More from Salazar on PTC Decline

Yesterday we mentioned a New York Times article on the decline of the Parents Television Council. Today Ars Technica follows up on that NYT report with one of its own, along with comments from former Vice President Patrick Salazar. He was heavily quoted in the NYT articles, but apparently, he is not done talking.

On Tuesday night Salazar emailed Ars expanding on the allegations that he made to the Times.

"I witnessed a number of grotesque fundraising practices that I felt were misleading to the public and in contrast with the PTC's stated mission," Salazar's statement said. "PTC education programs with the stated intent of serving the public were actually hollow fundraising schemes. The organization relied on inflated membership numbers to mislead donors, regulators and legislators all in an effort to increase the PTC's the relevance and cash flow."

Salazar went on to say that the group's claim of having 1.3 million members, is "false by any standard." He claims that he conducted an analysis of the PTC's member database in late 2009. He found that over half of these so-called members had only a single correspondence with the PTC, with most never giving a contribution to the group of any kind.

While the PTC claimed in the NYT article that other nonprofits count their members in similar ways, Salazar begs to differ:

"I have served as a senior manager, board member, or consultant for nonprofit and members associations for more than 20 years. I am not aware of any groups that manage membership in this manner, and I challenge the PTC to identify such groups."

The PTC responded to the Ars Technica article and Salazar's email statement with the following:

"On October 25, the New York Times published an article about the Parents Television Council. As the Times article reported, a former PTC employee demanded cash in exchange for his silence. The PTC told the NY Times back in May that his allegations are littered with patently false statements and misrepresentations of the truth, and his most recent statement continues that pattern. The PTC considers this distraction to be closed, and it will continue to focus on its mission."

You can read the rest of the article here.