gavitt, Dave Nemazie, Sojin Kim,
Manuel Ochoa, Alexis Moreno, Dave Nemazie, CC Gachet, Michael Akin and Lucinda Crabtree

WAMU/AU Staff Attending:

Seth Grossman, Dawnita Altieri, Carey Needham, Monna Kashfi, Bryan Colombo, Nichole McCoy, Rachel
Sadon, Monna Kashfi, Carmel Delshad, Kelsey Proud, Jonquilyn Hill, Natalie Delgadillo, Rob Bertrand, Matt
McCormick and Diane Hockenberry

Members of the Public Attending:

Steve Kaffen, Dave Earl, Richard Kaufmann, Laura Gramling, Danette Dani Kauffman, Carly Laywell,
Nadine, Patricia Sulser, Wendy Jordan, Frederick Kamara, Judy Randal, Stella Tarnay, Terri Fritz, Ian Bush

I. Welcome – Navroz Gandhi, Council Chair and Old Business

Navroz Gandhi called the meeting to order at 6:38 p.m. and welcomed everyone. The Chair made a
motion to approve the June 2020 minutes to include the notation that Susan Weiss was nominated to
chair the nominations committee. With no objections, members voted to approve the minutes as
amended. The motion to approve the minutes as amended was passed and the Council moved to the
update portion of the meeting.

II. Council Update – Seth Grossman, VP Vice President of People and External Affairs & Chief
of Staff and Counselor to the President (Interim GM)

Seth described WAMU’s framework for action and the comprehensive plan to address workplace and
culture issues at WAMU. The framework has three key objectives: The first is improving the culture and
climate at WAMU by focusing on advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion work. The second is to
support the teams at WAMU by implementing measures to reduce burnout and to better equip staff to
carry out their jobs and three to create more opportunities for staff input into decision-making. These
objectives are derived from conversations we have had with staff members at all levels of the
organization and to diagnose what we think were the root causes of some of the challenges that we
saw. We developed the framework of action with a number of different components to respond to
these issues. Seth also described the key aspect of the framework which is the creation of a Task Force
on transformation. The Task Force will be responsible for reviewing the culture and making
recommendations on possible changes to the organization to the Leadership Team. The Task Force is
co-chaired by Monna and Dawnita with a third Co-Chair who will be elected by the staff next week. The
Task Force’s charge is to develop a report and make a series of recommendations about their views
about how to improve WAMU’s culture and support the workforce.

We have engaged Justice and Sustainability Associates (JSA), a firm in DC that some of you may know to
help support the work that Monna and Dawnita and the third Co-Chair are doing. The Task Force report
and recommendations will be submitted by February/March.

Other important elements of the framework include implementing diversity, equity, inclusion and
respect training for all members of the WAMU workforce including the leadership team. The diversity
training will start at the end of the month. We're partnering with Seyfarth at Work, an organization that
has supported the training at NPR and other media organizations because we want this training to be
tailored to the experience of the staff at WAMU and the particular issues they face in these areas.

The third component of the framework is to engage an HR consultant with a long record of improving
organizational culture and inclusive workplaces. We have selected Brenda Richardson Malone. Brenda
is a seasoned HR professional and an attorney with over 40 years of experience primarily in the higher
ed and public service sectors. Brenda started a couple of weeks ago and has already been making an
impact. As part of her work Brenda will speak with current and past staff members and partnering with
the Task Force in some of those conversations. Brenda will evaluate the current HR functions at WAMU
and make recommendations if there are additional policies and processes from an HR perspective if
needed at WAMU. We expect to receive recommendations from Brenda on a rolling basis, but plan to
have her complete recommendations also by early February. We have already received some
recommendations from Brenda that we have already started to implement. It’s been really helpful to
have someone with her long experience to provide guidance and advice.

As you know, WAMU is part of the greater AU and AU announced in early July that it had overhauled its
process for handling complaints related to sexual harassment, sexual assault and discrimination. We
have created a new Office of Equity in Title IX which will handle processing these complaints and other
matters related to that. We'll have a new head of that office that will start at the university at the end
of the month. That person will also be engaged with Brenda and the Task Force and the WAMU staff
about those processes, which are obviously critical.

We have adjusted the structure of our Leadership Team meeting which we have every week to include
discussions and presentations directly from staff focused on initiatives that need organization-wide
support or input. One of our first presentations was from the staff leading the social media policy.
Kelsey, Carmel and JQ will join us today to discuss the work they have done with their colleagues and I
think it was a great way to kick off this work. This is just one part of our way to build inclusive decision
making at WAMU and we also committed to completing the social media policy revisions on time.

As part of our commitment to transparency, I'm sending weekly updates that we work on with the
Leadership Team about the progress we've made on the framework. Sometimes the updates will
provide big steps and sometimes the updates will be small. But it's going to be an iterative and accretive
process and we want to be sure we're sharing it and we're also posting those updates on our website. It
is our intention to identify an interim General Manager for this period. We have begun to have
conversations with folks who could serve effectively in that role. Once we have narrowed down the
pool we will then have a process where the few candidates will meet with members of the Leadership
Team, other managers, representatives of the staff, representatives from AU and representatives from
the Community Council and we have talked with Navroz and Susan about how that could take place.
More to come on that. We prioritized getting the elements of the framework off the ground. Because
those are critical and I think February will probably come a lot faster than we expect. We want to have
that foundation for the framework under way and that's what we have done as we have sequenced our
work. But we have been encouraged by the conversations we've had so far. And we've received
recommendations from a wide range of sources, including our colleagues at NPR and other stations. If
anyone here has ideas, we would very much welcome them.

We have developed what we think is a thoughtful plan of addressing the workplace issues, while at the
same time all this work is going on, all of the regular day-to-day work of WAMU continues. And we've
been so impressed that that work has continued, even as team members at all levels of the organization
are dealing with these challenges. So, even though it's only been a month since we made this
announcement or a month and two days, we know we have a very long road ahead of us but I'm at least
encouraged by the progress we've made so far. I'm so grateful to the work that so many people have
done already to contribute to this process. In all different ways and I think there will be much more to
come on that and I think we'll be doing a lot of the really critical work to address some issues that have
been long standing and create a strong foundation for WAMU in the future.

Dave Nemazie asked whether NPR has particular standards or particular assistance, advice, and
recommendations that you can follow and/or working up on the plan and following with that has
therein been any concern with WAMU losing its NPR moniker through the challenges it's recently had?

Seth responded that he had spoken with various representatives of the NPR leadership quite a bit these
days and they have been a tremendous resource to us in providing us guidance and lessons learned
from what they took from their experience in 2017 and from talking to other stations about what they
have taken from their experience. They have just been really helpful partners in the process. I think it
put us in a much stronger position than we would have been otherwise.

Nakeisha Neal Jones asked how can the Community Council ideally contribute to this effort? How is the
university also looking at itself and examining these issues?

Seth responded that there are many roles the Community Council can play. I'll mention a few but I also
don't want to jump ahead of Monna and others' responses but I think one I know -- my sense is the Task
Force under Monna's and Dawnita's leadership intend to engage the Council to get your feedback and
work and impact as we're developing the process in an ongoing and iterative way so I think that's really
important. Two, we intend to include representatives of the Council as part of the General Manager
searches to make sure we have that perspective. And three, I think we have talked about other ways
that we think we can try to build on some of the work that's already happening to figure out how to get
the input especially in ways that members of the Council represent so many different places across the
DMV. There's a lot you'll hear more about it from today's presentations. We also welcome your input
and ideas about ways you think that the Community Council can be engaged. Second, the university,
started a process to assess how it handled complaints, investigations and training and issues around
sexual harassment, other kinds of sexual misconduct including sexual assault and discrimination of all
types. Through that assessment we looked at all of the different ways that the process worked or didn't
work. From that we made a set of recommendations that the President approved. Among them is
totally restructuring how these issues are handled to create a central resource and central offices
responsible for that.
That's the Office of Equity and Title IX that was created and launched in the beginning of July. I don't
want to take up too much time here. But I'm happy to talk more about it. It's just a wholesale revision
of how these things are handled. Cases are handled at the university level and it includes things by
processes and who is responsible for them. Even though as I'm sure many of you know, universities all
over the country, including AU, are facing significant financial challenges given the impacts of COVID.
This is one area that the university has committed very substantial resources to. And so we have this
new office here. That's just a high level we can talk much more about it but there's been a real change
that's been a long time gestating and happened to launch earlier this summer.

The Council moved to the presentation from the Social Media Policy Chairs Committee presentation.

III. Feature Presentations: Discussion about Social Media Policy and The Newsroom

Monna provided background on the social media policy WAMU used previously . WAMU always
followed NPR's social media policy but there wasn’t a dedicated policy at the WAMU. After the events
unfolded this summer, it became clear that it was time to look at codifying our own policy and review
whether it fit the needs of a media organization today. NPR is also in the process of revising their social
media policy as well as their Code of Ethics; however, their process is taking longer than ours. We're
very proud of the fact that we set up a deadline and have stayed on track with it due to the efforts of
Kelsey, Carmel and JQ--our deadline to roll out the policy is September 30th. We are still on track with
this deadline barring unforeseen issues during legal review.

I will let Carmel, Kelsey and JQ tell you about the process and what the inputs have been and just a little
introduction. If some of you haven't worked with them in the past Kelsey is our managing editor of
digital in the WAMU newsroom, Carmel is one of our editors-- you have probably heard her on air many
times as well and Jonquilyn Hill is a producer on 1A currently working with the podcasting team
developing a new podcast called Through the Cracks scheduled to come out next year. I hope to share
more about that at a future meeting.

Kelsey thanked Council members for attending and providing input into their work. She shared the
Social Media group’s process- it was a cross departmental group of staff working on this as well as doing
their day jobs at the same time. They met weekly to accomplish different goals and different tasks
within those time periods. Kelsey said the group is very excited to put forth something that feels like a
good faith concrete step forward. This policy is something the staff can point to with a lot of pride as a
true effort to reflect a more inclusive, more modern, more forward-looking WAMU.

JQ shared that the group started off the process with a staff-wide survey to gauge and get a feel for
what the staff wanted from a new social media policy. Some of the questions asked in the survey:
• Do you know what our social media policy is and where it lives?
• What kind of guidance are they looking for in a social media policy?
• Are they seeking a policy that can be applied to everyone?
The group met weekly and included breakout rooms. They branched off into two sections: staff who
drafted the policy and staff who interviewed experts in the social media field. The experts included
people from NPR, The Washington Post, Poynter, and Apple Podcasts. The group also edited the polthe
policy as a team.

Carmel shared that it was great to learn from other people in the media industry and especially our
partners at NPR. Once the policy is made public you'll see that the policy is meant to be a living,
breathing document that we evaluate regularly. Carmel described how the work began at the
grassroots level from the staff and ultimately everyone at WAMU will be beholden to it. The team looks
forward to the policy being shared at the end of the month. Carmel also shared that she was excited to
work on the social media policy during her four-year tenure at WAMU because the policy will likely live
on probably long past what we expect it to.

Navroz asked a question about a continuous update built into the social media policy? So that as
technology changes, this doesn't get to be a bigger issue than what has transpired in the past.

Kelsey responded that the update process is annually written into the policy, but there are mechanisms
within the policy to make sure that it's reviewed and to ensure that it's tended to, et cetera.

Carmel added that there are also mechanisms to make sure there's a fair review process should
anybody have questions about a particular treatment of someone or if they are being targeted unfairly.
They built in a system for the committee and others to meet. The committee hopes that this continues
to evolve and isn't just a ten-year policy, which is basically what we have from other NPR policies.
Kelsey included that there's also a mechanism built into it that insists that the policy be brought forth
during the onboarding process, so that the staff understand the policy from day one- it will be made
clear to existing staff, as well.

The Council moved to the presentation from the newsroom and DCist.

Newsroom and DCist Presentation

Monna introduced Rachel Sadon, the former editor-in-chief of DCist who is currently serving as WAMU’s
interim news director in the WAMU newsroom. Monna also introduced Natalie Delgadillo, the interim
manager of DCist. The two of them have been instrumental in leading many of the changes under way
within the newsrooms and the coverage both online and on air. The station has expanded its coverage
hours later into the evening and on the weekends bringing us closer to a 24/7 news operation. This new
operation is due to the leadership of Rachel and Natalie and their colleagues, their editor colleagues on
both teams. They came to share some updates on the work that is under way especially as we get ready
to go into a busy fall from a news perspective.

Rachel shared some of the changed made since the beginning of the pandemic. The station has moved
to have a much greater emphasis on DCist.com as our digital platform with an emphasis on the WAMU
brand as our audio brand. We have implemented a breaking news structure and protocol that I think
has really helped clarify roles and expectations across both teams. Kelsey and Carmel both serve as
editors in that initiative and it's helped us manage some of the chaos of daily news, which has been
good. We have expanded to nights and weekends which has been challenging to staff in some ways but
has dramatically expanded our ability to be an essential news resource. The station is able to get
breaking stories out much faster. We have skilled reporters regularly covering evening and the
mornings. Rachel shared information about the Health Hub which is a joint initiative across both staffs
that provides deeper coverage of health and the pandemic more broadly.

Natalie expanded on the discussion of the Health Hub initiative. She and Carmel lead the project as
editors. Carmel handles the audio side of things and Natalie manages the digital editing. The next big
initiative we have coming from the Health Hub is a deep look at how the pandemic has affected the local
opioid epidemic and treatment options for folks in the DC area. Natalie also shared that the DCist team
is also working on protest coverage and coverage of the movement happening locally, more broadly.
They are also working on a series of stories on six months of quarantine: looking back and ahead as we
reach this milestone of being in the pandemic for six months in DC. And they will also cover the
homelessness in mid-October which is something that DCist has done every year.

Rachel added that the team is also working on concentrated elections coverage that is being led by
Martin Austermuhle. She also mentioned the official launch of the local content for NPR's new
afternoon podcast Consider This. WAMU is one of the top ten major markets to participate in this
localization effort. It's the first of its kind in the industry and a true local/national collaboration.

Navroz asked Monna to give everyone a little bit more background as to what this new product is going
to do and what we should expect from it?

Monna responded that it’s by subscription and available on any podcast platform. It is also a
complement to Up First which is NPR's morning newscast so Consider This is the afternoon news pod
cast from NPR --it starts with about ten minutes of national content. The podcast reviews the big news
stories of the day from the All Things Considered team at NPR. It's hosted and led by Audie Cornish then
they hand it off to the local WAMU team or the local team in whatever market you're listening in. And
we provide five minutes of local content on the podcast and then WAMU’s team provides context
behind the headline and why the story mattered.

Task Force Update

Monna gave an update on the task force. As part of the Framework for Action we're convening a Task
Force that will look at assessing and putting forth recommendations for our workplace culture and the
strategic vision of the station. That has divided us into four main buckets at this point in time so looking
at improving our workplace, culture and climate; advancing and resourcing our diversity, equity and
inclusion work; creating clear pathways and tools for staff development and better ways for supporting
our staff; and then finally, drafting a statement of principle for the organization. Dawnita has joined me
as a Co-Chair for the Task Force. And we will have a third Co-Chair that will be elected through a staff
vote next week. We are communicating all of this with the staff and keeping everyone in the loop and
soliciting feedback on all of the work as we move it forward and being supported by a team from JSA
which is a firm that specializes in organizational development and has a lot of experience in workplace
culture reform. And they are helping us build the infrastructure work for this Task Force and doing all of
the data assessment and data collection that the Task Force will use to come up for their
recommendations. The work will be done in three phases the first phase which is under way now and
will be completed in mid-October looks at establishing the Task Force itself. Drafting the charter.
Deliverables, ground rules, deadlines for the deliverables determining what data points are needed so
JSA can go out and collect that data and recruiting the actual Task Force members and making sure that
we stand up the Task Force that is representative of the organization not only from the various
departments but also from tenure and all of the various inputs that we're looking at as far as making
sure we have true diverse representation of all of the experiences of being part of the WAMU
workforce. And in parallel while we're doing this work, JSA has already begun their data collection and
that includes conversations with stakeholders including the Community Council and small group
conversations with various members of staff across all departments and across all teams to get a true
understanding of the concerns and needs of the staff. The second phase, which will take place from mid
October to the end of January will be undertaken by the co-chairs and the entire Task Force with
support from JSA and Brenda our HR consultant who Seth already mentioned earlier. We'll be reviewing
the assessments and data provided by JSA. And basically determining near term and long-term
sustainable goals for achieving the transformation that is needed at the station. And then devolving a
process to connect those goals with broader organizational initiatives. And this is where the strategy
work comes into place. And at the same time in parallel, working on that statement of principle that I
mentioned. So that will bring us to the third phase which takes place from February to the end of
March, when the final report with the recommendations of the Task Force and an implementation plan
for those recommendations is delivered. So that implementation plan will have a roadmap and time
lines for implementing each of the findings and connecting them to the broader strategic goals of the
organization. And standing up an ongoing and monitoring process for that implementation roadmap.
So it's a lot of work. But I think it's work that a lot of us, Dawnita and myself included feel very strongly
about.
Despite all of the budget shortfalls and truly unique challenges that we're facing right now, not only as a
media organization but just as a business, the university has committed a lot of resources to this work
and WAMU is committing a lot of resources to this work. So I'm confident that we will be able to make a
difference with it.

Campaign Update

Bryan Colombo thanked the Council members for their support and gave a campaign update. The fall
membership campaign is starting this Saturday and we have an Open House theme. The fall
membership campaign will go for seven days. With the Open House theme one of the things we're
really excited about is we have 11 new staff members that will be pitching for the very first time-we're
really trying hard to bring some diversity and inclusion in the voices our listeners will hear.
Bryan shared that we are projecting to raise around a million dollars over that seven days. But we are
also focusing on trying to bring people in that are sustainers. The goal is to encourage people to sign up
for a monthly gift and provide a foundation for the work that we do here. Bryan previewed some of the
gifts that will be given away to donors, including:

• Gracie Allen for President mug

• What's up with Washington socks
• live and local houseplant
• engraved water bottle
• trio set of candles from a local DC company
• the mason jar radio

Bryan discussed the trio of three trading cards that feature Jenn White, Kojo and Diane Rehm.

Monna shared that WAMU has decided to bring back Hot Jazz on Saturday night. The program will start
again next Saturday. This was an opportunity to respond to some feedback that we heard from our
listeners since the show went away two years ago and we had an opportunity to change our weekend
program after Live from Here was cancelled.

IV. New Business & Announcements – Navroz Gandhi, Chair

Navroz moved to new business and presented a draft resolution in support of WAMU’s staff. Navroz
requested feedback and edits from Council members.

Michele Manatt offered an edit to the language: “We support the ongoing efforts and look forward to
assessing the progress. To ensure that and continuing on.” The Council voted to approve the resolution
as amended.

Navroz announced that after 50 years, Peter Tannenwald has retired from Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth,
PLC, and the Council. Navroz thanked him for his years of service to WAMU and the Council.

Susan Weiss provided an update on the nominations process and shared that we have received many
nominees so far. She shared the names of the members who have offered to serve on the nominations
committee: Sojin, Nakeisha, Lucinda, Alexis, and Raymond.

The Council and staff engaged in a discussion about ways the Council might be more involved going
forward and how to stay abreast of emerging issues at WAMU. Rachel suggested that feedback
regarding stories and coverage is always appreciated. Navroz asked about the Council’s role in the Task
Force and how the Council might be able to be involved in the future. Seth and Monna responded that
they would get back to the Council in the future on how the Council can work with the Task Force. One
immediate way is that JSA would reach out to some of the Council members to participate in a small
group discussion in the near future to give feedback and recommendations.

V. Public Comments

Several members of the public participated in the Council meeting and asked questions in advance.
Some questions were responded to by staff during the meeting.

• Programs are great however I’ve been noticing more ads and constant requests for donations
on a daily basis, can we have less?
• "Programming and social media aimed at college and high school Students for long-term
Sustainability and growing listening base?
• "-Would you consider creating a local news and events program, possibly after Kojo's show? And
a similar program in the early evening, after Market Place?
• -The website is becoming more substantial with locally-focused stories. Is it possible to have a
separate "Events"" section? There is currently no one place to go in local media to find out
what's going on in town and the region.
• -Would you consider re-running the first hour of 1A in the evening, and both hours of the Friday
news roundup either Friday evening or sometime Saturday?"
• Do you maintain an email list to notify those of us who are actively interested in knowing about
the upcoming council meeting?
 • Could we change it up a bit and add some more of the uplifting stories and bring more hope to
these trying times?

The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m. and was seconded by Susan Weiss.

Dates for Quarterly Meetings:

o 2021: February 10, May 5, September 8, December 1