Listeners Organize for a New Day at Pacifica, By Vince Ivory, March 2002

Robert Ferrell's Background. In Memory of George Seldes, October 17, 2001

& Research on Marion Barry

Idealism: A Viable Alternative in Today's Media World? By Norman Solomon, September 6, 2001

I want my Democracy Now! by Laura Flanders, August 14, 2001

Pacifica Management's Lies and Misrepresentations, by Lyn Gerry and Edward S. Herman, May 23, 2001

Message From Jeff Cohen of FAIR, March 23, 2001

 

Dr. Gray Brechin  Letter in Response to Mr. Daly Temchine, February 22,2001

 

WBAI: The Coup on Wall St., by Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A., January 29, 2001

 

Programming Meyhem at KPFK, by Vince Ivory

 

The Pacifica Counterrevolution Hits WBAI: Another Call for Action, by Edward Herman

 

Censorship as a Pacifica Management Tool, by Edward Herman

 

Response to the Pacifica Foundation's October 22 Statement on Democracy Now!, by Michael Ratner

 

Endgame at Pacifica, by Edward Herman

 

Saul Landau's Letter on "Pacifica Bashing," by Edward Herman

 

Mike Davis on Landau Petition

 

The Pacifica Struggle in the Nation: Marc Cooper Self-Destructs, by Edward W. Herman

Pacifica: Notes on Managerial Dysfunctionality, by Edward S. Herman

 

An Open Letter to KPFK Staff and Listeners from Dennis Bernstein

 

Where Was/Is KPFK? A Look at the Pacifica Crisis, by Robin Urevich

 

Kellia Ramares: Letter to the L.A. Weekly

 

Blase Bonpane: Letter/Article, August 2, 1999

 

The Pacification of Public Radio NPR, Pacifica, and community radio: crises and prospects, by David Barsamian

 

The Lawsuit Against Pacifica, by David Adelson

 

Journalists Inspire Support for Community Radio, by Norman Soloman

I want my Democracy Now!
by Laura Flanders - WorkingForChange

08.14.01 - Israel invaded Palestine once more last night. Where did I turn this morning for an alternative to the mass media? Amy Goodman's award-winning program, Democracy Now! of course. That's where curious folks have turned for years when they are seeking some relief from the homogenized drivel the establishment media pass off as news.

I read the New York Times version: Israeli tanks "rumble" into a Palestinian-controlled town but "pull out quickly" in what "seemed" to be the strongest assault to date. Then I turned to "Democracy Now!" to hear someone or several people -- who might talk sense, whom I don't see nightly on MSNBC or CNN or FOX.

This fresh persepective might point out, for example, that if the tanks that had violated an internationally-recognized border were Iraqi, rather than Israeli soldiers (who commandeered the headquarters of a foreign city's governor and bulldozed the police station of a foreign state), the United States, would probably be at war, or at least heading up a NATO mission to exact vengeance on behalf of those who'd been invaded and occupied.

Democracy Now! aired voices like those on Monday ... when they were audible. You see, there were a lot of technical problems with the broadcast, because early last week Goodman and her team were ordered out of the main studio at their station -- listener- supported Pacifica station WBAI.

Interim General Manager Utrice Leid exiled them to an inferior substudio. I know the place. It's a wonder Goodman's crew can call across town from there, let alone across the world. Monday's guest -- who was reporting live from Jerusalem -- was barely audible and the program was plagued with ear-piercing feedback. It's no place from which to produce a national show that broadcasts live across the nation. Hell, that studio doesn't even have a working clock.

Who knows whom Goodman interviewed this morning. I couldn't hear the show, and neither could my fellow listeners at more than thirty stations around the USA. Why? Because the people who've hijacked Pacifica -- the people's network, the network I've helped sustain for years with my work, love and, yes, my cash -- refused to air the show.

Since Leid took over WBAI this past December, Goodman's been the target of harassment and abuse from Leid's team in what Leid (on air) has called a "war." Those who've listened in have heard it. Some have seen it for themselves. You can find out more on a slew of websites. But try to call WBAI as I did, and -- forget it -- Leid's voicemessage box is routinely full.

On Friday, Goodman wrote to her Pacifica bosses, informing them that the crisis had escalated to physical violence. Leid apparently shoved Goodman physically and seized her camera when Goodman interrupted people rifling through the personal possessions of fired WBAI Program Director Bernard White.

Having received no response over the weekend from Steve Yasko, her supervisor, on Monday, Amy wrote again. "The Democracy Now! team can no longer produce a program under these hate-filled and unprofessional conditions. We have no safe space at WBAI," she said, and she announced her intention to move elsewhere.

Tuesday, Goodman broadcast from a reliable community media facility that sent her signal, as usual, to WPFW, the Pacifica station that transmits Pacifica national programming to Pacifica's satellite. And someone there in Washington decided not to send out the program. (Instead they ran an "encore" broadcast.)

Goodman's bosses talk about professionalism. It's been the rallying cry for the Pacifica "reformers" for years and in some cases the excuse to purge programming and programmers that certain station managers didn't like. But there's nothing professional about what's going on at Pacifica. The denial this morning of Democracy Now! to a network of community stations that rely on Pacifica to bring them the broadcast -- that's not professional. As Christine Ahern, station manager of affiliate station WJFF in Jeffersonville, N.Y., put it Tuesday morning, "Professional? It's anything but."

Ahern waited as usual for Democracy Now! this morning. Like more than 30 other stations, a few years back, she signed on at some expense with Pacifica's own KU satellite service, so Pacifica controls the flow of their programs to her audience. She heard the out-of-date tape and called WBAI. "Amy didn't call and she didn't come in," Ahern was told.

Leid's voicemail box was full and the machine wasn't taking messages. Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash's machine in Washington was on. Calls to WBAI's direct, on-air line were not answered. By noon, no one had called Ahern back. It's par for the course, she says. "It's abominable how Pacifica treats us affiliates. They're don't return calls, they don't answer letters. They're not responsible." At this point, she says, "The only reason WJFF is an affiliate is to get Democracy Now!"

Pacifica's treatment of Goodman, is indeed abominable. This is no way to treat the host of your most well-known and most acclaimed show. It is no way to treat clients -- those stations who give the Pacifica Foundation precious, pledge-drive donated dollars in exchange for reliable, high quality, programming. They have a right to the programming they pay for, and to communication and respect.

It's also no way to treat us, the listeners, who pay -- or have until now paid -- the vast majority of the network's bills, and have fought, and still fight, to keep alive the nation's only commercial-free, listener-supported network of radio stations. (For a reminder of why this fight's important, read today's Wall St. Journal, on how Religious Right broadcasters are using FCC rules to expand their empire at NPR's expense.)

Juan Gonzalez, who was Goodman's co-host on Democracy Now! until he resigned in protest earlier this year, is asking people who care to pick up the phone. Call the people who have taken control of Pacifica and tell them to stop the threats, slander and physical intimidation of Amy Goodman and to resign. Tell them to step aside and allow for new leadership to begin to rebuild.

Contact information for the Pacifica board is available on many sites including Gonzalez's Pacifica Campaign (Pacificacampaign.org). You can also get updates through WBAI In Exile, KPFA and the Concerned Friends Hotline at 800-825-0055.

Together, as Juan says, we can stop this madness. Pick up the phone. Do it now.

© 2001 WorkingForChange.com URL:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=11741

 The following article is a response to a document authored by "KPFK management" titled "Pacifica Myths and Realities" which has been posted on the websites of KPFK<www.kpfk.org> and The Nation magazine. <www.thenation.com> We encourage you to disseminate this response to anyone who might take an interest in the struggle to save Pacifica. Thanks to all our comrades who gave suggestions and criticism.

Lyn

===============
Pacifica Management's Lies and Misrepresentations:
A Reply to "Pacifica Myths and Realities"

By Lyn Gerry and Edward S. Herman,

May 23, 2001

Mark Schubb and his associates in, or close to, the management of KPFK-LA recently put up a statement entitled "Pacifica Myths and Realities," which was quickly placed on The Nation magazine's website. The statement is remarkable for the crudity of its apologetics for the Pacifica management. In Schubb's account, whereas the thousands of protesters and hundreds of fired employees never have a reasonable complaint or make a valid point, as with Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Soviet apparatchiks in "We Never Make Mistakes," so also Schubb's Pacifica management never makes mistakes.

In his opening paragraphs Schubb chastises the "save Pacifica" forces who "use tactics completely counter to the Pacifica mission." This comes from a man who has aggressively used censorship, among other tactics and policies that are incompatible with the Pacifica tradition, as we describe below. His document is also an apologia for the Pacifica national board majority, that has not only consistently used censorship as an instrument of control, but has also hired union-busting firms to deal with its "labor problems," and has clearly set Pacifica on a path of centralization and mainstreamed content that abandons the Lewis Hill goals of local control and provision of a strong alternative voice.

Schubb's statement is also notable in that, on each point it addresses, it misrepresents reality. Taking his points in order:

1. Schubb: "Myth: There has been a corporate takeover of the Pacifica National board." To which Schubb responds: "Reality. Untrue. Pacifica's board is little different than any other progressive nonprofit. There is no corporate influence or formal corporate presence on the board."

REAL REALITY: There was a Pacifica board coup in 1999, as the board changed the bylaws to make itself completely self-selecting (see also #8 below). The claim that there is no "formal corporate presence" hides behind the word "formal." Businessmen in real estate and accounting, a home-construction industry lobbyist, a financial entrepreneur and a member of a corporate law firm with a specialty in union busting have been brought onto the board by the dominant control group and have been present and active. A New York banker was proposed by the management in 2000 but decided to withdraw because of the controversy.

On the alleged absence of corporate influence, control groups on boards make overall policy, and enforce them not by board orders but through hirelings. Thus a WBAI is overhauled and dissidents are fired by people like Utrice Leid and Bessie Wash who are selected by the dominant members of the board to do the designated work.

On the alleged absence of Pacifica's difference from other non- profits, the Sierra Club's board is elected by members. State ACLU chapters select their boards and national representatives via member elections. Popular/professional organizations like the American Historical Association elect their president and council by member elections. Pacifica's board of directors now selects itself, and it recognizes nobody else as having a formal binding role in governance.

Pacifica's board, unlike other progressive nonprofits, is also being sued by listener-sponsors, by local advisory-board members, and even by five of its own directors, for misconduct. Pacifica has also been the subject of legislative hearings at the municipal, state and federal level initiated at the behest of constituents. Finally, unlike other nonprofits, the Pacifica management has ordered the arrest of its members and donors, many thousands of whom have protested, written letters, and are now boycotting the Pacifica fund drive in order to force its leadership to resign.

2. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica wants to sell off one of its radio stations. Reality: Absolutely untrue.... the Pacifica National Board has passed multiple unanimous motions declaring that no station is for sale."

REAL REALITY: Such motions and votes are meaningless. The dominant board members have a public relations incentive to give such a unanimous vote until they finally make a decision to sell; and they have discussed sale, secretly, and more than once. In 1997, Schubb himself told his Local Advisory Board that although selling stations was once taboo, it could now be openly discussed. And who would be discussing it but the Pacifica management? One such discussion was disclosed only as a result of a misdirected e-mail by board member Micheal Palmer, who proposed the sale of KPFA or WBAI. He was subsequently promoted to chair of the Pacifica Finance Committee and Treasurer of the Foundation.

More to the point, Tomas Moran, one of the five directors suing the Pacifica Board, has tried since 1999 to get the Board to place a no- sale clause into the Pacifica bylaws. The Board majority refused to put forward his amendment.

3. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica wants to water down or mainstream its programming by tilting toward the Democratic Party. Reality: The National Board has no direct authority over programming and has not made any directives or suggestions to any staff about the content of such [sic]."

REAL REALITY: Schubb's statement glides over the well-known fact that board control is not normally exercised by direct intervention, but rather by bringing in managers like Mark Schubb, Garland Ganter, and Utrice Leid who will carry out the desired policies by firing dissidents and putting suitable people in their place. But the statement is also false in asserting that there is "absolutely no interference from program management." Schubb himself was present at a meeting called by the Pacifica management on September 14, 2000, where Schubb and others gave Amy Goodman detailed criticisms of her programming and style in a clear illustration of "interference from program management."

Dissidents believe Pacifica is being mainstreamed for many reasons, and the Democratic Party establishment has played a well-documented role. Schubb's assertion ignores the strong connection of former Pacifica chair and Clinton appointee Mary Frances Berry to the Democrats; it also ignores explicit pressures from above.

For example, in May 1997, the late WBAI Program Director Samori Marksman complained to the WBAI local board of pressure on Democracy Now! from Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott. Scott told Amy Goodman to "go easy" on Clinton and to tone down her coverage of East Timor. Management was disturbed when Goodman interviewed Nader on the floor of the Republican Convention in 2000. Pacifica then claimed falsely that she had brought Nader in under the cover of her press credentials, and used that to deny her press credentials to the Democratic Convention.

4. Schubb: "Myth: KPFA in Berkeley was shut down by Pacifica after programmers were yanked from the air because they criticized Pacifica management. Reality: Not true." [Schubb gives a long version of the patience Pacifica management exercised before calling in the police, all necessary "in defense of its federal license"- - a seriously biased account that recycles an earlier one by Marc Cooper].

REAL REALITY: Schubb's statement that the difficulties began "after KPFA's manager was not renewed by Pacifica" ignores that a popular manager was fired as part of a long series of hostile interventions. Schubb's version is also contradicted by hard evidence: Pacifica ordered equipment to reroute KPFA's transmitter one month before the disruptive events that allegedly caused the takeover and shutdown. Plans for the shutdown had been discussed at the highest levels, as is shown by the misdirected e- mail message from a board member, sent the day before the lockout, which says, "But seriously, I was under the impression there was support in the proper quarters, and a definite majority, for shutting down that unit and re-programming immediately. Has that changed?"

The notion that the takeover was needed to protect the license is also false. In 1954, KPFA broadcast a conversation between four marijuana smokers who could be heard smoking pot in the studio. The California State Attorney General seized the program, yet KPFA did not lose its license. In 1964, the Pacifica Foundation refused to sign a FCC-demanded anti-communist questionnaire without losing any licenses. KPFA went off the air in 1974 for a month due to a staff strike without losing its license. In 1975, the FCC cited WBAI for obscenity. Pacifica management took the case all the way to the Supreme Court and lost without WBAI losing its license. In 1977, disgruntled WBAI staff occupied the station's transmitter and locked themselves in the station for six weeks without WBAI losing its license.

5. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica carried out a 'Xmas Coup' this past December in its New York City station WBAI. Reality: [Schubb states there was a December 23 call by "'dissidents' and some staff" to occupy the studios; "In response," the top management dismissed the manager, installed Utrice Leid, and Leid "requested that the locks be changed at WBAI to thwart the planned takeover..."]

REAL REALITY: The changing of the locks at WBAI was carried out at night on December 22nd by Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash and now-interim general manager Utrice Leid--one day before Schubb's alleged occupation threat. This takeover was planned well in advance during secret negotiations with Leid. (Weeks before Leid was tapped to seize the station, another staffer, who publicly declined due to staff resistance, had been asked by Pacifica management to replace WBAI's general manager, Valerie van Isler.) Despite criticism of van Isler, many in the WBAI community--staff, LAB and listeners--were opposed to her unilateral and sudden removal by Pacifica national the night of the 22nd.

Although Leid announced there would be no program changes, within hours and days of the midnight coup, veteran staffers, paid and unpaid, were fired and banned from the station. Security guards were installed, and access to the station was, and continues to be, restricted. Leid has also banned the Local Advisory Board from meeting on site. Arrests occurred when they tried. A vicious on-air campaign of racist character assassination by Leid and her loyalists continues to this day. False charges of violence against the resistance movement have also been alleged by Leid and Pacifica management.

After a month of open, on-air debate following the take-over, Leid imposed a gag rule which she now uses to censor only her detractors--including U.S. Congressman Major Owens, cut off in mid-sentence. Leid has also fired and banned many of WBAI's most prominent radical, as well as female, voices. To date, over 20 staff members have been purged, while the progressive content of the station has been dramatically reduced. Leid also pre-emptively censored the WBAI Local News recently, preventing coverage of New York City Council investigations into WBAI. This news censorship is the first at WBAI in recent memory, and continues the ugly practice of news censorship around the network in recent years by Pacifica management as it has tried to colonize and reprogram each sister station (see Chronology of Censorship, www.savepacifica.net/strike). As Leid has proclaimed: "WBAI is not to be the station of the left." [April 30, 2001, WBAI staff meeting]

6. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica and KPFK muzzle open on-air discussion with a 'gag rule'. Reality: Not true...no gag rule."

REAL REALITY: Schubb's claim that there is no "gag rule" is based on the contention that the ban on discussion of supposedly "internal issues" on air is standard practice and is therefore not gagging. But there is a double deception here. First, although Schubb justifies his policies on the grounds that programmers are "speaking 'at' the listeners with no rebuttal," his gag rule also applies to discussion initiated by listeners. In a February 28, 1996 memo, he informed station personnel that they would be expelled permanently if they failed to hang up on callers who raised Pacifica issues or even announced community meetings to discuss such issues. Volunteers who answer pledge calls during fundraising have also been told that discussion of Pacifica matters is forbidden in the phone room.

Schubb's gag order extends even to the outside activities of interviewees that displease him. Last October, after participating in a demonstration in support of Democracy Now!, Cliff Tasner, a campaign finance reform analyst, was told that his interview on KPFK was cancelled because of his participation in the protest. In an e-mail exchange with Marc Cooper, Cooper explained to Tasner that "the first rule of politics is that you reward your friends and punish your enemies."

The gag order of course does not extend to defenses of Pacifica's management and denunciations of opponents of that management. Thus on May 22nd, as part of an on-air fund-raiser, Marc Cooper spent some 50 minutes in a diatribe against those boycotting Pacifica and KPFK--"saboteurs," "self-appointed commissars," knuckle-heads," ding-a-lings," all suffering "delusions" as they interfered with "our mission-driven programming." (Cooper should check out Schubb's 1998 advisory to staff to aim their political message at the "center," in order to increase their market share, noted under 9 below.)

Second, the alteration of Pacifica's policies, programming and purposes are not merely internal issues. They are matters that the communities that support Pacifica have a right to be informed of, and discuss. Those at the top of Pacifica have known from the beginning that traditional constituencies would object to Pacifica's new direction, as evidenced by a July 1995 memo from the Pacifica executive committee:

"At the October, 1994 National Board meeting, the Board mandated that the station managers re-configure programming to better serve core listeners in each signal area, to develop more relevant and professional programming and to, thereby, increase the audience. We were mindful that this would unfortunately inconvenience, if not distress, some staff, board and audience members. It will mean that there will be many alterations to current and long-standing practices at the stations...If there are indications that actions are being taken collectively or individually to countermand the policies, directives, and mandates of the Pacifica Board, the Board will take appropriate steps."

7. Schubb. "Myth: Amy Goodman who hosts Democracy Now! is being persecuted for her political ideas. Reality: [Goodman] ...has never been given any directives regarding the content of the program...When a program manager was finally named last year and some efforts were made to address longstanding non-editorial problems at Democracy Now!, some falsely politicized the situation by portraying Ms. Goodman as a victim of ideological discrimination."

She has been removed from the Wake-Up Call program on WBAI, after first being subjected to a hostile co-host who referred to her as a "racist" and a "bitch". Following her removal, other WBAI hosts were told they were barred from having her on their programs as a guest or co-host. Her Democracy Now! offerings have been repeatedly dropped for reasons that would appear to be content related. The program itself, often described as national Pacifica's "flagship", was recently moved, without notice, from WBAI's main studio to a smaller one not properly equipped for the broadcast. KPFK and WBAI phone room personnel have been instructed to tell listeners who are calling to complain about the removal of current Democracy Now! broadcasts during fundraising, that Goodman refused to fund-raise, a lie, and that their requests for the program's return will insure its permanent removal. Goodman said that Pacifica management informed her, "KPFK General Manager Mark Schubb did not want me to fund raise live on the air."

Goodman has filed grievances for harassment and censorship, but no doubt she is confusing politics with the "longstanding non- editorial problems" that Schubb says is all there is to the matter.

8. Schubb. "Myth: Local Advisory Boards are fighting to democratize the Pacifica National Board. Reality: The National Board of Pacifica is no more or less democratic that the average nonprofit board. However, the Local Advisory Board (LAB) is completely self-selecting and not in any way accountable to the individual stations. In the case of KPFK, the current LAB has been hijacked by a small group of anti-Pacifica zealots...the overwhelming majority of KPFK staff have formally demanded that the leadership of the LAB resign..."

REAL REALITY: We pointed out earlier that the Pacifica board is less democratic than that of many other nonprofits, and is completely self-selecting. What is more, it has consolidated its control by illegally removing the rights of the LAB's to elect a majority of the national board (an issue in all three lawsuits in process against the Pacifica management). While ignoring this national board move to self-selection, Schubb has the audacity to castigate the LAB's as "completely self-selecting" and unaccountable, as if this were really bad business! He also ignores the fact that the KPFA LAB already holds subscriber elections, that the KPFK LAB has passed a motion in support of developing an election process, and that the listener law suit specifically calls for the institution of elected LABs.

When people who oppose Schubb take power they "hijack" the institution, whereas the Pacifica management can self-select and be unaccountable without criticism. Needless to say, he fails to show in any way that the LABs, who are "unpaid volunteers" (a phrase he uses to put his Pacifica board allies in a good light), are not trying to democratize Pacifica. His statement that the majority of the KPFK staff oppose the local LAB proves only that Schubb's extensive firings of staff and volunteers who have disagreed with him (more than 150 people have been removed during his tenure) has left KPFK with a staff that will find that Schubb "never makes mistakes."

9. Schubb. "Myth: Pacifica and KPFK have committed various acts of censorship. Reality: This is a lie." [He claims involves only "a handful of incidents in which individual programmers have irresponsibly diverted air time from programming air [sic] their personal grievances..."]

REAL REALITY: Schubb normalizes a gag rule as a reasonable, non-censorship policy. We have noted under #6 (above) that the gag rule has been applied to disciplining outsiders, and does not restrict pro-management commentaries on Pacifica issues. We should also point out that as any believer in free speech and/or opponent of the ongoing mainstreaming of Pacifica will tend to violate the gag rule, it has been a useful vehicle for weeding out both leftists and other merely principled people from KPFK and Pacifica.

But even on his definition of censorship that excludes the gag rule, Schubb misstates the facts. An attempt was made to censor Amy Goodman with Schubb's help in Washington on September 14, 2000, as we have noted, and all the attacks on her, and threats of discipline, have been a form of censorship.

Pacifica News Director Dan Coughlin, whose removal in 1999 for covering a Pacifica story prompted Pacifica News stringers to strike against censorship, reported constant pressures regarding content:

"I was also told by the [Pacifica] executive director to tone down the news coverage. CPB [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] wanted me to tone down the news coverage, to be more "balanced" as they put it. Especially this was at the time of the war against Yugoslavia, and they didn't want to hear ... about 'our boys' dropping bombs and killing babies in Iraq. We don't want to hear about that on our airwaves. We don't want to hear about the police brutality."

Programmers at KPFK have also been given directives about political content: in February 1998, a memo was issued that forbade hosts to encourage listeners to demonstrate against the resumption of bombing in Iraq; a few months later, 30 programmers were briefed by Schubb and instructed to aim their political message to the "center" in the name of increasing audience size. Those attending Schubb's presentation were told that Pacifica was aiming for "balance" and "objectivity." "If you're gonna do a program on Jews, "Schubb reportedly said, "you better include a Nazi."

At a deeper level, the struggle at Pacifica is fundamentally about censorship: about who will be allowed to speak on Pacifica's airwaves, what they will be allowed to say, who will decide this and by what process. The Pacifica that Schubb speaks for is not only censoring directly and on a daily basis, it is imposing a new system that will cause Pacifica, as Utrice Leid says, to no longer be "a station of the left."

10. Schubb. "Myth: The current 'dissident campaign' is aimed at making the programming and management of Pacifica and KPFK more progressive." Reality: [In a nutshell: It was to help the lawsuits and ongoing boycott, which can only hurt Pacifica.]

REAL REALITY: Why those thousands should be spending money and time on lawyers and boycotts is incomprehensible to a man who cannot admit decent intentions on the part of people with whom he disagrees and who are challenging the vested interests he represents. He mentions that the Pacific board serves as "unpaid volunteers," implying decent motives, but the thousands spending time and money to get rid of the controlling Pacifica management bewilders Schubb and must be "irresponsible" like those programmers who insist on talking about Pacifica issues.

In fact, the goal of the protesters is to remove a management at Pacifica that has abandoned the traditional Pacifica aims and attempted to impose a new mission by attacking local control, community participation, worker democracy and freedom of speech and association. An authoritarian hierarchy has been established with no mechanisms of accountability to the communities that have built and sustained Pacifica for over 50 years. Instead, in the words of a Pacifica spokesperson, Pacifica is now to be accountable only to "the IRS, the CPB, [and] the FCC." [San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 3, 1999]

Former Pacifica CEO Pat Scott, a prime mover of the Pacifica takeover, declared at a 1996 "Media and Democracy Congress" that the goal of the reconfiguration was to make Pacifica a "leader of the progressive movement", while she simultaneously advocated corporate-style management. Neither Scott nor Schubb understands that if Pacifica wants to lead a pro-democracy movement, it must embody its aspirations.

11. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica is engaged in 'union busting,' workers are being mistreated, and there is a 'strike' against Pacifica National News (PNN). Reality: ... Some non-union stringers...claim to be 'on strike' against Pacifica and have attacked unionized staff members... But these stringers do not seek union representation, only editorial control over the work of others. This gross misuse of the rhetoric of union struggle..."

REAL REALITY: The list of past and present grievances, unfair labor practice charges and litigation related to wrongful terminations against Pacifica management is too long to list here, but is catalogued at http://www.glib.com/union.html and http://www.radio4all.org/fp/workers.htm

Prior to 1995, Pacifica stations had a union contract that made management financially accountable to workers by allowing them access to the books. The contract also mandated worker approval of any organizational restructuring. Unpaid workers at WBAI and KPFA were included in the bargaining unit.

In 1995, when Pacifica management began to centralize control over programming content as well as finances, it hired a notorious union-busting firm, the American Consulting Group (ACG), to write a new contract that stripped power from workers in order to allow management to clean house of their political opponents. Management also brought a case before the National Labor Relations Board to force the exclusion of unpaid workers from the union. The management lied about its relationship with ACG when it became public, hiring the first of many PR spokespersons to deal with outraged donors. Since then it has employed a variety of attorneys to abridge the rights of workers, including, most recently, Epstein, Becker and Green, the firm of Pacifica Board member John Murdock, whose website boasts of its successes in preventing unions in the workplace.

More than 40 Pacifica News stringers have organized to withdraw their labor to demand an end to censorship throughout the network and the freedom to do critical, accurate reporting about controversies within Pacifica. The strike, the withholding of labor in order to affect social policy, is one of the cornerstones of labor activism and is no way limited to the demand for a contract. Schubb's disparaging reference to the "ideologically-driven" nature of the stringers' demands implies that wages and benefits are the only allowable arenas for worker activism.

Schubb's assertion reveals the goals behind the union busting at Pacifica: the destruction of any countervailing power base that could impact Pacifica policy. As the repeated incidents of political censorship we have documented demonstrate, this struggle is not about ideology versus non-ideology; rather it is about giving a particular group of people the ability to control which ideology is disseminated by this significant media outlet.

Pacifica was founded to stand for certain principles: free discourse on controversial issues, challenging the prejudices and propaganda of the rulers, resisting war, exploitation and empire, and fostering the dignity and creativity of the individual by giving her a voice. The Pacifica control group does not recognize these principles and its course has clearly aimed at their abandonment.

KPFK reporter Robin Urevich, in a 1999 article that led to her banning (and later reinstatement due to community pressure) wrote, "People who came to KPFK because they felt they'd be able to report on issues they were passionate about are mostly gone. Newsroom conversation is less about issues and more about where to find a job at the very radio and television outlets that come under so much criticism on the station's own airwaves. It's proven next to impossible to encourage news and public affairs staff to question authority outside the station while suppressing disagreement inside. The 'world of ideas' that KPFK promises in station promos is an increasingly narrow one. There is little diversity of opinion at 90.7 FM"

REAL REALITY: To get involved in the struggle to return Pacifica to its progressive roots, contact the Pacifica Campaign at www.pacificacampaign.org

For further information:

* <http://www.boycottkpfk.org>
* www.savepacifica.net
* www.radio4all.org/freepacifica
* www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/progpacif.htm
* "The Neutering of Pacifica" Counterpunch, Jan 1999 <http://www.counterpunch.org/pacifica.html>
* "The Smoking Gun" transcript of March 2001 remarks by Dan Coughlin concerning the CPB and Censorship" www.radio4all.org/freepacifica/spin/0325coughlin.html

Message From Jeff Cohen of FAIR
(for LA "Pacifica Crisis" meeting, 3/23/01) (read at the meeting attended by 1,200 KPFK listeners who filled the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles to capacity)

I wish I could be with you at this historic forum. Pacifica's national leadership is increasingly isolated. It is a mark of their isolation that these leaders would not join this public discussion, while their supporters have worked feverishly behind-the-scenes to subvert the event. Meanwhile, the growing movement to transform Pacifica's leadership and establish a more democratic and accountable structure for Pacifica speaks with increasing maturity. FAIR is proud to be a co-sponsor of this forum, and proud to be on record since 1999 calling for Pacifica's national board leadership to step down.

The last few years have seen some of the most gifted broadcasters in the history of Pacifica fired or forced out of their jobs. As the mass firings and bannings have escalated at WBAI, Pacifica's national management still refuses to explain its actions, saying it can't account for all the disappeared staffers out of respect for private "personnel matters." This is no more credible than the leaders of El Salvador saying they can't account for their role in mass killings out of respect for their victims' medical privacy.

To be silent in the face of increasing censorship, harassment and dismissals of so many talented broadcasters at Pacifica -- like Amy Goodman, Bernard White, Sharan Harper, Dan Coughlin, Verna Avery-Brown, Larry Bensky, Nicole Sawaya and Dennis Bernstein -- is akin to being silent during the Hollywood blacklisting. Apologists for Pacifica's unaccountable, self-appointed leadership have urged us to stop "Pacifica-bashing." But we are about "Pacifica-saving," working to preserve Pacifica as free-speech radio, the most important independent broadcasting network in our country's history.

Dr. Gray Brechin  Letter in Response to Mr. Daly Temchine,

February 22, 2001

Mr. Daly Temchine

c/o Epstein Becker & Green
1327 25th Street, NW
Washington, D.C 20037-1156

February 22, 2001

Dear Mr. Temchine:

Thank you for responding to my letter of January 25, 2001 regarding what I believe to be your company's role in the attempted theft of the Pacifica network, as well as for sending John Murdock's revised bylaws for the Pacifica Foundation. Contrary to what you infer, my statements in the initial letter were based upon my reading of the document and not upon "secondary sources consisting of the opinions of others with a stake in a particular conclusion." I have closely observed the disaster within the Pacifica network as it unfolded over the past two years -- a calamity for which Dr. Mary Frances Berry is very largely responsible. Dr. Berry is long overdue for an ethics probe by both the University of Pennsylvania and the professional organizations to which she belongs because of actions which have so signally disgraced the academic profession.

To explain why I have charged your firm with the theft of public property in my previous letter, and why I am NOT misinformed by malevolent third parties about widespread censorship and violations of civil rights which began in earnest under the board presidency of Dr. Berry, let me address at the length it deserves your third paragraph:

"I will confess that it has been sometime since I took a geography course, and therefore lack the background to connect the relevance of media concentration to that subject. Nonetheless, I trust that when you discuss the subject with your students, you will provide them with copies of the enclosed materials in order to maintain integrity and objectivity in your teaching. Certainly, one of the greatest impacts a teacher can have on students is to empower them to think independently."

That is precisely the point. How are my students (or anyone else) to "think independently" when they have virtually no opportunity for exposure to independent and non-corporate news other than their brief tenure at the university?

Geography, as taught at the university level, is not a matter of having the students memorize the names of state capitals and rivers. We study regional differences and interrelations, ethnic variations and accomodations, and above all, the human use and abuse of the earth. Places are, as we academically say, socially constructed, and therefore, if a reporter such as Amy Goodman is told by management that she should not report on unpleasant events in East Timor or Peru, and if she complies, those places effectively cease to exist, as do the cause of those unpleasantries for listeners in the United States. As you no doubt know, that editing of place well serves those who may be responsible for the carnage and who have, through media synergies, some considerable say in what they wish the public to know or to remain ignorant of.

That is what I learned when I worked in both public and private television broadcasting in the 1980s. I watched from within as the management of PBS affiliate KQED increasingly permitted advertising on "listener supported" TV. As it did so, the range of permissable discussion steadily contracted. In the place of provocative prime time discussion of and documentaries about complex and chronic issues so necessary for an informed electorate, KQED now broadcasts "Antique Roadshow," Hollywood "classics," and celebrity features -- along with the full-blown commercials which determine what will NOT be shown. Entertainment replaced education as public televsion was privatized, and public debate was accordingly impoverished.

Needless to say, no democracy can long survive under such conditions, and events of the past election strongly suggest that it may have already ceased to exist in this country. Many teachers today comment on the stupefaction of students who have been long exposed to the narrow bandwidth of discussion available on the monopolized and commercial-saturated media. I returned to the university in 1992 to take my doctorate because, by that time, I was desperate for a place that permitted a degree of free inquiry which had nearly vanished in the debased environment of all-pervasive, all-commercialized mass media.

It is for these reasons that I have dedicated myself to seeing that Pacifica is freed of the corporate cat-burglars whom Dr. Berry installed on the board and who have amply demonstrated their hostility to Pacifica's historical mission by nearly destroying an institution which has been critical to the cultural and intellectual life of this country for more than half a century. Dr. Berry teaches at the very university which was the academic home of my mentor, Lewis Mumford -- a man who combined brilliant synthetic scholarship with outspoken moral suasion. Berry, on the other hand, has boasted of her "take-no-prisoner" management style which has shattered lives, silenced free speech, provoked racial animosity, grossly mismanaged donor funds, and flagrantly and repeatedly violated due process. Before officially leaving the board, she hired your firm to represent herself and other board members -- including John Murdock -- against lawsuits brought by listeners and others, apparently using listener donations to pay for their defense. After so much damage inflicted on others, it is time that Berry undergo the scrutiny of her peers.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gray Brechin
U.C. Berkeley Department of Geography

WBAI: THE COUP ON WALL ST.
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A.
#492 Column Written 1/29/2001
All Rights Reserved

"Information is the raw material for new ideas; if you get misinformation, you get some pretty fu---d-up ideas." -- Eldridge Cleaver, former Minister of Information, Black Panther Party.

With late-night lock changes, and a phalanx of security guards prowling the halls, the coup of WBAI-FM, the flagship station of the Pacifica Network, has begun.

Popular veterans of the listener-supported station, like program manager Bernard White and WBAI union shop steward Sharan Harper, (both producers of the morning "Wake Up Call" show) received letters of termination at their homes several hours before their shifts were to begin. WBAI general manager, Valerie Van Isler, who, like White, was a 20-year vet of the station, was similarly fired by Pacifica, ostensibly for failing to accept a position at network headquarters in Washington, D.C.

While these firings were attempts to remove, and thereby install, management personnel, it was also an opening salvo in a pitched battle designed to silence radical dissent, and open the airwaves to the corporatization of WBAI.

If you want WBAI to become a nice, sweet, safe alternative, like NPR, then do nothing. It will happen. If, however, you want to continue to hear about the struggles of the peoples of the world for liberty, for life, for dignity, as in East Timor; or of the noble life and death struggle of the zapatistas in the mountains of Mexico; or of cases like the slaughter of African immigrant Amadou Diallo; or of the continuing human rights violations occurring every day in the nation's burgeoning prison-industrial complex, then you must fight for it, as you would fight for your very life, or anything dear to you.

The great Frederick Douglass perhaps put it best when he said, "Without struggle there is no progress." If the various communities of New York and northern New Jersey don't struggle for their vision of WBAI-FM, it will be gone. It's as simple as that.

What's happening at 'BAI was attempted a year ago at KPFA-FM in San Francisco. The people of the Bay Area rallied in unprecedented strength--over 10,000 folks at one protest -- and backed the Pacifica board down. Listeners to 'BAI must do no less!

In theory at least, the airwaves belong to the people. For the last 40 years, the staff and local management of WBAI have tried to make that theory in America a reality.

If you are thrilled by the no-holds-barred radio reporting of "Democracy Now's" Amy Goodman, who is constantly threatened and harassed by the Pacifica board for her radical reporting, then fight for her.

For in fighting for her, you fight for the finest traditions of WBAI, and against the corporationists who want to turn a national resource into just another commodity.

To keep it raw; to keep it real, you've got to fight for it.

(c)MAJ 2001

************************************************************************************
This column may be reprinted and/or distributed by electronic means, but only for non-commercial use, and only with the inclusion of the following copyright information:

Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Get Mumia's columns by email: http://www.MumiaBook.com
************************************************************************************
Mumia Abu-Jamal is the author of three books:
Live from Death Row, Death Blossoms, and All Things Censored. A new biography, On A Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal, is available at www.MumiaBook.com
=========================================>

PROGRAMMING MAYHEM AT KPFK

By Vince Ivory

"Due to unresolved issues with the management of KPFK, Folkscene was canceled on Friday October 13th. If you want to see Folkscene back on the air, please express your concerns to KPFK general manager Mark Schubb at (818) 985-2711. If you have any more questions, you can email Folkscene from this web site. For any further updates, please watch this web site."

That web site is: www.folkscene.com, and the "issues" involve the refusal of program producers Roz & Howard Larman to cave in to the harassment, yelling, intimidation and blatant lying of KPFK management. They were informed that "Folkscene" was off the air after 30 years in a fax. People who called into the fund drive during "Folkscene's" usual time (as tape of another program was broadcast), were read a prepared statement that it was hoped that "Folkscene" would return the following week. It didn't. The Larmans have refused to sign the "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement." (For the full text of the agreement, go to: www.pacfolio.org and click documents.)

The "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement" first appeared at KPFK early this year, demanding that all programmers (paid and unpaid) sign over ownership of their programs to KPFK and Pacifica. The legally bogus pretext of the agreement is that plans to webcast KPFK raised copyright issues which could only be resolved by the station owning everything. In a memo dated 3/30/00 and attached to a revised agreement, KPFK General Manager Mark Schubb wrote that as soon as all the programmers signed, the station could begin webcasting. "Please return your signed form right away; we could start streaming as early as next week," Schubb wrote. Nearly seven months later, KPFK is still not webcasting, but "Mike Hodel's Hour 25" is.

This science fiction program, begun by the late Mike Hodel in 1972, left KPFK last September and is now an internet radio program (www.hour25.org). As with "Folkscene," the producer and host of "Hour 25" had refused to sign the "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement." Schubb demanded not only ownership of that program, but credit for producing it. This would have given him the option to fire the volunteer producer and host at any time, and carry on the program with other people. Schubb also argued that the agreement was needed to protect the station from potential lawsuits.

The fact that this program had been broadcast for 28 years without a lawsuit might be enough to dismiss this concern, but the host of "Hour 25" offered to buy insurance which would indemnify KPFK. Schubb refused this offer, and demanded that they sign the agreement. Producer Suzanne Gibson and host Warren James left what used to be called "free speech radio" and took their program to the web. James issued a statement which reads in part:

"We offered to continue to provide KPFK with the show - at no charge - for broadcast over the air along with the rights for non-exclusive webcasting and archiving over the net. However, the station's general manager has told us that he would only broadcast the show if he owned it, but he would not broadcast it if he didn't own it.

"As you can imagine we were not happy with this and think of it as a violation of the relationship between Hour 25 and the station as well as a breaking of faith with the listeners who have supported the show and the station for so many years.

"We did not encourage people to write to the station about this since the station manager had told us that he didn't pay attention to letters, calls or emails from listeners, even listener sponsors."

As some programmers confronted by the "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement" consulted their attorneys, Schubb kept up the pressure. He told programmer A that programmer B had already signed the agreement, when they had not. He told them that the agreement is needed for webcasting, while KPFA has been webcasting for many months with no such agreement. Perhaps it would have been better for Schubb if he'd actually consulted an attorney before going down this road.

When Schubb is not busy trying to seize ownership of home-grown volunteer efforts, he's part of an effort to tone down Democracy Now!, and get rid of host Amy Goodman. In a memo to Pacifica's Board of Directors and Executive Director dated 10/18/00, Goodman describes a 9/14/00 meeting with General Managers from the five Pacifica stations: "KPFK Manager Mark Schubb, expressed his repeated criticism that audiences don't want to hear graphic details of police brutality before breakfast, or as he said last year "before I have my coffee." He criticized our coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal, East Timor and questioned why I asked Spike Lee about his affiliation with Nike." (For the full text of the memo, go to www.radio4all.org/freepacifica)

KPFK's Fall Fund Drive has just concluded, with $465,334 in pledges. KPFK and Pacifica management may point to this as validation of all they do and how they do it, but there is more to the story. An increasing use of non-donated premiums raises questions about the net income of the fund drives, but these data are not available to us. Leftover premiums, many of which are donations secured by volunteer programmers, are sold at KPFK parking lot sales. Accounting for money raised at the parking lot sales is also not available to us.

KPFK's website (www.kpfk.org) claims that there are 11,000 subscribers. If that is accurate, it's almost 3,000 less than it was ten years ago. The inescapable conclusion is that more money is coming from fewer people. Those people probably fit a different demographic profile than subscribers of several years ago, and that's probably not an accident.

One way in which we in Southern California can express our feelings about what's really going on at KPFK and Pacifica is the KPFK Pledge on Hold (www.pacfolio.org). This is not a boycott. Whether or not you currently subscribe to KPFK, you can use this form to state how much you would contribute to the station and list your own conditions under which you will honor that pledge.

We can also attend and participate in KPFK Local Advisory Board meetings. Announcements of upcoming meetings and other information on the Local Advisory Boards of all five Pacifica stations can be found at www.stationadvisoryboards.org.

THE PACIFICA COUNTERREVOLUTION HITS WBAI:
Another Call for Action

Edward S. Herman

One of the most crushing series of blows to the U.S. left, and to democracy in this country, has been the gradual transformation of the five station Pacifica Radio network from locally-based and left-oriented stations into centrally controlled, mainstream institutions. Before 1990, all five stations in the network were locally oriented, locally managed with strong inputs from local audiences and employees, and both highly political and progressive. During the 1990s, however, three of the stations--Houston, Washington and Los Angeles--were pushed into the mainstream by the Pacifica management, with only KPFA in Berkeley and WBAI in New York City remaining as holdovers of the earlier tradition.

On December 26, however, the Washington management seized control of WBAI, removing the long-time manager Valerie Van Isler, firing Program Director Bernard White and producer Sharan Harper without notice, changing the locks on the doors in the middle of the night, and installing a new manager from within the WBAI staff secretly primed for her new job. Only people on an approved list, which did not include Pacifica Foundation board member Leslie Cagan, were admitted to the station on December 27. There has been nothing democratic about any actions of the Pacifica management for many years, and with one of its board members a member of a law firm with a specialty in union-busting, the management has long mastered the art of using every trick in that trade.

It will be recalled that the Pacifica management had tried to remake KPFA in Berkeley several years ago, locking out the employees, firing many, bringing in security forces and strikebreakers, but meeting such resistance, with 10,000 protesters in the streets, and getting such negative publicity that the management had to retreat. The stalemate resulted in a tacit settlement that gave KPFA and WBAI temporary autonomy and led to the appointment of several new representatives of the audiences and stations to the Pacifica board.

But this settlement was only temporary, and the new board members quickly discovered that they were not listened to and were kept outside any decision-making process, sometimes by illegal actions (and two of the dissident board members have an ongoing suit against the board based on these illegalities). That the central management was on the march again, and that a takeover of WBAI might be in the works, was suggested by the sustained attack on Amy Goodman and her Democracy Now! program that escalated this past September and October. Goodman has long been harassed by the Pacifica top management for her lack of sympathy with Clinton and general failure to stick with the approved media agenda. She was brought to Washington in September and told quite clearly that her focus on East Timor, capital punishment, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Lori Berenson (etc.) was excessive. Former board chair Mary Frances Berry called her "troublesome," and said that she had "embarrassed" the network, possibly meaning Berry herself and her friends and colleagues in the Democratic Party. In October Goodman was once again brought to Washington and directly threatened with termination unless she refrained from using volunteers and cleared her programs in advance in Washington (among other demands). She immediately filed a grievance with the union for harassment and censorship.

A problem for the Pacifica elite is that Goodman's show heavily outdraws their regular news programs, and most other Pacifica programs as well. This makes it awkward for them as they claim to be reforming Pacifica in the interest of enlarging audience size, which they have been trying to do by substituting popular music for politics (and softening any politics that remains). But Goodman's show and its successes in drawing audiences suggests that critical politics can be quite popular if done well. That she is regarded negatively by the Pacifica brass reflects political bias and a determination to defang and depoliticize the network in accord with the biases of the top management and their constituency. The constituency of the "old Pacifica" was the local audiences and employees and volunteers; the constituency of the "new Pacifica" of Bessie Wash and Mary Frances Berry is Washington power brokers, officials of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Democratic Party.

Even the New York Times notes that the Pacifica Foundation was initially based on "a lack of corporate control and its dedication to peace," and represented "grass roots, alternative broadcasting" (Jayson Blair, "Pacifica Foundation Locks WBAI Station Manager Out of Office," Dec, 28, 2000). The "new Pacifica" has changed course, and has abandoned both its grass roots base and alternative broadcasting. Its attack on Amy Goodman and the current takeover of WBAI are a part of this de-democratization and political neutering. This process has resulted from the capture of the Pacifica Foundation by a small group of liberal technocrats and Democratic Party-linked officials, who have added to their controlling board membership businesspeople in the real estate, construction, and corporate law fields to support them in their remaking of Pacifica. They have moved Pacifica's headquarters from Berkeley to Washington DC, in keeping with the shift in their constituency from audiences and employees to Washington power brokers.

We are dealing here with a kind of coup d'etat, and a systematic destruction of a major left institution in the wake of that coup. Given the importance of the media in hegemonic processes, and in contesting those processes, what is happening to Pacifica, and now WBAI, should be first order business for the left. This was our only radio network, and it is being destroyed! It is a horrifying fact that a chunk of the left actually signed Saul Landau's letter in 1999 which defended the Pacifica management and urged the left to stop its "Pacifica bashing," with "Pacifica" identified with the management group that was destroying the old Pacifica and picking off left journalists and stations one by one. Some of the signers are people trying, for example, to contest corporate globalization, a subject on which Amy Goodman and the old WBAI would give their contesting position extensive and friendly coverage, but which the emerging "new Pacifica" will ignore or treat perfunctorily. (The "new Pacifica" Washington station WPFW, formerly run by current Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash, has been notoriously uninterested in protests against not only the dominant political party conventions, but those against the World Bank and IMF.) The lack of left solidarity involved in signing the Landau letter is equalled only by the sheer short-sightedness and stupidity of helping destroy a media institution that was a natural ally, if not part of the left itself.

The battle over Pacifica and WBAI is not over. There are mounting protests against the WBAI takeover, and there are at least three legal suits in process against the Pacifica Foundation control group. I would urge people to get into action now. This is important! It was encouraging to see the New York Times finally come up with an article on December 28 putting the WBAI takeover in a negative light for both tactics and implied violation of organizational purpose. This is the time to move into action with letters, phone calls, picketing, and contributions to the funding of legal responses to illegitimate authority. Information on the issues and names and actions under way can be obtained from these key sites:

Hotline:

800-825-0055 to volunteer
718-707-7189 for e-mail and updates

Local WBAI sites:
www.glib.comWBAIunion
www.wbai.netWBAIlisteners

Sites: general info and background:
www.radio4all.org/freepacifica
www.savepacifica.net

CENSORSHIP AS A PACIFICA MANAGEMENT TOOL
By Edward S. Herman

Studying the recent history of Pacifica over the past several weeks, I have been once again impressed with how important a role censorship has played in the tactics and apparent strategy of the Pacifica management. Censorship by the use of gag rules has been used for years now to quiet dissent from management policies--but while it has reduced discussion of Pacifica policies on the air, it has certainly not quelled dissent; on the contrary, it has intensified protest by angering both people who oppose management policies and want them discussed openly as well as those who oppose censorship on principle.

But this failure to quell dissent has been serviceable to the deeper management strategy of weeding out leftists and those unduly wedded to principles like freedom of expression. Such individuals will tend to violate the gag rules or sign petitions and speak out against them, and this can then be used as the basis of firing people--this has been done to dozens of Pacifica workers. Most recently, George Reiter, a professor of physics at the University of Houston, producer of the new program, Thresholds, on Houston's station KPFT, was ousted for participating in a protest supporting Democracy Now! KPFT station chief Garland Ganter, who did the firing, is a favorite of the Pacifica management, who rushed him up to KPFA to handle matters during the KPFA lockout.

It is amazing that this structured violation of principles of freedom of expression has not unduly upset the ACLU or editors of The Nation magazine, and was not viewed as justifying any "management bashing" by the signers of Saul Landau's letter of last year. This despite the fact that, in addition to violating free speech rights, the censorship system was being used systematically to get rid of quality people. Of course it was being done nominally because these folks were violating management orders and rules established for everyone equally. So they were merely "personnel" decisions. But how this could fool anyone who didn't want to be fooled escapes me. The ability to rationalize censorship is also striking--the spirit of the commissar is widespread among those with a bit of power. When PNN News Director Dan Coughlin ran a 20-second report on a boycott of Pacifica by 16 affiliated stations protesting censorhip, he was denounced by Marc Cooper: "What the hell was this doing on a news broadcast?" And Cooper also expressed discomfort at some of the "global conflict reporting by Jeremy Scahill" (who worked for Amy Goodman). Three days after this outburst and Cooper's complaint to the Pacifica management, Dan Coughlin was deposed (and without a hearing). (See Ed Pearl, "Cloak and Dagger! Out of the Mouth of Marc Cooper," Los Angeles Free Press, February 19, 2000 [http://www.radio4all.org/2000/0219cloakdagger.htm]). And just a few days ago, Cliff Tasner, a member of the board of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action, was called on the phone by Cooper after he had participated in a rally and protest for Goodman and Democracy Now!, and was told, after considerable vituperation, "Don't expect us to broadcast anything you do."

Several days later Tasner found that he had indeed been barred from access to the station. As chair of the ADA's campaign finance reform committee and a spokesperson for ADA on a phony campaign finance reform measure on the California ballot, he had been planning a presentation on that proposition on KPFK's morning show. While discussing the arrangements with the show's producer, however, he was told that he could not expect them to put him on after his involvement in the protest. In the event, another speaker was found to discuss the measure. In an e-mail exchange with Marc Cooper, Cooper had explained to Tasner that the first rule of politics is that you reward your friends and punish your enemies, adding further that actions have consequences and that Tasner should be aware of that when he makes his choices. In short, the gag rule and censorship extends beyond Pacifica personnel to anybody who crosses the local Pacifica commissars.

In the "new Pacifica" tradition, Amy Goodman is being set up for ouster as a "personnel" decision based on her failure to follow orders. But the censorship element is overwhelmingly strong. Cooper didn't like that "global conflict reporting" by Scahill--but read Amy Goodman for Scahill--Mary Frances Berry referred to her in public as "troublesome," and the Censorship Management clearly wants to drive her out or fire her for reasons of hostility to her content. But they can't admit that--the censorship has to be transformed into her being troublesome and failing to obey supposedly reasonable orders by her boss Steve Yasko.

One of the most amusing rationalizations for her harassment and censorship can be read in KPFK station manager Mark Schubb's recent letter to Saul Landau answering Amy Goodman's grievance list (and my article on "Endgame at Pacifica?"). Schubb was one of the management enforcers at the September 14 meeting with Goodman in Washington, where she was told to shape up on content as well as style. In his letter to Landau, Schubb pretends that when he and Yasko were telling Amy to cool it on some of her favorite issues like Lori Berenson and East Timor, this was just friendly advice among colleagues trying to be helpful and collegial! This is staggering misrepresentation. Yasko had shown intense hostility to Goodman, encroaching on her autonomy as a programmer, threatening her and shouting at her that she must recognize who is boss.

Schubb also has long been highly critical of Goodman, and it is likely that he continues to run Democracy Now! on KPFK, not because of any appreciation of its quality, but rather because of its high ratings. So the meeting of September 14 was coercive, threatening, tense, and in no sense whatever collegial. It therefore constituted a clear further case of attempted censorship, although it was probably recognized that Amy could only be effectively censored by termination or driving her out by harassment and the imposition of onerous work conditions. Schubb was one of the prime censors at that meeting, as he has been for years as manager of KPFK. (For example, he ousted award-winning reporter Robin Urevich from the station in response to her August 1999 article on internal issues at KPFK, published in a local activist newspaper [http://www.radio4all.org/fp/0824robin_urevich.htm]).

The coercive and censoring meeting of September 14 was followed one month later by another call to a meeting that, instead of being the expected one of discussion looking toward compromise, was arranged by the management only to serve Amy Goodman with a harsh letter of instructions and threat of termination. The commissars in Washington and at the Washington-allied stations are on the attack. Defending Pacifica, and recovering it from the censors, will depend on the effective organization and mobilization of the resources of the progressive community that created and supported Pacifica for the past fifty years.

Law Office of Michael Ratner 124 Washington Place
New York, New York 10014
mratner@igc.org

Response to the Pacifica Foundation's October 22 Statement on Democracy Now! by Michael Ratner

I am an attorney assisting Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman in her dispute with certain of her supervisors at the Pacifica Foundation. I was present during her October 16 AFTRA-sponsored conciliation meeting with senior Pacifica representatives. I was dismayed to see posted on the Pacifica Radio website a statement impugning the integrity and professional reputation of Amy Goodman. I was surprised that a news organization would publicly claim that the host of its most important program had "distorted and mischaracterized" the nature of the current dispute. As her attorney, I feel compelled to set the record straight.

Amy Goodman Attempted To Settle These Matters by Discussion and Negotiation; Management Responded By Threatening Termination.

Contrary to the claim in the web site posting, Amy has tried to resolve matters through constructive dialogue. She has repeatedly advised senior management -- through proper channels -- about the issues at Democracy Now and has requested meetings in a bid to resolve the problems. So have National Magazine Editor Dan Coughlin and Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez. But senior managers have been non-responsive. AFTRA, Amy's union, set up a conciliation meeting with senior Pacifica managers. Although Amy had prepared a union grievance detailing the harassment she had endured for almost two months, she was persuaded to hold off its filing pending this meeting. The meeting was for the purpose of opening a dialog with management; a meeting that AFTRA characterized as looking to the future and not at what had already occurred. Amy went to that meeting fully prepared to engage in constructive discussion. However, immediately after the meeting began, in fact the first act of management, was to hand across the table a memo to Amy setting forth a series of new work rules with a threat of termination for non-compliance. At that point AFTRA felt there was no point in going on with the meeting and ended it. Only then did Amy file her grievance and send a letter to the Executive Director and the Board.

Amy Goodman's October 18th Memo to The Executive Director and The Board Was Neither Leaked by Her Nor Posted On the Internet Prior To Its Receipt By Management and the Board.

Pacifica executives claim that it was necessary to publicly respond to Amy Goodman's allegations because the October 18th memo was "intentionally" made public and posted on the Internet "by an ally of Ms. Goodman...even before it was sent to those listed as intended recipients." Amy had nothing to do with making her memo public; she sent it only to the Executive Director and the Board. It is untrue to state that the memo appeared on the Internet prior to its receipt by the Executive Director or the Board. It could not have; it was only sent to them. Pacifica is using this false claim as an excuse for violating its claimed policy against discussing such issues publicly. Pacifica board members ought to be concerned about the precedent-setting nature of their public response and the implications it has for the network.

Amy Goodman Has Been Subjected to A Campaign of Harassment and Abuse.

In dealing with Amy, new National Program Director Steve Yasko shouts and uses abusive language; he routinely issues what he calls "orders" and "commands," and uses threats of discipline on a regular basis. The outbursts and threats have been witnessed by a number of by-standers. Democracy Now! staff, including National Magazine Editor Dan Coughlin, have repeatedly complained about the abusive conduct, which is an egregious violation of basic professional standards and Pacifica policy. It not only has had a deleterious affect on the Democracy Now! staff, it has created an intimidating, hostile and offensive work environment. But senior managers have been non-responsive to repeated calls for intervention. As noted journalist, author and Democracy Now! co- host Juan Gonzalez wrote in a letter to Steve Yasko recently, "I have never seen anything approaching the level of petty, destructive and unprofessional behavior that I saw exhibited toward the Democracy Now! staff."

The September 14th Meeting With Managers and the New Requirement that Amy Goodman Inform Management of Her Shows a Week in Advance Must Be Seen For What They Are: Attempts at Censorship of Democracy Now!.

Pacifica does not dispute the content of what occurred at the September 14th meeting of the Administrative Council. There, several senior Pacifica managers bitterly attacked Democracy Now! for its coverage of police brutality, Mumia Abu-Jamal, East Timor and Lori Berenson. Such criticisms by powerful individuals in Pacifica have a chilling effect on the unfettered programming that characterizes Democracy Now!. Pacifica officials have sought to interfere with the editorial process at Democracy Now! in other ways. Steve Yasko's first act as National Program Director, even before introducing himself, was to fire off a nasty e-mail to Amy castigating her personally (not the Democracy Now! production staff) for running speeches of Gore Vidal and Lani Guinier. He wrongly claimed that Amy had damaged relationships with "national and local production partners" by airing the tape and then threatened her with disciplinary action. Now, Steve Yasko is making the demand, never made in the four prior years of the program, that Amy determine the topics of at least three shows during the preceding a week. In the context of the criticisms directed at Democracy Now! and the numerous other new restrictions imposed which give management more control over the show, this advance notice requirement is a pretext for censorship.

Pacifica Has Changed The Terms Under Which Producers for Democracy Now! Are Chosen.

For more than four years Amy Goodman and Pacifica Management have collaborated and mutually agreed on the hiring of producers for the one hour program. However, recently, not only has a producer been forced on the program, but management claims that Amy's participation is no longer necessary. Permitting Amy Goodman to interview and comment upon proposed producers is not equivalent to the mutual agreement that has been the consistent past practice. This is no small matter. The producers are the heart of the program; it is they who must have knowledge of the various grassroots and activist movements in the U.S. and throughout the world. They must have this knowledge and a shared vision with Amy and the Democracy Now! staff; it is they who work closely together, book the guests and develop the format for Democracy Now!. Pacifica's hiring of producers with a different vision may well change the nature of Democracy Now!. This is censorship by another name.

AFTRA, which is Amy Goodman's Union, Has Not Objected to the Use of Volunteers On Democracy Now!, Nor Does Such Use Violate the AFTRA Contract.

In the memo handed to Amy Goodman at the October 16th AFTRA conciliation meeting, Amy Goodman was told that she could not use volunteers to assist with Democracy Now! Pacifica claims that such use violates the AFTRA contract. This is simply not true. Volunteers are permitted as long as they do not replace AFTRA jobs and AFTRA workers. For 51 years volunteers have been a Pacifica tradition and have not been a contract issue. What is really going on is that management does not choose the volunteers and therefore cannot dictate their politics. Prohibiting volunteers and dispensing with Amy Goodman's participation in the hiring of producers allows management more control over the content of Democracy Now!.

Neither Amy Goodman nor Democracy Now! Provided Ralph Nader With A Floor Pass to the Republican Convention; This Was Merely a Pretext, and a False One, For Denying Democracy Now! Credentials to the Democratic Convention.

Ralph Nader did go to convention floor at the Republican Convention, but this was not facilitated by the use of press credentials of either Amy Goodman or Democracy Now! employees. Ralph Nader entered the convention at the invitation of MSNBC. Democracy Now! arranged an interview with him in the hallways of the convention. He was soon surrounded by numerous journalists and he walked onto the floor without the necessary floor pass and without being stopped by security. Pacifica knows this, but continues to repeat a story that does not comport with the facts. However, even though the story was untrue Pacifica used it to forbid Democracy Now! staff from receiving press credentials to the Democratic Convention. Again, the story regarding the claimed misuse of the press pass was a pretext to keep Democracy Now! out of the Democratic Convention.

The October 16th Memo to Amy Goodman Was Not Limited to Obtaining Approval Only For Pacifica Related Speaking Activities During Work Time; It Required Approval of All Speaking Engagements Without Limitation.

Management's reply to Amy Goodman states that the October 16th memo only required her to obtain approval for Pacifica related speaking activities during work time. This is simply false. That memo says: "you are not to accept any speaking engagements without first informing the Foundation and obtaining approval." It does not contain any limitation and would require Amy to obtain approval for all speaking engagements, Pacifica related or not, and at all times and places. If Pacifica is now limiting what they wrote to Amy in the October 16th memo, then they ought to say so officially and say so to Amy. Even were the requirement of approval of speeches modified, this should be seen for what it is; it is not about workload and insuring efficient operations at Pacifica. Amy had been doing a very fine job in producing Pacifica's most listened to program for the last five years. Like the other restrictions suddenly invoked against Amy Goodman, it is about censorship and getting prior approval over what -- and to whom -- she will be speaking.

Pacifica Has Treated Democracy Now! And Amy Goodman Different Than Other National Programming Staff.

Contrary to the claims in Pacifica's web site posting, the fact is that Amy has been singled out for special treatment. I certainly hope that other employees have not been subject to the harassment, the yelling and screaming, that has been directed at Amy. I doubt that the head of Pacifica Network News must inform management of the topics to be covered the week before the news is broadcast. And I doubt that those employees must get all of their speaking engagements approved whether on Pacifica time or not. In fact, the demand that Amy clear all speaking engagements with Pacifica in advance is a blatant violation of Pacifica policy and practice. The Pacifica Employee Handbook specifically permits employees to speak publicly without prior approval. And Pacifica has consistently permitted employees to attend public events. To be sure, the Handbook encourages employees to, "of course publicly express whatever opinion they wish as long as it is clear (especially if the employee is well known) that the opinion is separate and distinct from Pacifica." Simply put, this arbitrary rule is another crude attempt at censoring.

The Board Must Take Immediate Action To Remedy The Situation.

I have responded to the Pacifica statement more or less point by point, but it must be emphasized that the various new strictures placed on Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!, the harassment, and the criticisms of the program by management lead me to believe that Pacifica wants to make it impossible for Amy to continue as host. Contrary to assertions by Pacifica these new requirements are not only personnel matters; they are a strong indication that management wants the direction of Democracy Now! changed. The Board needs to and must take immediate action. If it is truly interested in supporting Amy and Democracy Now! it must remove Pacifica's public attack on Amy from its web site-and remove it immediately! It must insure that Amy's working conditions and those of the Democracy Now! staff will allow Democracy Now! to continue to flourish.

ENDGAME AT PACIFICA?

THE WASHINGTON MANAGEMENT TARGETS AMY
GOODMAN
(With a Call to Action)

Edward S. Herman

Nothing could better illustrate the serious--indeed, desperate-- state of the Pacifica crisis than the fact that the Washington managers are now aggressively targeting Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now!, censoring her, issuing instructions on what she can and cannot do, imposing onerous work conditions, and threatening discipline and possible job termination. She was given a written reprimand for bringing Ralph Nader on to the floor of the Republican convention, and outgoing Pacifica board chair Mary Frances Berry said that the "troublesome" Goodman had "embarrassed" the network (possibly meaning Berry herself, as she is a political appointee of the Democrats). Based on this incident Democracy Now!'s press credentials were withheld for the Democratic convention. WBAI arranged for special coverage of Fidel Castro's recent speech at the Riverside Church in New York, including the lining up of well qualified hosts at the event, but after the Pacifica management's attempted last minute imposition of its own host was rejected by WBAI, the management refused to allow this exceptional program to be broadcast nationally, and it was heard only in New York. This incident undoubtedly heightened the Washington management's determination to bring all of its recalcitrant underlings under closer control. Goodman was not permitted to hire a new producer for Democracy Now! when her former one left; instead, the Pacifica management imposed on her an individual whose most recent job was with Radio Free Asia. She has even been denied the right to use volunteers on her program--she should understand that she is an employee with a boss whose rules she must obey!

Culminating these attacks, Goodman was brought to Washington for a meeting with the top brass on September 14, where she was taken to task and given warnings by Steve Yasko, the new Pacifica National Program Director, and Mark Schubb, manager of KPFK in Los Angeles. (Yasko was recruited from NPR, where he specialized in marketing, not programming; but he deems himself qualified to intervene in all aspects of Democracy Now!'s operations. Schubb, a close ally of Marc Cooper, is notorious for having banned or fired dozens of people for violating gag rules on discussing the Pacifica situation, reserving this right to himself and Cooper. Both have long been noted for hostility to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!)

Speaking as representatives of Bessie Wash, the Executive Director of Pacifica, these individuals raised questions about the content of her programming, suggested that her style was too confrontational and harsh, as well as being too intellectually demanding, and indicated that Washington expected her to spend less time on Democracy Now! and more on supplying pieces for Pacifica Network News (PNN). On content, she was accused of focusing excessively on East Timor, police brutality, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Lori Berenson (as cited cases in point). She was threatened with disciplinary action if she did not produce the demanded new material and adjust style and content. As Goodman works extremely hard to put up a daily full hour show, in the context of the clearly political objections to her programming, she was obviously being set up for demotion and ouster as a "personnel" decision.

These actions and threats forced Goodman to consider filing a grievance suit against Yasko and Pacifica for harassment and censorship. However, at the urging of representatives of the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (AFTRA), she was persuaded to return to Washington on October 16 to meet with the management in an effort to find some basis of compromise and conciliation. But to their dismay, instead of a meeting to exchange views and reach an understanding, Goodman, her adviser, and two AFTRA representatives were met with a management lawyer and Yasko, who handed Goodman a letter with a list of demands and threats of discipline and termination. (One of the demands, that she refrain from using volunteers, was allegedly based on volunteer use violating the AFTRA contract, a claim that the AFTRA representative immediately declared to be entirely without substance. Another demand was that three Democracy Now! programs each week be prepared in advance, which denies its character as a news program, is onerous, and is clearly designed to allow censorship [in the management lingo, "editorial control"].) The meeting was immediately terminated, and the AFTRA representatives agreed on the spot to go ahead with a grievance claim against Yasko for harassment and Pacifica's management for censorship. (Goodman's October 18 letter to the Pacifica Executive Director and board, describing these events and protesting the harassment and censorship, was released by the Institute for Public Accuracy on October 19.)

A problem for the Pacifica elite is that Goodman's show heavily outdraws the regular PNN broadcasts and most other Pacifica programs as well. This makes it awkward for them as they claim to be "reforming" Pacifica in the interest of enlarging audience size, which they have been doing by substituting popular music for politics (and softening any politics that remain). Thus the admonitions given Goodman by Yasko and Schubb, that listeners want a lighter touch and don't want to hear about police brutality before breakfast, are fraudulent--the audiences listen, and the sharp drop in listenership that FOLLOWS Democracy Now! reflects their own programmatic failure. But the reactionary quality of these criticisms of Goodman is also displayed in other ways: one top officer asked what Lori Berenson was doing in Peru anyway, asserting that she herself had quickly turned off the radio! Several questioned Goodman's program celebrating the anniversary of East Timor's independence vote of August 30, 1999, a pioneering effort using East Timorese and other on-the-scene participants, and applauded by BBC. But for the management, as Clinton, Albright, and the New York Times were not making a fuss over this anniversary why should Amy Goodman? Her news initiatives are perceived by the management as "activism," which means failing to follow the official agenda.

What motivates and drives this management elite? One key is that this group, which acquired control in a quiet coup during the 1990s, has no community roots or constituency whatsoever, and it regards Pacifica employees as simply hired hands, not stakeholders and parts of a genuine community. The old Pacifica had roots in the Bay area, and the move of the Pacifica offices from Berkeley to Washington, D.C. reflected an important reality. The new Pacifica-- the controlling management--gravitated to a new constituency of power brokers in the nation's political capital. Numerous employees past and present have told me that the management elite has its closest links to the officers of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and National Public Radio (NPR), with whom they hobnob, exchange views, and depend for ideas and material and moral support. I have been told repeatedly and given numerous illustrations showing that the Pacifica top brass has been trying for years to force a toning down of political messages, to make them more palatable to important people in Washington like CPB funders. (CPB President and CEO, Robert Coonrod, who has been closely involved with the Pacifica management for some years, spent most of his working life in the U.S. foreign service and with U.S. propaganda agencies, the Voice of America and United States Information Agency. CPB Vice President Richard Madden has regularly intervened in Pacifica affairs, to criticize its news coverage-- most recently, WBAI's reporting of The Right to Return Rally held by Palestinians in Washington, D.C.--and to support and advise the management in its efforts to "NPR-ize" the network.)

The second and closely related key is political connections and stakes. Berry has clear links, and the Pacifica management has long had ties, to the Democratic Party. Pat Scott was urging Amy Goodman to ease up on the Democrats years ago, and in a tough election year there are intensified pressures to get on board and not act as spoilers. So political conformity, staying within the mainstream, is demanded of the underlings. The managers are part of an elite and mainstream culture, far distant from the traditional Pacifica audiences and employees. It has never occurred to this group that audiences might be enlarged by more programs like Democracy Now! rather than depoliticization, mainstreaming, and popular music. For them the left is the enemy, and they have been fighting it for years.

One route by which the management has gotten rid of a series of quality dissidents and leftists has been to establish gag rules or other conditions that they cannot in principle accept, and then fire them for insubordination (e.g., Larry Bensky). In the ongoing Goodman case, dissident Pacifica board member Tomas Moran asked Yasko and Schubb on what authority and policy basis they were instructing Goodman on program content, but they said that he would have to talk with Bessie Wash about that as they were working on her instructions. When Moran asked the question of Wash, she said that this was just a matter of "personnel" policy, and on policy issues she referred him to David Acosta as acting head of the board. Acosta told Moran that this was not for him to consider as he wouldn't want to interfere with day-to-day management by Bessie Wash!

That was all Moran could get out of the management and controlling members of the board. This effort to control content is now a long-standing operational mechanism of the control group. Elevating Bessie Wash to manage Pacifica was logical in that the station she had headed, Washington's WPFW, was tops among the Pacifica stations for censorship, and several present and past associates of Wash tell me that "she doesn't have a left [or "progressive"] bone in her body." (A list of 12 incidents of censorship at WPFW during 1999 was issued by the Institute for Public Accuracy on February 28, 2000.) The Washington station's hostility to Goodman and Democracy Now! is so intense that WPFW currently follows that program with a station disclaimer of responsibility for its content. Its manager, Lew Hankins, explained the station's failure to cover the Green Party convention to his local advisory board on the grounds that "it wasn't interesting." And he announced beforehand that at the Republican and Democratic conventions his station wouldn't cover the demonstrations unless "they" decide this would be interesting. He refused to respond to the question of who "they" were.

So Amy Goodman, a distinguished professional with several decades of experience, winner of the Polk and other awards in journalism, with a huge and intensely loyal audience, is now being instructed by marketing executives and other unqualified bosses on what subjects she can and cannot deal with. One would think that even the liberals who signed up with Saul Landau in his petition against bashing "Pacifica" (by which Landau meant the Pacifica management) would be a bit queasy at this combination of centralizing control and blatant censorship, but we haven't heard a peep from them as yet.

The evasiveness and lack of accountability that Tomas Moran confronted in trying to locate the policy basis for content censorship is equally apparent in the governance process at Pacifica. The manipulation of rules, the stacking of the board with people who will agree with the control group, the failure to disclose and discuss board nominations and policy issues, and the literal dishonesty of the leadership, will match anything to be found in the private sector. And the situation is in important respects worse--and even less democratic--than in the private sector. A small clique led by Berry selects board members without the slightest accountability to employees, audiences, or anybody. (In recent years these nominees have tended to be entrepreneurs and other businessmen who can advise on accounting, finance, legal defenses, and the buying and selling of real estate and other assets, including station licenses. Board Treasurer Micheal Palmer is a real-estate broker with CBRichard Ellis in Houston. The most recent nominees to the board, whose nominations were deferred until the upcoming meeting, were Francisco Rocciolo, a Citibank specialist in international investments, and Luis Wilmot, a consultant who works for a group committed to telecommunications deregulation in Texas.) In a private corporation at least the stockholders can vote and have a potential power to constrain and elect directors, and many of them have nominating committees of outside directors.

When Tomas Moran first got on the board in October 1999, he was put on the Governance and Structure Committee which, among other functions, nominates new board members. Several months later, after he had demonstrated that he was going to be a dissident rather than a yes-man, he found out that the Governance Committee had met and selected three new board nominees, but had failed to invite him to the meeting. When he challenged this, Mary Berry stated that he was mistaken--that he had never been put on the Governance Committee. When he produced a transcript of the October meeting showing his name on that Committee, and making it clear that Berry was lying, he was told that Berry had "reassigned" him out of the Committee in May. But he was still unable to get an explanation for his exclusion from the Committee meeting that occurred prior to the unilateral (and probably illegal) reassignment, nor was he able to challenge the nominations made behind his back.

At the meeting at which Moran was excluded, John Murdock, a corporate lawyer with the firm Epstein Becker & Green, was one of three new board nominations put through by Berry and company. Murdock's firm advertises on its website that one of its consulting specialties is helping in "maintaining a union-free workplace." The ongoing packing of the board with members hostile to Pacifica's mission and to broadly-based control of the foundation dates back some years. At the first Pacifica board meeting over which Berry presided in 1997, the board was threatened with legal action if it followed through on a clumsily executed plan to reduce local board control over national board composition from two-thirds to one- third on the then 15 seat board. This proposal was withdrawn and instead the board granted itself the right to elect an additional four at-large members, the maximum then allowed. A clique comprising the at-large (Pacifica board-selected) members and some local board-elected members have been in charge ever since, and have been able to maintain complete control via an Executive Committee that has made all the decisions.

Among the many charges leveled at the board in three of the impending law suits against Pacifica is that Berry improperly appointed members to the Executive Committee rather than allowing elections by the full board to determine that committee's composition, and further that the Executive Committee has exercised powers well beyond those granted it in foundation bylaws or articles of incorporation. In February 1999, the board removed the last vestiges of accountability to local station communities when it voted itself the right to elect its entire membership. The half dozen dissidents on the board, several brought in to quiet turmoil or splinter station oppositions, have not been consulted in advance on nominations, major policy actions, or Pacifica strategies; they are essentially observers, although with a right to vote. This voting right has been a small bother in that some matters require a two-thirds board vote, as in the case of changing the bylaws. This has been dealt with by abuse of Executive Committee authority and simply bypassing the bylaws, as noted, but also by removing the voting rights of dissident board members. Board members Rabbi Aaron Kriegel and Rob Robinson have filed suits against Berry and the Executive Committee for bylaw violations, including failure to disclose essential information on Pacifica matters. Berry therefore declared that, having consulted her legal counsel, the two dissidents forfeited their rights to participate in Pacifica affairs. No discussion or debate--just the authoritarian pronouncement from above. Meanwhile, at the most recent Pacifica board meeting, it was proposed that the bylaws be rewritten by John Murdock, of the union-hostile firm Epstein Becker & Green, for consideration at the February meeting of the board.

Although Berry's term as chair expired in September, she has presided over at least one emergency meeting of the board since then. At that meeting the board decided to form parallel alternative local advisory boards, given the fact that they were getting near unanimous condemnation and resistance from those coming from the local communities. In fact, in July 1999, 18 members of local advisory boards from four of the five Pacifica cities filed suit against the management for illegally changing the bylaws, misusing listener funds, and improper conduct. As a further illustration of manipulation of the rules, when Tomas Moran submitted for board consideration a "No Sale Amendment" to the bylaws that would pledge Pacifica not to sell any Pacifica station, although he met all the conditions in the bylaws for offering an amendment, the Governance Committee simply refused to put it before the board for a vote. The chairman "explained" that the Committee had chosen a different amendment to submit, although the bylaws nowhere allow this selection and refusal process. These are not the only cases of rules doctoring and selective notification of committee meetings that Moran has encountered (see Tomas Moran, "A View from the Board," KPFA Folio, July 2000).

Because the management is completely out of touch with both the Pacifica audiences and employees, their mainstreaming, censorship, and left-cleansing operations have elicited a steady stream of actions, protests, and legal suits. In consequence, the leadership has run up very large legal and "security" expenses, with board members as well as listener and employee groups sueing the management for unauthorized expenditures of funds as well as non-disclosure and violation of other rules of governance and charter responsibilities. Recently, adding to its employment of union-busting and regular legal counsel, the management has hired the expensive PR firm Levisk Strategic Communications, which brags that "Our clients aggressively leverage media to attract business, increase market share, and raise profits." In part perhaps to obscure such expenses and the "consulting" fees of Chadwick, et al, Pacifica has begun taking control of finances and financial accounting away from the local stations and centralizing them in Washington.

So the left has been under attack by the ruling management for five or more years, and just as the corporate establishment's attack on the welfare state started with welfare mothers and only belatedly reached Social Security, so with Pacifica it was quite a while before fortress Amy Goodman could be targeted. Her ouster would have precipitated very serious repercussions from below, so best to pick off her allies and in-house supporters one by one. That the management has become more aggressive in attacking her, seemingly willing now to accept her "voluntary" exit under pressure or firing her, shows that their determination to control content in all the stations and NPR-ize the network has moved to a new and more threatening phase.

But this new level of attack also shows that the management is willing to scrap the Pacifica system altogether, as her departure is still likely to produce a very strong response from the "real" Pacifica (audiences and employees). The real Pacifica has already been stifled at the Washington, Houston and Los Angeles stations. The next phase would be to sell off the licenses of WBAI and KPFA and use the proceeds to buy other stations in what would be a fully converted music and vaguely NPR-type network. The management has been considering license sale for some years; it has been talking with interested parties and those advising sale as a viable option (Microsoft, Public Radio International, and CPB), and the controlling board membership now includes a fair number of individuals in business who do not have the slightest commitment to the Pacifica dissident and alternative tradition. The management is ready and willing to complete the dismantlement of a progressive network.

In the earlier exchange I had with Saul Landau, and in John Dinges's article on the Pacifica crisis in The Nation (May 1, 2000), both authors mentioned Amy Goodman's and Democracy Now!'s continued presence as showing the management's acceptance of a leftist and left news program. Neither of these writers had asked Goodman about her experiences and views on the Pacifica management--and even at that time she was quite forthright with anybody deigning to ask about the harassment and hostility she suffered in her work. I thought this failure was poor and biased journalism by Dinges and disingenuous on Saul Landau's part. Both also ignored the dynamics of a deliberate political mainstreaming process, which in this case has involved picking off leftists one by one, coopting a few by giving them a privileged position--at least temporarily--and not attacking the strongest and best entrenched leftists until the ground was prepared.

And now that Amy Goodman is under direct attack, the silence of Landau, Dinges, and the Landau statement signers at the Institute for Policy Studies and The Nation is striking. It is also tragic, as some of the signers are leftists genuinely interested in pursuing a progressive agenda. They seem unconcerned with the fact that only the traditional Pacifica, under relentless management attack, was really sympathetic to the left and could be counted on to give their positions full coverage and a positive thrust. They will not get this at the New York Times, nor at NPR, nor under the new Pacifica being constructed by Bessie Wash, Steve Yasko and their associates on the Pacifica board and at the CPB. So based on an old boy left network, and possibly ignorance, the opponents of "Pacifica bashing" help sink a media institution that was their natural ally and would be important for their own effectiveness.

One of the most important lessons I have learned as a media analyst is that the left needs a left media for its messages to be given a fair shake and to be disseminated with any force. And without a left media any left politics, and the ability to build and maintain a grass roots political base, operates at a huge disadvantage (see Manufacturing Consent, pp. 15-16). When will the left learn this lesson and be willing to act on it?

A CALL TO ACTION NOW

Well, a great many people on the left, without ties to the Pacifica management or the old boy network, do understand what is at stake, as has been demonstrated by the resistance of the past five years or more. But we are at a critical juncture. The management is on the attack once again and a really vigorous response is now quite important. There must be an escalated challenge to its illegitimate authority. The controlling management group that has abandoned both Pacifica's progressive mission and the communities long and well served by the Pacifica stations, and which is at war with the employees as well, has no moral right to rule and no legal right either. It is urgent that they be ousted, that a democratic governance structure be installed, and that communities and employees have a dominant voice in the management of this network. The management must be prevented from pushing out Amy Goodman and selling off station licenses. It is time to act, and all those who care should do something. Let me list some of the possible avenues of constructive action, recognizing that this list is hardly exhaustive and that supporters of a democratic Pacifica must develop a program of resistance and action by further discussion and exchanges:

-----Educate yourself on the crisis:
ZNet's Pacifica Crisis Coverage: http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/progpacif.htm
ZNet Top Page: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
an important information website is www.savepacifica.net
Other important sites are: http://www.radio4all.org/freepacifica/
http://home.pon.net/wildrose/remove.htm
New York area: http://www.wbai.net/
http://www.glib.com/union.html
http://www.wbaifree.org/
Los Angeles area: http://www.pacfolio.org/
Washington, D.C. area: http://www.freewpfw.org/
and http://www.stationadvisoryboards.org (currently under construction) -----

Join, organize and work with listener groups, which already exist in New York City, Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Such groups are needed in Washington and Houston. For NYC, contact Eileen Sutton: efsutton@earthlink.net.
For Los Angeles contact the Frespeech Coalition, freespeechcoal@mindspring.com

------Individuals and listener groups in each city in which Pacifica stations operate must start to put serious pressure on the board members and managements that have abandoned them by a barrage of letters, e-mail messages, visits, and picketing at homes and work places. Yasco, Wash, and acting board chairman David Acosta should be bombarded with expressions of outrage at the attacks on Goodman. They should be urged to resign forthwith and get themselves into the more congenial commercial media--or NPR! Protests should extend to board members in other locales who have lined up with the Pacifica management in its regressive actions. A list of board members is appended, with a double asterisk indicating that the member is a supporter of the Berry-Wash management group.

-----Send e-mail messages of support to the six board members, Bramson, Moran, Cagan, Lyons, Robinson, and Kriegel, who are excluded from power at present but who represent the real Pacifica. (See appended board list.) Urge them to protest the anti-Goodman actions and to step up their own opposition to the management's illegitimate authority.

-----A national campaign must be begun to oppose the management with coordinated local protests and legal actions.

-----Support the lawsuit to remove the Pacific board: Committee to Remove the Pacifica Board: 1136 Wild Rose Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95401. Donations to the Committee's legal fund are welcome http://home.pon.net/wildrose/remove.htm

-----If you listen to Democracy Now! on a Pacifica affiliate, write to your station and urge them to state publicly that they will cancel their contract with Pacifica if Amy Goodman is removed or if Pacifica's censorship of Democracy Now! is not terminated

-----If a Pacifica subscriber, tell your station that you will no longer contribute until Yasko, Wash, Schubb and any others involved in political censorship of programming are fired or resign

-----Speak to others in organizations you belong to and ask them to pass resolutions condemning political censorship at Pacifica

-----Support the PNN strike, get their views on their web page: www.savepacifica.net, and listen to the strikers Free Speech Radio News, now carried on 38 stations on Fridays. Friends of Free Speech Radio has underwritten much of the political activity opposing the takeover of Pacifica, and they have supported the anti-censorship strike of long-time reporters for the Pacific News Service. Friends of Free Speech Radio have also contributed generously to the law suit brought by members of Local Advisory Boards, and they have helped pay for national ads on the strike. They have produced concerts and organized street protests, along with other supportive activities. Send them contributions--if you want it to go to the striking journalists, mark it "Stringers Strike" on your donation. Friends of Free Speech Radio, 905 Parker Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

LIST OF CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS OF PACIFICA:

David Acosta, Chair
102 S. Lockwood Houston Tx. 77011-3124
phone: (713) 926-4604 e-mail: cpadga@aol.com

Andrea Cisco, Secretary
2390 Champlain Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20009
Phone: (toll free) 888-770-4944 e-mail: acdarius@aol.com

Ken Ford, Vice Chair
11303 Sherrington Ct. Largo, Md 20774-2317
Phone: (202) 822-0228 (works at National Assoc. of Home Builders)

Wendell L. Johns
5117 Warren Place, NW Washington, D.C. 20016
phone: (202) 752-8193 e-mail: wendell_i_johns@fanniemae.com
(works at Fannie Mae)

Frank Millspaugh
32 King Street New York,. NY 10014
phone: (212) 741-0839 e-mail: fmillspa@aol.com (works at WBAI!!)

Bob Farrell
c/o Los Angeles Sentinel 3800 S. Crenshaw, PO Box 11456 Los Angeles, CA 90008
phone: (323) 299-3800 x255 e-mail:rfarrell@kamber.com

Bertram Lee
800 25th Street NW Washington,D.C. 20037-2207
phone: (202) 965-6224 (sports magnate, investor in broadcast stations)

John M. Murdock
Epstein Becker & Green 1227 25th Street NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20037
phone: (202) 861-0900 e-mail:jmurdock@ebglaw.com

Micheal Palmer
Industrial Properties, Houston Texas CB Richard Ellis 2500 W. Loop South,
Suite 100 Houston, Tx 77027-4502
phone:(713) 840-6646 e-mail: mpalmer@cbrichardellis.com

Karolyn Van Putten
Western Public Radio Fort Mason Center, Bldg. D, San Francisco, CA 94123
phone: (415) 771-1160 e-mail:KvPPHD@aol.com

Valerie Chambers
14602 Quail Creek Court Houston Tx. 77070
e-mail: vchambers@UH.EDU

Pete Bramson--KPFA
e-mail: prbram@aol.com

Rabbi Aaron Kriegel--KPFK
e-mail: HARAV1@aol.com

Tomas Moran--KPFA
e-mail: tomasmoran@aol.com

Rob Robinson--WPFW
e-mail: robrobin@erols.com

Leslie Cagan--WBAI
e-mail: lesliecagan@igc.org

Beth Lyons--WBAI
e-mail: bethlyons@aol.com

[Note: Mary Berry is no longer on the board, but serves as a "consultant," along with former Executive Director Lynn Chadwick. Bessie Wash, the Executive Director of Pacifica is also not a board member.]
 

SAUL LANDAU'S LETTER ON "PACIFICA BASHING" By Edward S. Herman

In mid-February of this year Saul Landau issued an "Appeal to All Progressives: Stop the Pacifica Bashing!" And he got some 40 liberals and leftists to sign on, many associated with The Nation and Institute for Policy Studies. (For a copy of the letter, a list of signers, and numerous commentaries, see: http://www.savepacifica.net/strike/landau letters.html). Many of us on the left who have closely followed or been involved in the Pacifica struggle were appalled at the letter, and after several exchanges with Landau I am more convinced than ever that his initiative is not only terribly wrong, it is also the most divisive and damaging antileft act in many years. Let me explain why.

Many of us feel that the turmoil at Pacifica over the past five years is mainly attributable to a management group that is trying to transform the network--which owns five stations and provides programs to several dozen others--from a left bastion with local roots and providing local service into a mainstream institution that will attract a different and possibly larger audience and will not be so upsetting to Washington power brokers and funders. This has elicited a strong resistance from staff, volunteer employees, and local audiences, and the result has been firings, lockouts, strikes, frequent censorship, a temporary closure of KPFA, management threats to sell off one or more stations, and poor morale in the traditional staff that feels under siege. But the management has succeeded in largely transforming the Houston and Washington D.C. stations into the desired mold, with more music and less politics, and substantially less left politics. The Berkeley (KPFA) and New York (WBAI) stations have put up more resistance, and the task of mainstreaming them is incomplete, as it is also in Los Angeles (KPFK). The Pacifica management has moved its offices from Berkeley to Washington D.C., away from a dissident audience to the home of the dominant power brokers, in what some of us call a "reverse carpetbagger" operation. For many of us, "Pacifica" is not that management, the real Pacifica is the 30+ year veteran Larry Bensky, fired last year by the management, Verna Avery- Brown, the ousted anchor of Pacifica Network News, Amy Goodman of WBAI and Democracy Now, other staff fired or under threat, and the large and devoted traditional audiences who have been willing to go out on the streets by the thousands to protest the new order. In Landau's letter, "Pacifica" means the management, and Pacifica bashing is attacking that management, whereas for those of us in resistance, the management is responsible for far more serious crimes than "bashing." But Landau only calls the management's crimes "mistakes" and "lapses in judgment," and while he asks for a halt to "bashing" he doesn't demand a legally binding pledge not to carry out the threat to sell KPFA, nor any other action from the management. Landau has also never put up a public letter calling for any changes in management composition, control, or policies. In short, his letter is de facto management apologetics, which was conveniently put forward just a few days before a board meeting in Washington. During that meeting board chair Mary Berry several times quoted from Landau's letter in support of her position.

I have repeatedly asked Landau, by what moral authority does the Pacifica board and officers decide to reorient the network toward the mainstream and carry out its firings, censorship, and effective abandonment of a sizable left audience? Isn't their power deeply undemocratic, with a self-perpetuating body doing its thing without any accountability to staff or audience? Isn't this illegitimate authority? Landau has never replied to these questions, but clearly he and some of his co-signers are unwilling to challenge this unaccountable authority and are prepared to accommodate to it in a way that is a bit surprising for liberals and leftists.

Landau's letter speaks of critics of the management that "paint this progressive network as some sort of runaway, rightwing juggernaut in the grip of a dark conspiracy." Notice how he makes the "network" identical with its management. But this reference to the critics' "dark conspiracy" is silly. I have told him that we don't think there is any "conspiracy," but rather that there is a policy agenda that we passionately oppose. But he hangs on to the notion that we believe in a dark conspiracy. Landau also keeps saying that Pacifica's progressiveness is demonstrated by the continued existence of programs like Democracy Now! And I respond that counterrevolutions are not completed overnight, especially when there is resistance, so that progressive programs will only go one at a time. I also tell him that Amy Goodman has been repeatedly admonished to soften her program and feels under siege, so that her eventual departure looks probable if the existing management retains its power. But this doesn't register with Landau.

The sad fact is that he really seems to agree with the counterrevolution in process. In response to my claim that we are fighting to save the only left radio network in this country as a left institution, he replies that while it is true that a left- oriented community and local orientation helps a left cause, "small watt transmitters would be very well suited for local left community radio." In other words, we should abandon Pacifica and leave the Washington management to do with it whatever it wants. We should be satisfied with a more appropriate, even if marginal, vehicle. But why should the board have a right to abandon the traditional sizable and committed audiences and go their own way? He simply asserts that he agrees with their policy of allegedly "seeking larger audiences," at the expense of staff and existing audience preferences, and the notion that maintaining a seriously left network is itself an important objective has no weight for him.

Landau puts an unwarrantedly positive gloss on the objectives of the Pacifica management, asserting that they want "a larger...but still progressive audience." How he knows their aims as regards audience politics is puzzling. He fails to mention that audience size can be increased without compromising substance. The Pacifica management's extensive use of commercial consultants, the cultivation of corporate and Washington power brokers, and the steady pressure on radicals to tone down their messages or get out, suggests that they are mainstreaming not primarily to enlarge audiences but rather for ideological, political, and financial reasons. The modern breed of consultants to public stations regularly urges depoliticization, getting rid of radicals, and displacing the public sphere with uncontroversial music as the road to legitimacy and financial solvency. The Pacifica management is closely following this familiar course.

Detailed inquiries have established that a number of the signers of Landau's letter did so on the basis of personal relationships and trust, in complete ignorance of the issues at stake. Nevertheless, that Landau and others on the left have signed on to this apologetic for the Pacifica management and its slow strangulation of that network as a left institution has angered many people. It is a wound to left solidarity that is going to be extremely difficult to heal.

Mike Davis on Landau Petition

I am one of the signatories to the petition circulated by Saul Landau. I am now convinced that the petition, far from helping heal wounds at Pacifica, simply provides `Left' legitimacy to the management's brutal attempt to restructure community-based broadcasting and peripheralize the progressive community. I am writing to apologize to you personally, a friend and comrade of many years, and to everyone else who has been involved in the struggle to save KPFA.

In retracting my endorsement of the petition, I am not repudiating friends in Los Angeles who asked me to sign in the first place. They include some of KPFK's most dedicated broadcasters and activists. But it was hugely irresponsible on my part to fail to consult with you and other KPFA veterans. Having now done what I should have done in the first place - i.e. read opposing viewpoints and study the documentation - it is clear to me which I side I should be on.

This is a public apology, so please feel free to circulate this note.

Warmly,

Mike Davis History SUNY Stony Brook, NY 11794-4348

The Pacifica Struggle in the Nation: Marc Cooper Self-Destructs

Edward S. Herman

The Nation has not distinguished itself in its coverage of the Pacifica struggle, where, in the face of a clearly evident Pacifica management campaign to mainstream, and even possibly sell off, its left- and community-oriented stations, the magazine has even- handedly castigated the extremists on both sides. Alexander Cockburn has been solid on the issues involved, but Marc Cooper has offered a balance tilted toward management, and the unsigned editorial on the case was somewhere between the two (reminding me of Jules Pfeiffer's cartoon in which Eisenhower evenhandedly condemns the extremists on both sides--those who would burn down the schools and those who would keep them open).

The debate reached another level, and Marc Cooper hit a self-destructing low, in letters in the Nation of September 6/13. Letters from fired programmer Dennis Bernstein and former programmer William Mandel were offset by a letter from listener Nate Peters and a reply by Marc Cooper. Bernstein denied Cooper's earlier claim that his obstreperousness in defying Pacifica's "banning any more on-air dirty laundry" and desire "to extend the conflict" had "triggered" the management takeover of KPFA and lockout. Bernstein contended that he had followed the new rules allowing coverage of mainstream news on Pacifica issues, but was still yanked, put on administrative leave and arrested for "trespassing" following his presentation of such news. He argued that the shutdown was already in the works, that the "dirty laundry" involved information important to KPFA listeners, including material on a secret agenda for possibly selling the station, and that what Cooper defended as plans for needed "change and growth" was in fact a managerial decision to put market share first and transform the stations into NPR-like mainstream institutions. William Mandel's letter stressed that KPFA was never intended to reach large audiences, any more than the Nation, and that the transformation being imposed from above was being treated critically even in the mainstream press. Both Bernstein and Mandel argued that the gag rules were in conflict with everything KPFA has stood for.

Marc Cooper's reply evaded all the issues and was strong on rhetoric and name-calling. First, he contested Bernstein's claims of a "secret agenda" and Pacifica plans to make the stations into "NPR clones." He did this by simple name-calling--"conspiracy mongering...noisome fare"-- without discussing the Palmer letter's evidence that the board was considering the sale of KPFA or Bernstein's other evidence that the closedown was planned. Cooper suggests that the idea of "NPR-ization" is "ironic" because the dismissed KPFA manager Sawaya had earlier been a network field representative of NPR. That somebody who had worked for NPR might oppose its dominant thrust, and that the issue is one of institutional orientation, not personalities, escaped Cooper. He didn't discuss what has happened to the increasingly NPR-ized Pacifica station in Houston, or the regime of self-censorship that has taken hold in the Houston, Los Angeles, and D.C. stations, and he failed to address the basic issue of what the board's drive toward "change and growth" implies in programming.

Cooper devoted most of his letter to contesting Bernstein's account of his removal and arrest. He argues that after being accused of violating the "dirty laundry rules" Bernstein refused to meet with the imported Pacifica manager-enforcer, "ignored the contractual grievance procedure," and began to shout and claim danger from armed guards, and after much unreasonable behavior and refusal to leave the building was arrested. Bernstein's "grandstanding and alarmist shrieks supplanting the evening news is a 'violation of everything KPFA stands for'" (satirically quoting Bernstein). But with respect to the management's performance, Cooper referred to the eventual pulling of the station plug as what "any responsible manager" would have done, and he takes the overall undemocratic Pacifica process, its policy drift, and the "dirty laundry" rules and firings of Bensky, Sawaya, and Bernstein as givens not subjected to a single word of criticism.

Cooper dismissed Mandel as "an undisputed master of speaking into closed-echo chambers," which explains his support for "a small and limited audience." In other words, the smear is used to evade the crucial issue of market size versus mission orientation. Cooper then closed his letter with congratulations to listener Nate Peters for his "insights" and "thinking" and call for reeling in the rhetoric and ending name-calling. In fact, Peters' letter is a completely vacuous recital of the rhetoric Cooper favors (and relies on in his own letter), with enumerations of charges against the KPFA staff and deep questions like: "Regarding criticisms about democracy within the Pacifica Foundation, are they valid?" One would have thought there was enough information available for Peters to be able to answer that question, but he leaves it open. And this is an issue that Cooper himself doesn't want to discuss.

PACIFICA: NOTES ON MANAGERIAL DYSFUNCTIONALITY Edward S. Herman

The operations of the Pacifica management call to mind the anti-stalinist classic poem of the 1950s by Bertolt Brecht, "The Solution," in which the worker uprising in Berlin caused the government to "lose confidence in the People," leading to the question: "Would it not be easier in that case--for the government to dissolve the People--and elect another?" The Pacifica management has been very dissatisfied with KPFA's (and the other stations') audience (the protesters mainly whites over 50, according to Berry), and its "dysfunctional" staff (Palmer letter to Berry), so it moved rapidly in the direction of dissolving both. A sale to a commercial operator would have consummated this neo-stalinist objective of essentially "dissolving the People."

What is breathtaking about this management's using words like "dysfunctional" is that nothing could exceed the management's own dysfunctional quality. Completely out of step with the Pacifica stations' original goals and their audiences' devotion to their stations; lacking any sympathy with the democratic tradition of the workforces involved; and under the pretence of financial crisis (to which "consultants fees" and security expenses contributed) and interest in "diversity" (which has declined under their policy of mainstreaming) this management has bungled continuously and ended up contemplating a sale to commercial interests for whom diversity and public interest are completely irrelevant.

When Coca Cola Company delayed by one week its response to the crisis engendered by the sale of contaminated Coke in Belgium and France, this was treated in the business press as a case of managerial ineptitude. The Pacifica management, by contrast, has made a series of managerial blunders extending over several years that has aggravated the crisis to a bursting point, apparently incapable of learning, of understanding the forces involved, and of moving in any way toward a constructive resolution. It is ironic that a management that is so out of tune with the ethos of a nonprofit operation, and that flirts with growth, market share, and station market value issues, has survived only because it operates in a non-market environment where serious ineptitude is protected by a system of managerial insulation from accountability to anybody. In a market world, stockholders and bankers would have thrown this management out on their ears long ago for incompetence and dysfunctionality.

Pacifica management has repeatedly expressed a desire to increase market share, arguing that the audiences of KPFA (et al.) are small given the potential of station power, etc. They are undoubtedly impressed with the market value of broadcast licenses, that reflect a potentially larger audience than KPFA (et al.) have established. But that market value represents the advertising potential of a signal when all other values are ignored, including the positive externalities of cultivating the public sphere, of providing quality children's programs, and of serving minority and local community interests; and the avoidance of negative externalities like excessive violence and exploitation of sex. Also ignored is the value of the extensive local programming, local participation, and audience involvement at the Pacifica stations. These values represent the very rationale for their creation, so that criticizing them for their restricted audiences and modest market share reflects an abandonment of those values. KPFA and its allied stations serve sizable and exceptionally devoted niche audiences, whose commitment is ignored by measures of audience size, although made evident in the outpouring of support at the recent managerial threats to station integrity and survival. Also ignored is the fact that if these stations were displaced by commercial operators, the new commercial stations would simply draw audiences from other commercial stations, and the KFFA (et al.) audiences would be left stranded without any options.

The market value of the Pacifica stations is thus highly misleading, but it would only mislead those whose commitment to the nonmarket values sustained by those stations did not rank high. The Pacifica management includes leaders who claim a long involvement and devotion to public radio, but the commercial spirit long ago infiltrated public radio under the pressure of the deliberate financial crunch imposed by the enemies of nonprofit media. In the 1980s a leader with a market share ethos was brought in to manage the University of Pennsylvania's FM station, WXPN, and he succeeded in enlarging the station's audience with more mainstream and light programming and a sharp diminution in controversial public affairs material. Interestingly, he terminated Pacifica News, substituting for it "All Things Considered" even though the latter was already available in Philadelphia, whereas Pacifica News was heard only on WXPN. (In his mission statement he indicated that news and public affairs should elicit "a positive response," calling to mind "happy hour" news on commercial broadcasting. All Things Considered met this standard better than Pacifica.)

WXPN's market-oriented leader quickly became a popular consultant to other stations eager to increase market share. An important place has been carved out for such "realists" who are "practical" and are prepared to compromise on matters like admission of advertising and the need to attract larger audiences and tone down controversial programming in order to facilitate fund raising. When combined with a contempt for those over 50 white folks who listen and protest, and for free speech and the democratic rights and traditions of the workforce, this can lead to a desire to "dissolve the People"--and to a seriously dysfunctional management.

An Open Letter To KPFK Staff And Listeners

FROM: DENNIS BERNSTEIN

Producer/Host Flashpoints, KPFA'S Daily Investigative News Magazine

I'm writing this open letter because I believe that the future of Pacifica as an independent, listener-sponsored, non-commercial network is at stake. I'm also very concerned that KPFK's staff and listeners have not had the opportunity to hear the full story of what's happened at KPFA, but are instead being presented with falsehoods, distortions, and personal attacks -- not facts and truth -- concerning Pacifica's actions and the KPFA staff's response. So this is the first of a series of memos I'll be writing in an attempt to explain what is driving us in the bay-area to oppose current Pacifica leadership and to expand the current dialogue regarding Pacifica's future as a viable alternative radio network.

Some of you may be familiar with my work at Pacifica, including many appearances around the network on Democracy Now, Counterspin, Making Contact, Marc Cooper's Pacifica/Nation show. You may have read my syndicated articles for Pacific News Service where I am an associate editor. Or you may have read one of my many features/investigative reports and political essays written over the years. They've appeared widely in the Nation Magazine, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Village Voice, The Progressive, Southern Exposure, VIBE, San Francisco Examiner, The New York Times, Dallas Morning Herald, Texas Observer, International Herald Tribune, and many others. At Pacifica I have produced a daily investigative newsmagazine for the last twelve years, first on WBAI and later on KPFA. I have risked my life on occasion to report for the network and have personally raised millions of dollars to keep it running. I have trained many young people, from the South Bronx to Berkeley, and brought them to Pacifica microphones to do their thing. In short, I have a deep abiding belief in concepts of non-commercial listener sponsorship of the airwaves, as well as using the airwaves to speak truth to power.

For the first twelve years I produced a daily program on WBAI and KPFA, I never once mentioned internal Pacifica matters on the air, though I knew there were serious questions being raised about the motives and direction of national leadership, its handling of our very valuable archives, and other key issues of concern to the future of non-commercial network. Until March 31, I bought into the idea that public silence was best and that working within channels was the way to resolve problems. But when our highly effective and very popular station manager, Nicole Sawaya, was fired on that day, without so much as a word of explanation, I realized that my silence had been a huge mistake.

The realization that change and progress could only come through openly and publicly discussing the situation at Pacifica was deepened by the events of this spring, and was again confirmed on the night of Tuesday, July 13th. That night Pacifica set a new standard for censorship when they pulled me off the air for playing a 15 minute clip of a public press conference and two related commentaries.

This press conference, attended by many mainstream journalists, was called by Media Alliance. The media group had obtained a copy of a highly damaging e-mail from Houston-based Pacifica board member Michael Palmer to Board chair Mary Frances Berry, discussing the possibility of selling KPFA and WBAI, its sister station in New York City.

The Palmer e-mail was revelatory and relevant to KPFA listeners -- indeed all Pacifica staff and supporters -- because it discussed the shutting down and reprogramming of KPFA, an action that was completed by Pacifica's hostile take-over team on July 14th. "I was under the impression," Palmer wrote in his authenticated e-mail, "that there was support in the proper quarters, and a definite majority, for shutting down that unit and re-programming immediately. Has that changed? Is there consensus among the national staff that anything other than that is acceptable/bearable?"

What does "shutting down and . . . reprogramming" sound like to you, the staff of KPFK? (Please read the entire e-mail from Palmer to determine whether Palmer's just a loose cannon that Dr. Berry likes to have around to keep things lively, or whether he appears to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue about KPFA's future behind closed doors. ) What would you as a news and public affairs producer have done with this material, while the rest of the mainstream press was putting it on their covers and news leads? (For further documentation, I've enclosed a copy of the public statement by National Board member, Pete Bramson, regarding ongoing discussion of selling KPFA, even as Pacifica was claiming to be engaged in good faith negotiations with the KPFA community. )

I am troubled to learn that instead of a serious and truthful discussion of these very disturbing facts, some have launched a personal attack on me for speaking out. Some Members of KPFK's staff have characterized me as a "drama queen" and an "obstreperous" troublemaker.

I understand that the staff is being "informed" about events at KPFA by Mr. Marc Cooper, whose ideas Mary Frances Berry likes these days, and Mark Torres, a Pacifica archive employee set up to scab and intimidate KPFA staff into silence (along with Houston Manager Garland Ganter). But Mark Torres was not an eyewitness to the events that took place on July 13th and was not near the newsroom where the confrontation took place. Is it true that Torres is a source for staff information on this? If so, is his source Garland Ganter, the man who arrested and locked out KPFA's staff and saw to it that programming was streamed in from Houston?

THE SET UP

To be clear, Torres was present at a 2:00 pm meeting that day attended by KPFA staff, Lynn Chadwick and Pacifica's new hire and fire man and asset appraiser, Gene Edwards. There, Torres and Ganter were presented as the ones who would take control of the station and reprogram it if there were any gag rule violations. For weeks the archives had been sending up tapes to fill our airwaves in preparation for the station takeover and on the 13th Torres arrived in person to jam them onto our airwaves until such times as the transmitter equipment, which had already been purchased by Pacifica, could be installed and programs could be streamed in from another location.

Torres witnessed a key interchange between Mr. Ganter and I at that heavily attended staff meeting. During the meeting, I asked Mr. Ganter, as Mark Torres should recall, if I'd "be allowed to report on that which was widely covered in the mainstream press regarding Pacifica. " Ganter answered with an unequivocal "yes," and everyone in that meeting heard it loud and clear. (You might recall that the day before, Dr. Berry was in the Bay Area talking to selected press about the issues the staff had been gagged on. ) In light of subsequent events, it is now clear that Garland Ganter had set me and the rest of the staff up -- right before Mark Torres' eyes!

As for what happened after that 2:00 meeting on the 13th, we have the video tape of the two guards and Ganter in the news studio and eyewitnesses of Ganter himself shoving me and pursuing me into the news studio. As for turning up the mike and putting myself on the air, I was, in fact, four feet from the controls at all times. (And even if I'd been close enough, it would not have changed anything: I don't know how to use the mixing board. ) It's also a matter of record that the news engineer put up the mic at the request of news director Marc Mericle, and it was Mericle who was last heard narrating what is going on in the news studio.

But what's crucial is what happened before that encounter. I was shown the door by Ganter for playing a fifteen minute clip of a public press conference that made headlines in all the mainstream media. Seven staff members -- including the two co-news directors with a combined 30 years of experience -- were also arrested on the 13th for trespassing in their own news room. Are they also "drama queens"? I urge staff at KPFK to join the call to throw open the books at Pacifica and let us once and for all get a look at how and where they have been spending listener money. If Pacifica is telling the truth and doing the right thing, what do they have to hide?

I would like to invite any representative of KPFK staff, management or Pacifica to meet for an open discussion of the merits of Pacifica's actions over the last several years. This invitation includes any Pacifica rep now part of its expanding national bureaucracy. Or why not convene a teach-in or panel discussion with both sides equally represented, in all Pacifica cities?

Let's put an end to censorship at Pacifica and start an open dialogue before we lose our precious network in the rush to the corporate bottom line.

Where Was/Is KPFK? A Look at The Pacifica Crisis.
Published in Random Lengths 8/19/99
By Robin Urevich

As a long time reporter for Pacifica Network News and KPFK, it was exhilarating to watch staff at sister station KPFA in Berkeley put their jobs on the line to demand a little of the free speech, justice and democracy that the network has long advocated.

When KPFA Station Manager Nicole Sawaya and Pacifica correspondent Larry Bensky were fired this spring, staff took to the airwaves in defiance of Pacifica's longstanding policy of not airing internal grievances, and told Bay Area listeners what many already suspected: the network was becoming a top heavy bureaucracy hungry for mainstream legitimacy. It was unaccountable to the community and preoccupied with ratings and market share. The conflict escalated when Pacifica National Board member Pete Bramson confirmed rumors that the National Board was considering a sale of the station.

In Southern California, KPFK listeners could read about the crisis on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, and in other major newspapers. But, they found little information on their own station. Management clumsily tried to keep it under wraps. In early April, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting,s media criticism show, Counterspin, aired an interview with fired Pacifica correspondent Larry Bensky. It was pulled from the air in mid-broadcast. Station manager Mark Schubb cut Pacifica Network News stories on KPFA's troubles out of KPFK's evening news broadcasts on at least two occasions.

In July, when KPFA staff were arrested inside the station at the height of the conflict , Pacifica,s Democracy Now ran interviews with both the arrestees and the network,s Executive Director Lynn Chadwick. KPFK ran the program at 6am, but it was not rebroadcast as usual at 9. Station Manager Mark Schubb says the decision to hold the rebroadcast was not his. Chadwick had directed him not to rerun it.

When the lock out of KPFA staff began, Program Director Kathy Lo finally told news producers they would not be required to ignore Associated Press wire stories on the dispute. But, Schubb says they were not allowed to do independent reporting because of their involvement with the station. He and programmer Marc Cooper held several call-in programs on the crisis, in which they presented their point of view, which was sympathetic to the network,s, but did not invite KPFA protesters to participate.

The local labor activists who produce KPFK's Working LA discussed the KPFA situation on their August 1st program. Both host Henry Walton and producer Pete Goodman received phone calls from Kathy Lo the next day warning them to inform her before airing such sensitive material in the future.

Pacifica management has long argued that stations' internal business makes for dull programming. Bay Area listeners proved them wrong. An on-air pledge drive in which staff appealed to listeners to help them bring back their fired co-workers and establish local control was the most successful summer fund raiser ever. But, at KPFK, open discussions on the changing direction of the station and the network are still taboo.

Many believe that Pacifica has strayed far from the commitment of its founders who pledged to develop "the creative energies of the community, to air sources not heard on mainstream media" and "to contribute to a lasting understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colors."

In 1997, Pacifica national staff drafted a strategic five year plan for the network in which they argued that the stations - located in the country's biggest cities - were reaching a fraction of their potential audiences. There was a huge market that could be tapped if Pacifica's programming was more accessible

Shortly thereafter, Pacifica national staff took steps to change the network's governance structure so that National Board members would no longer be elected by members of local station advisory boards. Instead, they would choose their own members. Local stations would not have a voice in the network's operation. Those changes were approved by the Board earlier this year.

In implementing the five year plan, KPFK management pointed to much of the station's programming that it said was obscure, ill produced and preached to a small core of loyal followers. Slicker programs that would appeal to a general audience, they said, would attract new listeners and expose them to progressive, alternative ideas. Talented reporters and producers would flock to the station to lend their creative energies.

Several years later, programming is more polished, and the station's overall sound is better. Schedules are dependable. But, the promise of more relevant programming in an atmosphere that invites questioning and creativity remains unfulfilled.

There was little dialog on the programming changes, and management largely has avoided discussions with those who are critical of the station and of the network's governance structure. It operates under a siege mentality in which critics are viewed as enemies, and only a select few individuals are trusted. Questioning of authority inside the station is taboo. The station has paid a price for stifling dissent. People who came to KPFK because they felt they'd be able to report on issues they were passionate about are mostly gone. Newsroom conversation is less about issues and more about where to find a job at the very radio and television outlets that come under so much criticism on the station's own airwaves. It's proven next to impossible to encourage news and public affairs staff to question authority outside the station while suppressing disagreement inside.

The "world of ideas" that KPFK promises in station promos is an increasingly narrow one. There is little diversity of opinion at 90.7 FM .

Local organizing efforts around labor, environmental justice and welfare rights issues are on the back burner now. The three afternoon drive time hosts who also work as journalists cover news stories by interviewing their colleagues at The Nation, The LA Weekly, Salon Magazine and a few other publications almost exclusively, which drastically limits the range of ideas that are heard.

Ethnic diversity is even rarer now than it was two or three years ago. Of seven drive time hosts, just two are people of color and two are women.

At a station and a network which has publicly supported the labor movement, KPFK staff members talk about their own union in whispers or in hurried conversations in the parking lot. Management has hired so many part-time and contract staff that of some 20 staff members, fewer than half are in the union.

Divide and conquer is the order of the day.

The union recently filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board that alleges station manager Mark Schubb retaliated against staff members for presenting him with a petition protesting the harassment of a staff member. Union members say Schubb tried to intimidate petition signers by announcing that he would hold personal interviews with each of them, supposedly to determine what they knew of the alleged harassment.

For the past two weeks, KPFK staff meetings have been taken up with attacks on Union Steward Terry Guy for his participation in a lawsuit that alleges that the self-selecting, self-perpetuating national board is illegal.

The hypocrisy and censorship at KPFK as well as Pacifica's handling of the KPFA crisis and its willingness to consider a sale of Berkeley's KPFA may be a wake up call for Pacifica supporters. Listener groups around the country are studying governance structures that would hold Pacifica and its stations accountable to its original goals, and give subscribers, staff and volunteers meaningful input into station operations. With fund drives coming up, some are advocating that subscribers put their pledges in escrow accounts to show their desire to support Pacifica stations while registering their protests against the current regime.

To the L.A. Weekly

In his recent article about the current Pacifica/KPFK crisis, Marc Cooper made a valid point when he said, "It's crossing a very important line when those who run Pacifica are satanized." However, Cooper conveniently failed to restrain himself from satanizing when, in the same article, he called Dennis Bernstein a reckless provocateur.

Where did Cooper get his account of the events of that night? He was not there. I was. I am a reporter for the KPFA Evening News. Unlike Cooper, who was paid by Pacifica by one of his shows and has an interest in protecting his turf, I am volunteer. Here's what really happened:

Bernstein aired a segment of a public press conference attended by other members of the mainstream media. Garland Ganter, Lynn Chadwick's stand-in, then placed Bernstein on "indefinite administrative leave," alleging that Bernstein had violated that gag order that Chadwick had issued that morning. Ganter did this despite telling Bernstein, earlier the same day, that a Pacifica story covered by mainstream media would also be fair game for KPFA.

There was no time for union niceties; Ganter had called in three armed guards, self-proclaimed experts in "hostile terminations," to remove Bernstein from the premesis. Dennis came into our newroom to let us know what happened. The tape machine was jostled by the guards pushing Bernstein into it three times. Dennis never lodged or nested under anything. He did sit down on the control room floor, non-violently resisting four men, Ganter and the three armed guards, all significantly taller and heavier than himself. Given this outnumbering, he had legitimate fear for his safety. As I stood in the control room, watching this confrontation, I, too, was afraid for him.

News co-director and anchor Mark Mericle switched from the jostled tape to the scene in the control room so that that listeners would know why the broadcast was not proceeding smoothly. Bernstein was not "given a mike." What listeners heard from Dennis was his spontaneous interaction with the guards, not any type of speech directed at the audience. Later that night he was not "lurking in the newsroom." He was there, along with Mericle, new co-director Aileen Alfandary, myself and several others, all reporting a story that should never have to be reported in America: that broadcasting a press conference can cost a reported his job.

Kellia Ramares

Oakland, CA

Blase Bonpane: Letter/Article, August 2, 1999

Dear Web Master Allard and so very many interested KPFK listeners who have asked me about my self-imposed silence on the air.

First of all some clarification regarding the correspondence you have had with the station.

My tenure with KPFK began in 1969. I was a Professor of Latin American Studies and History at California State University Los Angeles at that time. My program was called LATIN AMERICAN NEWS.

I took a break from KPFK in the early 1970's and went to UFW Headquarters to work as Editor for Cesar Chavez, reestablishing the UFW Newspaper EL MALCRIADO.

Returning to academia in late 1973, this time at California State University Northridge, I also returned to KPFK with FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS, a weekly half-hour program. This program continued at prime time during the 70's and into the 80's. When Mark Cooper arrived as News and Public Affairs Director in 1981, the program was not initiated, it was simply changed in scheduling and format. It remained at prime-time. And such was the case throughout the 80's and into the 90's.

In late 1995 I received an insipid message on my answering machine from Station Manager Mark Schubb saying that my program had been cancelled. The message was so unclear that I had to ask exactly when this went into effect. There was some comment about Jerry Brown coming on but Jerry's program was never scheduled at the same time as mine. Curious? Surely after 26 years of prime time programming one might expect some level of professionalism not to mention basic courtesy.

I began to smell the same rat which Pacifica programmers throughout the country were smelling. The Pacifica Board had a clear agenda. This did not represent the thinking of conspiracy theorists, it represented a conspiracy. The purges began in earnest. In a direct attack on the Pacifica Mission Statement, programs began to be evaluated by "cost effectiveness". Monetarist policy in sync with the New Economic Order was set in place by people who were well trained and badly educated. The Reign of Terror had begun. Station Managers could comply with the mediocrity of the Board or get out. Dissolution of the Mission Statement at the top was protected by gag orders below.

How could there be any money in programs which focused on the rape of small nations by our country? Asian, African and Latin American programming was decimated. "The Other Side" was to be given a voice! The board forgot that Pacifica was established to give the "other side" of the one side of corporate capital which is heard 24 hours a day and seven days a week on the corporate media. We are the other side.

Let the money making programming come in! Past lives, curing cancer with a happy face and sundry new age babble was money making. How about reading the National Enquirer on the air?

As the senior programmer at KPFK I did not want to let the station go into the La Brea Tar Pits. I suggested to the Program Director that in lieu of my prime time program of many decades I would volunteer to do news commentary. I had never received a penny for my years of programming. On the contrary, my programs were very costly to me in time and money. The Manager did not seem terribly animated by this suggestion and simply said that I should talk to the News Director. Frank Stoltz was enthusiastic and I commented on the news at KPFK from January 2, 1996 until April 7, 1998. My work was plagued by the failures of volunteer "helpers", unexpected preemptions, airing of out-takes rather than the actual commentary etc.. These things, while annoying, are part of the give and take of a community radio station. My air time was five minutes cut to four minutes... and declining.

At the end of each commentary I would say, "For a free copy of this commentary, call the Office of the Americas at 323/852-9808."

The Program Director informed me that I could not give the phone number on the air (something I had been doing for 30 years). I was told I could give the phone number of KPFK. Knowing the overburdened condition of the KPFK switchboard, however, it was clear to me that the only way to effectively fulfill such requests was by calls directly to OOA. I subsequently made it clear to the News Director that the mention of OOA was not important. I would conclude the program by saying, "For a free copy of this commentary call 323/852-9808." My going on strike is a case of the straw that broke the camel's back. The arbitrary and unnecessary jerking around about the phone number seemed to represent just another annoyance. Such numbers have been given and are given by news and public affairs programs both nationally and locally.

I hope it is understood that my strike is even more profoundly related to the monetarist policies of the Pacifica Board. These policies have no place in the history, tradition and Mission Statement of Pacifica. The phone number thing was simply the occasion when I determined that action on my part was necessary.

As for the future I will do everything possible to end the efforts to make Pacifica a Second Class NPR. I believe the Board is guilty of malfeasance of office. They must be replaced by people who will carry out the Mission Statement and give autonomous local control to these community stations. Station Managers should show allegiance to the Mission Statement by refusing to comply with a deviant Board.

* Speaking personally I will agree to return to KPFK with a Contract including:

* No Monetary Compensation.

* Competent engineering assistance.

* A minimum of four minutes of commentary or 1/2 hour of programming per week.

* No preemptions without prior notice

* Any substantive matters from the Station Manager or the Program Director to be in writing. No voice mail mandates. * Final outro, "For a free copy of this commentary call 323/852-9808."

That's right, friends. I believe in workers rights. I do not believe in exploitation. I will not sit quietly by while a great institution is destroyed from within.

We must Save Pacifica.

On behalf of the Pacifica Mission Statement,

Blase Bonpane, Ph.D.
Director

OFFICE OF THE AMERICAS
323/852-9808
8124 West Third Street Suite 202 FAX
323/852-0655
Los Angeles, California 90048-4309

--
Blase Bonpane, Ph.D.
Director Office of the Americas
http://www.OfficeOfTheAmericas.org

The Pacification of Public Radio

NPR, Pacifica, and community radio:

crises and prospects

By David Barsamian

Pacification is a U.S. military Vietnam War euphemism. Areas of resistance were to be pacified. The population was to be herded into strategic hamlets and then reeducated by being carpet-bombed with propaganda. A similar campaign is being conducted in public broadcasting, obviously with different methods but with the same outcome. It is not that public radio and TV are radical, far from it. It is what they represent. They are outside of corporate control and as a result have potential for independence. Public space in all spheres is to be eliminated. Any alternative model to the market one has to go. So the right-wing strategy is to starve them for morsels, attack them politically, and drive them into the market. The result has been largely successful. Underwriting is more and more common. In some cases they are out and out commercials.

What are the communications needs of a democratic society? I think they were well articulated in the 1967 Carnegie Commission Report which was the founding document for public broadcasting. An establishment group led by MIT head James Killian with such members as Harvard president James Conant and Polaroid’s top executive Edwin Lamb, formulated the guidelines. The Commission’s vision stated that programming "can help us see America whole, in all its diversity," serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," and "provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." It is interesting to note that commercial broadcasters mostly welcomed the creation of a public network because they saw it as a way of getting nettlesome public service commitments off their backs and onto the new system. CBS gave an upfront gift of $1 million to the fledgling Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB was the non-profit, private entity formed to funnel money to the public stations.

Public TV and radio, to a large extent, have fallen far short of the Carnegie goals. Part of the reason is embedded in the enabling legislation, the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The Carnegie Commission proposed that funding be insulated from the political process. Lyndon Johnson, along with the powerful House Appropriations chair Wilbur Mills, would not agree, thus creating a structure that has an Achilles heel. One didn’t have long to wait to see the consequences. In 1972 Nixon, in a fury over so-called liberal bias in programming, vetoed the CPB budget. The attacks on public broadcasting have steadily continued, ebbing and flowing with each political season.

Is the system in place meeting the communications needs of a democratic society? In my view, the private commercial model is a disaster. The public one is in a murkier area.

The taming of public broadcasting takes place in a broader political context. The popular movements of the 1960s and 1970s were very threatening to corporate/state interests. The "serfs" were seen to be out of control in making heretofore unimaginable demands. The anti-war movement, feminists, blacks, Latinos, Native Americans. environmentalists, gays and lesbians and others were challenging the existing order. The legitimacy of plantation life, even the manor itself, were being questioned.

The 1975 publication of The Crisis of Democracy by the Trilateral Commission was part of the attempt to throttle and rollback the gains of the popular movements. Internationally, in the wake of the U.S. defeat in Indochina, the book pointed to the reconstruction of imperial ideology. But the real crisis and threat was at home. The domestic population had to be re-colonized. This is where the media perform their key role.

Media were seen by the right as a major battleground to be contested and won. Money was to be dedicated to finance and drive new ideological institutions. The three main cash conduits were and continue to be Olin, Scaife Mellon, and Bradley. The principle beneficiaries of their largesse are the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. Both are one-stop/full service pundit suppliers to all media, particularly NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service-TV. The most recent wave of attacks on public broadcasting was sparked by a 1992 Heritage Foundation report which argued for its privatization. David Horowitz runs the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in LA, which has received millions of dollars in foundation money. His newsletter is COMINT, the Committee for Media Integrity. He has been crusading against public TV as being a forum for "the discredited pro-Soviet left." He must be thinking of William F. Buckley. Horowitz has been ballistic when it comes to KPFK, Pacifica’s Los Angeles station. As a former Dole speechwriter he pushed the former Senator’s vituperative tirade against public radio and TV at the 1993 Public Radio Conference in Washington. Dole railed against the "unrelenting liberal cheerleading on the public airwaves." He called Pacifica "hate radio" and "anti-Semitic." I doubt Dole, much like that other Pacifica-basher, Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado, has ever heard a Pacifica broadcast in his life. I was sitting in the audience during Dole’s speech. The effect on station managers and program directors, the gatekeepers of public radio, was palpable.

Public radio is in three streams. The first is the NPR type, two-thirds of which is institutionally based. A typical one is WBUR, the Boston University station. BU has the license. WBUR programming is heavy on NPR. Its own on-air voices are few and are almost all paid. The NPR category is, by far, the largest of the streams. NPR is not a station. It provides programs such as "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" that its 300-plus member stations pay for and broadcast. The second stream is community, e.g., WORT in Madison. The third is Pacifica. The latter two have a more diverse mix of programming along with much volunteer participation. I give Pacifica separate status because it is a network of five stations and it syndicates programming to affiliates. A recent addition to the stream is micro radio, a potentially important development that deserves its own article.

There are lots of paradoxes in this picture, particularly in the second category. KCFR in Denver, WHYY in Philadelphia, and WGBH in Boston are all community radio stations in terms of their license. However their programming and the acute lack of citizen access and participation make them identical to stream one types. KUVO in Denver is another community station with first group characteristics. It differs in that there is more citizen participation. It schedules mostly music and has very little in the way of public affairs except for the grotesque daily business program "Marketplace," sponsored by GE.

There are successful models of community radio, e.g., WERU in East Orland, Maine; KGNU in Boulder, Colorado; and WMNF in Tampa, Florida. They are in radically different demographic markets. They share a solid base of listener support. All three have strong mission statements reflecting some of the original goals of the Carnegie Report. They have regular training programs. There is a good balance between local and national programming. Based on visits to all three, I noticed a sense of elan and cooperation between staff and volunteers.

Why are some community radio stations splintered and fragmented? Some of it can be attributed to the well-financed external assault and lack of resources. But concomitant is their own internal disease and dysfunction expressed in the debilitating left pastime: The small savaging the tiny in order to become infinitesimal. There’s a wonderful passage in Howard Zinn’s play Marx in Soho that captures this tendency. The happy couple, Jenny and Karl, are at the dinner table. Jenny asks Karl, Why is it that every revolutionary organization with only six members is always trying to expel five of them? He had no answer.

Other factors contributing to an eviscerated left radio scene are the usual ones: competition, envy, and lack of solidarity. Some of us have been colonized by the avalanche of propaganda and have internalized the dominant ideology. We are further hindered by the lack of a movement to adhere to. As Vivian Stromberg of Madre says, "There are lots of motions in the country but no movement."

An old community radio issue is dealing with "deadwood," i.e., programmers, usually volunteers, who have had their own show forever. The problem this presents is not only staleness and small audiences, but newcomers who want to get on the air, become discouraged, and drift away. Systems need to be designed and put in place to provide program review and critical feedback. There should be signed contracts that are reviewed and renewed based on performance not tenure. There is a critical need for training, not only for volunteers, but for managers. The latter is often overlooked because managers set up the programs for others and don’t recognize their own needs. Dealing with people and conflict is very stressful. It is important to develop mechanisms for dissent and debate with built-in closure and resolution. Running a meeting is an art form. It should be organized and structured with attention to and respect for people’s time. Like a good radio program a meeting should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

No discussion of radio can be complete without mention of the much-beleaguered and maligned Pacifica. I should state that I have had my own roller coaster ride with Pacifica. I’ve been to the top and also the very bottom. Today, the only Pacifica station that airs my Alternative Radio program on a regular basis is KPFK. All the promises and perils of community radio are magnified at the only left electronic network established in 1949, with stations in five of the country’s largest cities. Pacifica has produced, in its almost five decades of broadcasting, many memorable programs. It has turned out some of the country’s finest producers. Currently, its daily hour-long morning show "Democracy Now," hosted by Amy Goodman, is being carried by 20 stations, including the 5 Pacifica ones. That such a quality program is carried by so few is emblematic of the tension and antipathy that exists at some community stations toward outside programming.

The turmoil at Pacifica should be seen within the larger political context alluded to, and the divisions within the left. Pacifica is a lightning rod for criticism because of expectations to deliver the audio promised land. One longtime KPFKer, writing in Current magazine, even framed her discontent in loss-of-faith terms. A couple of years ago, Pacifica implemented some major programming changes at KPFA, its flagship Berkeley station. Changes would ensue at the other four as well. A group of KPFA volunteers and listeners was concerned that the new programming, as well as new management policies, signaled Pacifica’s abandonment of its traditional progressive stance. They said that the network was headed for the mainstream. Kindred opposition groups formed at KPFK and WBAI in New York. Pat Scott, Pacifica’s executive director, defended the changes as necessary to the network’s survival. She said, "We had a lot of balkanization in our programming," and the result was "people were not listening." Some ugly things followed: gag rules to prevent any on-air discussion of the issues, banishment from stations, public meetings that excluded the public, picket lines, angry letters, and articles.

I don’t know the details of who said what to whom. Rumors and accusations abound, all laced with a good deal of vitriol. One thing is clear: Pacifica generates passion. People care. That’s a positive starting point. However, when passion and caring are distorted by rage and hurt feelings then rational discourse is difficult. Some of those let go at Pacifica stations had, for better or worse, served the network for many years. I cannot speak to the quality of their work. No one likes being removed from the airwaves. But it seems that there must be a graceful way to usher out veterans and bring in new voices. Volunteers and staff should be honored and treated with respect. The burden is on management. Every effort should be made to extend hands and be generous. If offers are not accepted then let the record show that. If offers are not made let the record reflect that as well. My sense is that many of those involved, on both sides, feel wounded and victimized. This is not unique to Pacifica. It is often typical of community organizations that people work long hours under stressful conditions, are underpaid, and sometimes unpaid. Worse, their efforts go unrecognized. There is no culture of appreciation.

As I write in early September, the latest news from Pacifica is that it is offering downlink equipment free of charge to its affiliates. In exchange, according to the contract, "Pacifica may terminate this agreement ... if a station dilutes the goodwill associated with Pacifica’s name." Excuse me? Aside from sheer vagueness, how does Pacifica impose a priori dictates and limits on what stations may say?

It is deeply troubling for me to write about Pacifica. It has a rich heritage and a still enormous unrealized potential. At the same time things are happening in the control tower that are disheartening and dangerous. There is the possibility that the network will become so internally divided and weakened that it will be forced to sell off its greatest asset: its frequencies.

How to solve the Pacifica conundrum? Mike Albert in Z suggested a panel of left luminaries convene to weigh the issues and offer recommendations, but ultimately, Pacifica controls its own licenses and its own destiny. Without listeners and listener support it will attenuate. Building audiences and having good programs are not synonymous with selling out. Part of the left is afflicted with a poverty mentality. My program, Alternative Radio, is doing very well on some major NPR stations. Does that mean I’ve compromised? To some: Yes. For myself, I want to reach as wide an audience as possible. For those unhappy with the turn of events at Pacifica it will be difficult to recreate the status quo ante. The majority of listeners, outside the core, are channel surfers. They want to hear good radio. If they hear something that grabs them they stay tuned. If not, they move on. I suspect that Pacifica will muddle along with occasional flashes of brilliance. Meanwhile, there is much to do. Perhaps someone would like to create an all-progressive 24-hour, year-round channel on the public radio satellite. Sounds farfetched? It would only cost $100,000 a year for the channel rental.

To build and root a movement we need to shift from politics which focuses on the leaf to the politics of the forest. We must resist what Todd Gitlin calls "the narcissism of small differences." What we have now, to some extent, is the left-handed piccolo player syndrome, e.g., I only associate with other left-handed piccolo players. We are unique and oh so cool. And the other members of the orchestra? You’re on your own. What I’m proposing is not, as Urvashi Vaid fears, a recreation of patriarchy. We can honor our individual and group identities, the leaf. But we must keep the larger ecosystem in view. For the leaf to thrive, the branch and the tree it’s connected to must be healthy. And that wider forest must be able to sustain diverse foliage.

I think something to strive for is getting from the choir to the congregation. Let’s find voices and issues that will resonate in pickup trucks and in subdivisions. Some are doing just that, like Paul Klite of Rocky Mountain Media Watch and Danny Schechter of Globalvision TV. And, of course, Michael Moore. The success and reach of Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Moore, and others can partly be attributed to the fact that they are very funny. Humor is a wonderful way to reach people.

Keep in mind that the U.S. has the strongest and most extensive community radio network in the world. The stations range from the truly remarkable to the mediocre but the base is there to build on. Let’s rekindle the spirit of community radio. To do that we need dialogues not monologues and a willingness to transcend sectarian differences and reach common ground. This process will be expedited if the idiocy of holier-than-thou correctness is overcome.

None of what I’ve outlined precludes dissent, debate, and discussion. However, constructive criticism can only be heard when people are listening. Pacification can be reversed. It is essential for psychological and political reasons to project and produce positive alternatives. It will serve and expand democracy. Community radio offers such an opportunity. As the Cole Porter song goes, "Let’s Do It."     

[This article was originally published in www.zmag.org.]            

The Lawsuit Against Pacifica

by David Adelson

The Board of Directors of the Pacifica Foundation have, in the last two years, altered the governance structure of Pacifica such that they now have the sole authority to nominate and elect the entirety of their membership. (The Governing Board presently comprises thirteen members - six additional seats remain vacant - including five, Chair Mary Frances Berry among them, who have been with the institution less than two years.) Prior to these changes, members of station Local Advisory Boards (LABs) at the five Pacifica stations (KPFK-LA, KPFA-Berkeley, WBAI-NY, WPFW-DC, and KPFT-Houston) elected a majority of Pacifica Governing Board members.

Eighteen advisory board members from Pacifica stations KPFK (LA), KPFA (Berkeley), WBAI (NY) and WPFW (DC) have just filed suit (7-16-99) against the Pacifica Foundation to reverse these changes.

We see the recent authoritarian actions by Pacifica's CEO and Governing Board to be logical extensions, if rather astonishingly dramatic and overt, of a process that has been occurring at Pacifica for several years culminating with the changes in governance described above. These changes, made in the name of increased relevance and efficiency, have had the effect of withdrawing from all Pacifica stakeholders the ability to exert a meaningful say in what happens at Pacifica.

The lawsuit contains two primary components, one dealing recent changes in Pacifica governance that we assert violate provisions of the California Corporations Code that protect the voting rights of members of a corporation, and the other with what we assert have been uses of foundation funds for purposes other than those described in the articles of incorporation.

In 1997 the Pacifica Governing Board tried to alter its by-laws so thatit elected two-thirds of its own members, reducing Local Advisory Board-elected membership to one-third. It was claimed that this change was necessary to bring people with more skills onto the Board. Internal and public resistance, as well as the intercession of attorney Dan Siegel on behalf of luminaries such as Helen Caldicott and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and community groups Take Back KPFA, Pacifica Accountability Committee, and Save Our Station resulted in the abandonment of that effort, though the Board did expand its number by four seats, none of which have ever been filled.

The Board revisited the issue of governance as a result of an opinionfrom CPB CEO Robert Coonrod in response to a query by outgoing CEO Patricia Scott about whether Pacifica's governance structure violated CPB rules. Coonrod indicated that if LAB members simultaneously sat on the LAB and the Governing Board, this contradicted CPB guidelines mandating a separation of advisory and governance functions. Ignoring the many possibilities to either contest this opinion or establish a more democratic governance structure consistent with the stated requirements, "Pacifica," as indicated our attorney in a letter notifying Pacifica of our demands, "...opted for the least democratic option imaginable."

A change in by-laws of the Foundation requires a 2/3 majority vote of the governing board. We feel it unlikely that a Board that has just voted unanimously to give itself the unique right to elect itself would get a 2/3 majority to reverse such changes. If successful, our suit will ensure that LABs will have to approve any change in by-laws. While we agree that the prior governance structure was inadequate for Pacifica to accomplish its historic mission, we believe that it was flawed by a lack of democratic participation, not an excess of it. We thus hope to work toward a structure in which subscribers and workers have a say consistent with their importance in this most crucial, independent media institution.

Our attorney has served Pacifica with the summons and complaint and has initiated service on all members of the Governing Board. Once we pass the expected filing of a demurer by Pacifica, we will enter into a discovery process, in which we will take depositions from all relevant Pacifica officials and will requisition complete institutional legislative histories and financial records. We intend to make all findings public, within the constraints of the law.

Funds are urgently needed to support this effort. Those wishing to donate to the suit should send checks to the Siegel and Yee Trust Account, 499 14th St. Suite 220, Oakland CA 94612. Please be sure to write "Pacifica Suit" in the memo field of the check.

[From PAC Folio, Volume 1, Number 1, August 1999]

JOURNALISTS INSPIRE SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY RADIO

By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate

Last Wednesday afternoon, radio journalist Aileen Alfandary stood on the sidewalk in front of the building where she has worked for many years. She looked out of place. The deadline for the KPFA evening news was fast approaching -- but all the doors were locked.

I asked Alfandary to describe what had happened to her the night before. She replied with a quiet voice: "I was arrested on charges of `trespassing' in a newsroom where I've worked for 20 years."

Some of her colleagues were also among the more than 50 station supporters arrested on the night of July 13. The owner of the Berkeley, Calif., station -- the Pacifica Foundation -- had ordered KPFA employees to choose between journalism and job security. They chose journalism. Now they've been locked out.

To make matters worse, the foundation also owns major noncommercial radio stations in Los Angeles, Houston, New York City and Washington. For several months now, with a flurry of officious memos, foundation authorities have demanded adherence to a "gag rule" against covering Pacifica-related issues on the air -- issues crucial to future possibilities for free-speech radio.

With a signal that reaches most households in Northern California, KPFA is the oldest listener-supported radio station in the United States. Its mix of wide-ranging news and public affairs programs along with diverse cultural offerings has earned fierce loyalty.

All across the country, hundreds of public radio stations are now paying close attention to the conflict between KPFA and Pacifica. Can a public radio station truly function with the significant democratic participation of listeners? Or must a few unaccountable people be in a position to dictate basic policies?

Because KPFA has tremendous public support in the San Francisco area, the Pacifica Foundation keeps discovering that it can't intimidate the paid staff, unpaid volunteers or listeners. Since early spring, one firing after another has only strengthened the resistance.

During KPFA's on-air pledge drive in May, more than 85 percent of the approximately 7,000 contributors formally notified the station that they were pledging under protest to express opposition to the foundation's top-down policies. But the de facto referendum seemed to make no impression on Pacifica's leadership.

On July 13, management decided to put down its iron heel. The foundation's executive director called a sudden meeting of KPFA staff and distributed a memo titled "Appropriate Conduct." It declared that "Pacifica is committed to enforcing its policies and my previous directives prohibiting on-air or in-the-media discussion of matters pertaining to Pacifica or KPFA management decisions..."

Hours after distribution of the memo, the daily "Flashpoints" public-affairs program went on the air. Most of the 60 minutes were devoted to discussing issues of journalism and racial diversity in America. Then came a segment that included tape from a news conference held earlier in the day by a few of the dozen people who had been arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience at the station in June.

At 6 p.m., as usual, "Flashpoints" ended and the KPFA evening news began. After a lead story about health care proposals in Washington, anchor Mark Mericle moved on to read a report about the latest developments in the dispute between KPFA and Pacifica. Suddenly, listeners heard "Flashpoints" producer and co-host Dennis Bernstein yelling his protests as security guards surrounded him.

Moments after going off the air, Bernstein had been told that he was being placed on "administrative leave." Bernstein refused to go quietly. Reporting live, Mericle began to inform listeners about what was happening in the studio a few feet away.

Then, in mid-sentence, the air went dead. It spluttered, and Mericle's reportorial voice returned. But only for a few moments. The air went dead again. When sound returned in a couple of minutes, the station was broadcasting a taped speech from Pacifica archives.

I'll never forget how chilling it was to hear this real-life drama -- of journalistic courage and management suppression -- as it occurred, live, on the radio. It sounded totalitarian.

Bernstein declined to obey orders to leave the studios where he had worked for so long. Likewise, when a newly arrived management operative (just flown in from Houston) ordered news department co-directors Mericle and Alfandary to get out of the newsroom and leave the building, they declined to defer to his illegitimate authority. Arrests came later that night.

The battle between KPFA and Pacifica is far from over. It's a struggle with profound implications for public radio. Much hangs in the balance.

Staff, volunteers and listeners continue to gather in front of the KPFA building on behalf of community radio and social justice. Often, their numbers are so large that they spill out onto the street. Appropriately, it is named Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

__________________________________________________________________

Background information is available at http://www.savepacifica.net
__________________________________________________________________

Norman Solomon's latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media."

[From PAC Folio, Volume 1, Number 1, August 1999]