Juan Gonzales Talk at Forum on Pacifica Crisis (March 23, 2001)

(transcribed by Eileen Goodman)
(additional editing by Vince Ivory & Lloyd Karch)

photo: Vince Ivory (March 23, 2001)

(applause)
Good evening, and thanks to all of you for coming out this evening and showing the enormous feeling that you have for KPFK and for the Pacifica Network and it's mission.

I don't think that there's a radio station in America, a television station in America, where the listeners would give two damns who the program director is, who the station manager is, (applause) what is happening internally within those stations. The reality is that there is perhaps no more loyal group of listeners of the mass media in the United States of America than the listeners of Pacifica Radio. (applause)

So, that anybody would consider a gathering of listeners, concerned and worried about what is the future of their radio station, or their network to be an anti-Pacifica rally; where it is just the opposite, it is a rally of deep, deep concern. A meeting of deep, deep concern, as we've seen them in Houston. Let me tell you, I've had e-mails, (in) New York City there are so many Pacifica reform groups in existence that it is hard to keep track of them. There's a, "Concerned Friends of WBAI of Rockland County." There's a, "Concerned Friends of WBAI of Westchester County." There's a, "Concerned Friends of WBAI of Nassau County." There's a, "Concerned Friends of WBAI of Connecticut." There's a, "Concerned Friends of WBAI of New Jersey," and they're even now breaking up into "Northern New Jersey" and "Central New Jersey." (applause) All of these groups are meeting on practically a weekly basis. Right, some of them have hundreds of people who come to their meetings. In New York City, the "Concerned Friends of WBAI," the first meeting that they had, a few days after the infamous Christmas coup, there were twelve hundred people who attended that meeting the week between Christmas and New Year's. (applause) So this shows that contrary to the belief of the Board, and the managers, and the news directors of Pacifica-- I'm not even getting into the corporate press: the articles that have appeared in the LA Times; in the Washington Post; in TIME magazine; in the New York Times; in Boulder, Colorado. There are front-page articles, in Boulder, Colorado about the crisis in Pacifica because one station there picks up a lot of Pacifica programming, including Democracy Now! So that, there is an enormous movement that has arisen in the past couple of years of progressive Americans that are deeply, deeply concerned about what is going on in Pacifica. And you see it being covered everywhere, except on the Pacifica evening news. (applause) All of the rest of the corporate media-- all of these groups that have sprung up all around the country-- they've got it wrong. They've blown this thing out of proportion. This personnel issue. This internal dirty laundry matter, they have it all wrong. The Pacifica evening news has it right; it's not a story.

Well, I think that you are showing, and many people around the country are showing, that it is a story of deep concern and it has important and valuable lessons for not only Pacifica listeners, but for Americans across the country who are concerned about the relationship between Democracy and the mass media. (applause) And, I think that this is part of a growing democracy movement in relationship to the mass media in America and it is at the cutting edge right now. And that is why I decided on January 29th, was to resign from Democracy Now! because I did not feel... It's interesting that we've had a couple of union statements from the AFTRA local in Washington, and here in Los Angeles, about this issue. Now, I resigned specifically because I did not believe that as an employee I could go out and try to organize a boycott against the Pacifica Board, to drive them out, because I understood that unions have contracts, and usually you have "no strike," "no economic attack" situations. And I did not want to be in a situation as an employee, to be involved in that, so actually the best thing for me to do is to get out and to do what I do best. (applause)

And, at the Daily News, I'm the chair of the Newspaper Guild unit so I know a little bit about labor issues. And to put the question to rest among the union members who are still inside, this is not a labor boycott, this is a listener boycott. (applause) It is a listener boycott. No one is talking about the people inside, in the collective bargaining units doing anything. This is about the listeners who sponsor this Network deciding (in) a national referendum what they believe is correct or incorrect about the policies of the Pacifica Board. Unfortunately, the limitations of the system only allow the listeners to express their viewpoint through either giving money or withholding money.

If the Pacifica Board was willing to hold a vote among all the listeners, (applause) there would be no need for a boycott. If there was some other structure that would allow all the listeners to be involved in passing judgment on what is occurring there would be no need for a boycott. But, given the reality that this is the only way that all-- of each individual listener can make a decision... That is why I felt (and others who join with me felt) that the only way that we could change things around, in an immediate sense, because we... I have given my money to the legal suits, many other people have because we believe that the legal suits eventually will win. However, we all know how the courts in the United States of America work. We know that if you can pay lawyers a lot of money you can drag things out for a long time and the more money you can put into it the longer you can drag cases out through appeals, through motions, move venues to different jurisdictions, and this is exactly what the Pacifica Board has been involved in and will continue to be involved in. So maybe it will take a year, eighteen months, two years and the cases will drag on. But, meanwhile very much as in the Israeli/Palestinian situation, the Pacifica Board while it to continues to drag things out is creating a reality on the ground. (applause) The reality that it is creating on the ground (is that) it has systematically, area of the Network by area of the Network, been conducting what can only be called purges. (applause) These are not, this is not a situation of a few employees. This is going from one station to another station rooting out anybody in the staff of these stations who disagree. Who not only disagree (because there are many others who disagree), who have the nerve to stand up. Because, you can disagree and keep quiet because you are afraid that you might lose your job or your might lose, if you're a volunteer, that valuable space that you have on a radio station. But, those who dare to stand up and say, "I don't agree with what's going on," these are the ones that get lopped-off. Now I want to read to you... I'm glad that Mark Schubb came, he had the best of both worlds, he was able to urge as many people as he could who he had influence over not to come to this event, he was able not to publicize it, and then when I think they realized there was going to be a big turnout he was able to come to it anyway and present his view. So he had the best of all worlds. (applause)

The problem is, if you already have a rule that these kind of issues cannot be discussed on the air, on the air waves that you control, why are you so upset about people discussing them in public meetings? (applause) Why are you trying to sabotage those efforts in public meetings? You not only want to control stuff on the air, you want to control it off the air. Let me read to you a memo that Schubb issued a couple of years ago. This is dated February 28th, 1996:

"Dear Programmers and Board Ops, we need your help in honoring KPFK's long standing policy against the airing of dirty laundry including quote 'event announcements for that purpose,' even if the offense is by a guest or a caller please remember that it is your responsibility to cut it off immediately and to move on. This is one of the few rules we have at KPFK that will absolutely lead to permanently being removed from the station. I appreciate the respect you have for our audience and for the professionalism that you bring to your work here. Thanks for your help in this matter, Mark Schubb, general manager." (boos)

So the question of airing dirty laundry does not just deal with the staff, it deals with the listeners or guests who might want to raise, on their own, their own questions and concerns about anything that is going on at Pacifica. The best example, as many of you may have heard a couple of weeks ago, a United States Congressman from Brooklyn was on the air (in a phone interviewm on the labor show in WBAI in New York discussing with Ken Nash, who has been running that show for many, many years along with Mimi Rosenberg. But, Mimi wasn't there because she had been banned a few weeks earlier from the station by the new station manager. And the Congressman, Major Owens, raised some criticisms that he had, or what he saw was going on with Pacifica. The general manager rushed into the studio, threw the host out, she threw Ken Nash out; and, then later informed his union that he is not to return to the station, and hung up the phone on the Congressman, and then proceeded to say, "only the truth will be broadcast over this radio station." Congressman Owens later went on the House of Congress and made a very eloquent speech about how he had never seen this kind of authoritarianism anywhere in the media in this country.

Now one of the things that is interesting: Mr. Murdock, Marc Cooper (in a recent letter that he sent over the Internet to me), and Patricia Guadalupe (the news director at PNN)- they've all said, 'well, this Juan Gonzales, he resigns from Pacifica and then he's still working at his corporate, right-wing newspaper, the Daily News.' That is true I've been working at the Daily News as a staff columnist for fourteen years. And,one of the things I try to make clear to folks about the Pacifica Board, it's not just a question that people work in corporations. The reality is most Americans end up having to work in a capitalist society for a capitalist company, or for government, or for a nonprofit- those are your choices. It's not that you happen to work at a corporation, it's what you do when you're there. (applause) And I think that my practice, in fourteen years, at the Daily News is pretty well known for people in New York City. Not only was I actively involved in the leadership of a five month strike at the Daily News against the 'then' owners, the Tribune Company. Not only did I sit-in, lead sit-ins, in the newspaper - twice against management, and was dragged out and arrested, and still managed to come back to get my job. (applause) Not only have I consistently written columns in opposition to the Newspaper's racist and right-wing policies; and, called the owner in columns a thug and a bully, and on television a racist to his face- (applause) and still managed to keep my job. But, the astounding thing to me is that Mort Zuckerman, the owner of the New York Daily News has had more tolerance of dissent than the Pacifica Network is now showing to it's own employees. (applause) And that to me is mind-boggling. (sustained applause)

Now, we chose to engage in this boycott because we felt it was the only way to get all the listeners involved in the battle. We've had an enormous response, and we totally respect that there are many people who love Pacifica, but still can't get themselves to stop giving money, and we respect that. And, there are many people who will say, 'well, the legal route will eventually win.' We respect all those viewpoints. But, we have come in the Pacifica campaign to believe that the only way that we're going to get the station back (and the fastest way possible), and the Network back (before it is taken apart piece by piece) is: as I say, "by cutting off the water, turning up the heat to the hijackers." Imagine the place is hijacked! They depend on your money to keep paying Epstein, Becker & Green. And it's really, it's the height of absurdity to think that an anti-union law firm, Epstein, Becker & Green, which boasts on it's website that it specializes in creating union-free environments, this is on the website (go to web, look up Epstein, Becker & Green) they boast on their website that they specialize in creating union-free environments. That this law firm, is the law firm of Pacifica, and I'm sure that it was involved in talking to some of these folks over at the PNN news about, 'wouldn't it be nice to get an AFTRA, a nice AFTRA letter condemning this boycott.' Because the amazing thing about that letter (and, I respect peoples' right to disagree); but, where was the concern (not about workers whose jobs had been threatened), where was the concern about all the workers whose jobs have already been taken? (applause) Where was the outcry when Larry Bensky was fired? When Nicole Sawaya was fired? What was done to Dennis Bernstein? What was done to Bernard, to Sharan, to Valerie, all (them) where was the outcry then? About actual jobs lost, not about jobs threatened, actual jobs lost. There was no outcry from the people now who are worried about the threats to jobs now for the employees.

Now, we believe:
Number one- That although Pacifica would like (that some people on the Pacifica Board would like) to sell the station, they will not be able to. That even if we're successful, and I think that we will be- especially in the next fund drive that starts in May, and that is where we are really targeting our efforts. Because we only got started in this last fund drive, we're just getting off the ground. But, in May, when we seriously put a dent in their fund raising (and, the cash and carry operation, the money comes in the money goes out)- there is no big reserve there.
Number two- Whereas, they cannot borrow money against their licenses, the FCC (no matter how much the licenses are worth), the FCC has a rule you cannot borrow money using a radio license as collateral. So, they can't borrow to get them over the problem. And, so any significant cash squeeze on the Pacifica Network will force them into a precarious position.

Should they try to sell a station, and use that as an excuse, we do not believe that they will be able to succeed. Why? Number one is- there's a long process of time that you must go through from the moment you announce the intention to sell. You must make announcements in the newspapers. You must notify the FCC- there's a period of public comment or reaction. If there is a challenge the FCC must hold a hearing. There are now three lawsuits in this State challenging the very legality of that Board, and the right of that Board to even make that sale. And, it would be very easy to move, to have a TRO on that potential sale, until the facts of the underlying legality of that Board are resolved in a court of law. So that battle could be tied up for months.

At the same time, they will still need money to operate. Now what about the threat to the employees? I'm not going to lie to you. When they start, when their money starts being cut. And, remember Pacifica still is largely volunteers, in many places. But, for the employees, when that money starts to go- they're not going to think about cutting the money they're paying Epstein, Becker & Green ($500 bucks an hour- whatever it is they're paying Epstein, Becker & Green). They're not going to think of to cut their executive staff. They're not going to think to cut the PNN news, which is the only part of Pacifica that doesn't raise money. Even the Leher news hour spends five or ten minutes every fund drive raising money. They're not going to cut the PNN news. They're going to try to make the local stations pay.

Now our position is that we are not only doing a boycott, we are doing constant pressure on the individual board members. Now I've been involved, as many of you have been involved, in popular community mass and labor struggles over the years. All institutions are run by human beings. And all human beings can be effected by pressure, by popular resistance and uprising. All human beings have a breaking point. When you are fighting for something you believe in, your ability to withstand the pressure is much greater. When you are fighting for a mercenary object, or cause with no principles behind it, your ability to withstand real heavy constant pressure is reduced. We believe we can drive those Board members out. We can convince them (as somebody here said, they're not getting paid right now for what they're doing), that we can convince them that they can use their time better someplace else....(applause) ....with a strong enough movement, with a strong enough movement. So we believe we will be able to prevent them from selling. And, for those employees who are worried about the possibility of being laid-off; well, we of the Pacifica Campaign, right now, make the promise that we will raise as much money as possible to adopt them (like we've adopted the others who have been fired), to help supplement their income until we take the Network back. (applause) Because, we care about those employees, we care about those employees. But, sometimes you just can't be worried about your own little job when you say you're in a Network that represents so much more to so many people. So we're going to win this fight, We're going to drive that Board out. We believe the only way to do that is a combination, in a short time (the legal suit may win long term but who knows what the Network will look like then). But, in a short period of time the way to win it is cut off their money, and put the maximum pressure on those board members to get the hell out of our radio network.
Thank you. (applause)

Bernard White Talk at Forum on Pacifica Crisis (March 23, 2001)

(transcribed by Eileen Goodman)
(additional editing by Vince Ivory & Lloyd Karch)

(applause)

This is incredible. When we came up to this... First of all, thank you all for coming out this evening. When we came into the sanctuary this afternoon and I looked around and saw all these seats, I said this place is entirely too large. And they said, no, no, no, we're going to fill it up. And I said OK. And sure enough, here it is. (applause)

As you know, my name is Bernard White. I'm from what Amy calls the embattled studios of WBAI, (applause) the studios of the fired and banned.

On December 22, which was a Friday evening, just a couple days before Christmas, we had a visit from the Executive Director of Pacifica, one Bessie Wash, who came in and began to change all of the locks on all of the doors at WBAI. When she came in, someone at the station called me and said, "Did you know that Bessie was here changing the locks?" So, I said, "No." So I called in and I spoke to Bessie Wash and I asked her, "Why were you changing the locks?" And she told me that, "Well, I'm changing the locks, Bernard, because I'm changing the locks." I said, "But that doesn't make sense. Why would you change the locks?" She said, "Because I'm changing the locks." I said, "Well, what about the producers, will they be allowed to come in and do their programs?" She said, "Yes, they will be allowed to come in." And I said, "Well, then why change the locks?" She said, "I told you, I'm changing the locks because I'm changing the locks."

Well, that was about 10:30 on a Friday evening. On Saturday morning at about 7 o'clock, I got someone who was just ringing my doorbell like crazy. So I- rather than run to the door because it was just abnormal for anybody to ring the doorbell- I thought something was wrong. So. I went to the window to find out who it was. And there was a messenger who said, "I got something for you that you have to sign." On the way downstairs I kind of figured out what was probably happening. And when I got to the door, he had a letter that had two checks inside plus another letter that was dated the 20th (this was the 22nd) saying that I was terminated from the position of Program Director; that my belongings would be sent to me at some point in the future. Now I served pretty much as the station's music library, because most of the music that was played- a lot of the music that was played on 'BAI- was my music, that I would just loan the producers. So I finally got it back about three weeks ago, by the way. I haven't gone through it yet, I don't know what's missing but I'm sure that it's all not there. It also said that if I am caught on the premises that it will be considered trespassing and, of course, that means that I would be arrested.

About 45 minutes later (I live in Brooklyn) 45 minutes later (if you know anything about New York and Manhattan) the producer of Wake Up Call, which is the morning program that we did, she was visited by the same person, who did the same thing to her. Now, I didn't sign my notice, neither did she. We passed them back to the person. When I left the house later on that day to go to a demonstration, that was being held down at WBAI, I saw that the checks had been slid back through the mail slot, but the letter stating... about my termination was not. This launched a real serious period at WBAI. The person who was named... by the way, not only was I terminated on that day but so was the Station Manager as well as Sharan Harper, the producer... and an interim Station Manager was put into place. An interim Station Manager who was a very popular talk show host; someone who had a lot of respect in the community; someone who... if it was not for them using that person, it would have been very clear what had happened at WBAI. But, things got very murky because it began to be characterized as some kind of personality conflict between me and that individual. But, I think Pacifica learned a lesson from when they went into KPFA and they recognized that one of the things that they had to do was divide the staff and then they could conquer it. Then they could begin to sow misinformation out to the community.

Today was a very important day for me, it's a very sad day, in many respects, because it marks the second anniversary of [the death of] my mentor at WBAI; the person who brought me in, the person who... we spent hours and hours and hours for years talking about radio... and that is Samori Marksman. (applause)

Samori Marksman understood very well what Lew Hill was talking about when he began to formulate KPFA: that one of the things you have to do if you want to make a radio station relevant is to bring in the people from the community, bring in the various activists, the artists, the thinkers, the folks who were doing things in the community. This is how you develop an organic linkage to the community and this is what he began to do. He, once he became Program Director, began to try and create at WBAI the mosaic that was New York City. So we had folks from the Asian community, from the Latino community, the African-American community and the African community and many other communities that make up the city of New York. And as a result, we were doing very well. Our community was responding. When we would ask for funds, the community would respond. We had a record-breaking fundraiser under Samori's tutelage. I think we might have been the first ones... Did you folks ever do a million dollar fundraiser on the air? We probably were the first community radio [station] to do a million dollar fundraiser. (applause) And we got pretty much all of the million dollars. Out of the folks that pledged, we pretty much got most of that money.

So, at the time that WBAI was taken over, as you've just heard, we had gotten over what had taken place at KPFA. That we had begun to convince our listeners that what happened at KPFA was in... if we were strong, if we could show that we were strong at WBAI, that it wouldn't happen to us. So we started out the year with a 200,000 dollar deficit. By the end of the year, we had met the 200,000 dollar deficit; we had increased our subscriber base; we had increased our listenership (even using the measurement tools that they use to measure audience participation and to determine who's listening). We had satisfied all of that, and still they moved in on WBAI.

We're at, as I said, a very important moment of the history of Pacifica, If we do not stand up right now and make sure that they hear us... I don't know how we can make sure that they hear us because our only link to them is the dollar. And if the dollars keep coming in, as they always did, I don't think that they're going to listen to anything else that we have to say. (applause) So, if we want to win this, we have to take away from them what gives them strength and then we can get them to sit down and talk to us at a bargaining table.

You know, one of the things that's really bothering me- I was talking to Juan about it- is that folks are saying that they want to sit down and come up with something that's going to satisfy both sides. You cannot satisfy both sides in this struggle. (applause) One side wants to destroy the institution, and the other side wants to build it. One side wants to depart from the vision of Lew Hill, the other side wants to maintain it. One side wants to build up the community and the other side just wants the money from the community. So you can't satisfy both of those they're a contradiction. You can't have it both ways. (applause)

So, we have to begin to determine what victory looks like, because we're going to win this struggle. I think victory here at KPFK will mean: that you have to begin to develop that mosaic reflective of the community in which KPFK broadcasts to; that people like Ron Wilkins have to be sat down and be talked to about coming back to KPFK; that the institutionalized thuggery that goes on at KPFK has to stop; that the way people are treated has to be curtailed. It is becoming what is happening at WBAI also. Where you would have no... maybe you have... maybe you've listened on the Internet to the kind of abuse that has been allowed to take place against Amy Goodman in the morning at WBAI, the name calling, the accusations. I too have been vilified as the whole vilification process is going on, that's trying to accuse me of all kinds of things- all verbal. I'm waiting for it to be documented somewhere, because I'm running out of money and I will take them to court (sustained applause) and try to get some money for it.

So, I'm going to be brief because it's 12 o'clock where I come from and I don't know how much longer this will make sense, but what I want to convey to you is that this can only happen with you. It will not happen because of the people inside of KPFK, it can only happen with you. You're the ones. You're the engine that makes this whole thing work, and it is your participation with KPFK that gives it it's strength. So at the moment that you determine that it's over, that's enough, we want our radio station back that's when it'll happen. (applause) Frederick Douglas said in one of his speeches that the limits of tyrants are prescribed by those whom they oppress. (sustained applause) So if you want it back, then you have to take it back. One last thing: there's going to be a demonstration tomorrow at KPFK at noon. So if you want your radio station back, you come there tomorrow in these kind of numbers and I'm telling you it will reverberate throughout the network. (sustained applause)

Thank you very much.

 Verna Avery-Brown Talk at Forum on Pacifica Crises (April 29, 2000)

(Transcribed by Eileen Goodman)

(applause)

Thank you, thank you very much, thank you, stop, please. I have to thank you very much, that's very generous but I have to be able to recognize myself when I leave here. (laughter) More importantly my four sons and my husband have to be able to recognize me when I, when they pick me up from the airport and not a whole lot of applause's coming from that group. (laughter) They do however, bring me flowers on occasion and usually some they plucked from the neighbor's yard, unfortunately, but they're learning, they mean well. I didn't really come here to talk about my role as a mother and as a wife although that's a very important role in my life.

I came to talk about my role as the former anchor of Pacifica Network News.... I'm going to talk about the reason I decided to resign my position.

We just heard Larry Bensky, well we just heard Don articulate Larry Bensky's reasons for staying and I feel as though I have to articulate my reasons for leaving because we all choose how we want to fight these struggles and these battles. So in doing so, I'm going to go back a little bit, to the beginning of my tenure at Pacifica Network News.

When I first walked through the doors of the Pacifica Network News room in 1988, I was coming straight out of a career in commercial radio news. Back then if I did happen to switch to a FM radio station it was by accident while I was really surfing the dial looking for the Motown sound or something. I was what you might call the epitome of political incorrectness. Politically I was clueless. If it wasn't the Republicans, the Democrats or the "mean ole communists" they had not registered on my political radar screen; the Green party, the Socialists, the Libertarians, you could have put what I knew about those parties in your eye and still not blinked. I'm just being honest here folks. The Chiapas Indians, East Timor, none of these things meant a thing to me. I may as well have landed on another planet when I stepped through that newsroom, in 1988. And as a general assignment reporter, I was expected to not only learn about these issues but to care about them and to portray them in such a way that others might hear and be informed and also learn to care about these issues and to become active. Over the years I was assigned to different stories every day, a different subject. And somewhere along the line I really began to hear these stories.

I heard the story of Julia Butterfly, the woman who made her home in a giant redwood tree for years in order to protect it from the loggers who were perfectly content with raping the old growth forest in order to increase their precious profits.

I heard the story of the 9, 10, 11 year old girls that lived in Bombay, India, who were forced or stolen away from their families and forced into sexual slavery; or in some cases given away by their fathers to help earn money for the families; forced to put on make up and perform sexual favors at these tender young ages; at the moment they reached puberty so their families wouldn't have to starve to death. And I began to realize that their stories of economic deprivation was not really so different from the stories of the young African American women and girls right here across the U.S. who because of their lack of resources and their lack of nurturing and lack of recreational opportunities and facilities are left to fend for themselves and to raise themselves and they wound up fighting and killing one another in after school skirmishes and fighting- for entertainment. The girls that I spoke to are now serving lengthy sentences for murder before they've even had a chance to live.

And so, over the years hearing those stories, I began to see the geopolitical, socioeconomic connections between the lives of the people of color across this continent, indeed around this world. The controlling forces of the IMF, and the World Bank, the impotency of the UN, the U.S. military industrial complex and for the first time I saw the puppets and the puppeteers.

And if I can just digress for a moment here. When the protesters came to Washington DC a couple of weeks ago, by the hundreds, and demonstrated in front of the World Bank and the IMF; and formed human chains, endured the tear gasing and the police beatings, to confront the powers that be and to try to prevent business as usual, I felt a little bit of pride, pride in knowing that Pacifica has been covering that story for years. And I wondered how many of those protesters out there had gotten their information from the stories that we had been doing at Pacifica for many years. That PNN has long been exposing the inhumane exploitive policies of the IMF and the World Bank and I could tell by the superficial coverage that the TV stations, the mainstream TV stations and radio stations were providing that not very many of those reporters were very well versed on the issues surrounding that controversy. Point of fact, I understand that the last of the protesters, the demonstrators, have been released from jail, after an extraordinary display of solidarity and tenacity and displaying grace under pressure, and I just wanted to give them a congratulations (applause) for a job well done. And those demonstrators were mostly young people. And so there is indeed hope for us in this struggle.

But back to my early years at Pacifica, when I began to hear the stories. I heard the plights of the African American farmers eloquently articulated and dramatized when they brought a caravan of tractors lead by a mule they named "Struggle" to the front of the White House. The institutional racism and injustices practiced against those farmers was so deeply rooted that it took court orders to get them what was rightfully theirs. I remember when the farmers' caravan came to D.C. and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House and I was assigned to cover that story. I just could not resist the urge to climb up on that tractor with the leader and interview him as the caravan proceeded. I saw some of the other reporters saying, "who is that?" And then they found out, they said, "oh Pacifica," and kind of smirked. But you know, I really felt proud to have that distinction, to wear that distinction, to be a Pacifica reporter. I felt proud because I know the rich legacy of Pacifica.

I know Pacifica has been a constant refuge for great independent thinkers of this world. People like Paul Robeson, Alan Ginsberg, Malcolm X, Whoopi Goldberg before her pre-Hollywood days. I know the legacy of Pacifica and just looking out here today and seeing all of you and this just sort of completes the picture for me. It really does touch me in my heart in a very special way. There's so many other stories I could really go on for hours, I mean there's the story of Granny D, who I'm sure all of you know, who walked across the country to protest campaign finance reform, it's that spirit, well Pacifica covered her story even before she got to the end of her trip.

There was a young, white, or rather, Jewish guy who turned his skin black for a college experiment. He took some pills and he couldn't stand being black for more then a week, a week, because of the way people were responding to him. Nothing had changed about him except for the color of his skin. The lesson- racism is alive and well in America. He told me when he had decided to end his experiment and wanted to return his skin to the natural color, he scrubbed himself so hard his skin began to bleed.

There are countless stories, I'm not going to stand here and try to go over every one, I mean it was an eleven year career. But the one thing that made a major impression on me when I first walked through the doors over eleven years ago, were the people that I met in the newsroom. I was the only African American, of course, back then I think we were called Black at that time. But they, my white oh so liberal colleagues, were all just as sensitive to the issues of racism and ageism and sexism and all the other "isms" as I was. And in many cases were better informed. Yet we all understood that my perspective was unique and was entitled to be a part of a mix and the dialogue.

When I first got there, I wasn't exactly what you call homophobic, but lets just say I had a whole lot of questions about homosexuality. They all began with, "why." Why would anybody want to? Why are some people attracted to the same sex? Why this, why that? But through my work at Pacifica I came to understand why; but, more importantly I realized that the question is really not why, but why not? Why shouldn't people be allowed to express their sexual orientation however it manifests within them? Why shouldn't they have equal protection to pursue their own choice of lifestyles? Why shouldn't their beliefs carry just as much weight as anybody else's? Why not? And while I am still just as straight as the day I was when I walked through the door, and proud of it, I'd like to think I'm not narrow in my thinking. And I thank God and Pacifica for that deeper understanding of my fellow human beings. Yes I said God, ooh! Most of my white colleagues were/are atheists, agnostics, and of course that didn't sit well with me back then with my Baptist, middle-class upbringing. But while I heard them saying they didn't believe in God, their actions, their compassionate nature, their commitment sure seemed divine to me. Case in point, Amy Goodman, from WBAI, who was literally caught in the crossfire of the brutal military regime trying to protect the lives of East Timorese activists by giving voice and international attention to their cause. And I reached the point where I really didn't care whether my colleagues believed in God or not as long as they just kept doing what they were doing. It was all right with me, I was going to believe in God enough for all of them.

And when I met other African Americans and people of color within the network, people with that same fiery spirit and passion and commitment: People like Samori Marksman of WBAI and Dredd Scott Keys, Jose Santiago, Sheryl Flowers of KPFA and we just recently saw Errol Maitland of Democracy Now who is recovering as we speak (applause) from wounds ruthlessly inflicted on him by New York City police officers as he simply attempted to cover the funeral march of Patrick Dorsmon. And once again I had an opportunity to really feel proud, to be amongst this caliber of people called Pacifica.

And so when the confrontation at KPFA took place, it brought things to a head at PNN, the newsroom. For sometime there seemed to be a rift developing; two distinct political camps were forming. There were those who seem to carry with them a respect for the principles upon which Pacifica was founded and they remain committed to the struggle for equality and social justice and peace and seemed eager to do whatever it took, whatever was necessary to protect those rights. And then there were those who seemed to no longer fully embrace these ideals with the same amount of fervor that they had years ago. And moreover went out of their way to question the need to cover stories and certain angles. Things like affirmative action, they rolled their eyes when stories involving gay and lesbian rights were pitched during the morning news meetings. Issues concerning African Americans or other people of color were routinely placed at the bottom of the newscast on the days when these individuals were producing the show. And many of my story suggestions were just summarily dismissed as, "where's the news peg? Where's the news peg?" To which I would sometimes argue, "well, it's news because I say it's news, because not enough people realize this is a crisis, and this crisis is underway." Our standard of news cannot simply be whether ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and the rest of the corporate run media deem it to be news. But that was the majority mindset, prevalent in that news department at that time. Everything Democracy Now did, with it's award winning team of journalists, was suddenly frowned upon as unbalanced, knee-jerk, liberalism, or advocacy activism journalism. Professional jealousies were so heavy in the air you could see it. And the PNN news was often compromised out of pettiness on those occasions when these individuals were producing the newscast.

Dan Coughlin, a fair-minded, compassionate, intelligent, committed producer was ridiculed and undermined at every opportunity. He was made a target of their campaign to gain permanent control of the newsroom. And they went about this with the quiet endorsement of Lynn Chadwick and Dr. Mary Frances Berry, sort of like a wink and a nod.

On two occasions I spoke personally to Dr. Berry about the forces that were at play in the newsroom. Dan and I both met with Lynn Chadwick on a number of occasions, they listened, they made promises and then they acted in ways directly in contradiction, contrary to what we had discussed. They had aided and abetted in creating an extremely hostile environment for Dan and I in the newsroom.

Then, Dan's duties as producer were re-assigned. He was no longer to head up the news. He was given a "bogus assignment," which to this day had not been fully defined. The only thing that is clear is that he'll have nothing whatsoever to do with producing the PNN news.

Dr. Berry would no longer accept my phone calls. Now, here's a woman that I had long-respected, someone I considered to be among the icons of black civil rights leadership. My 15-year old son was portraying her profile, her work, as a subject for a history essay that he was doing in school. I was dumbfounded by her actions and you know, quite frankly, I was really hurt by the rejection.

Before I resigned, I made one final attempt to put into writing all of my concerns about the direction of the PNN news. I was the only African American journalist in that department at the time. Our engineer is African American but rarely ever participated in the actual content decisions that went into the show. My opinions, as anchor of that show, were completely and utterly disregarded. And the chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights was one of the people that was completely ignoring my concerns. To this day, I have not gotten so much as an e-mail from Dr. Berry. And we all know how long it takes to write an e-mail, hit that button "send," or at least most of us do. I could not and can not understand why she choose that course of action. But if this network is to ever return to the bold courageous outlet for peace and justice that it once stood for change has got to take place at the top and yes, I know, that Dr. Berry is for all intents and purposes out but I urge you to look closely at those left to carry out her agenda. Examine the role they play throughout this ordeal and ask yourself what these individuals might have done to gain the trust of Dr. Berry to be handed the mantle so to speak. And then decide whether you think there's been a genuine change at the top. If your answer is; "I don't think so," then remain vigilant of the management. Write, e-mail, telephone, let these new players know of your concerns. Demand that they do what's necessary to heal this institution. Let them know it's not over just because the players have changed but the game is still the same. Force them into dialogue about what they intend to take, what direction they intend to take this network into from here.

And so, when I explain why I left, I left because I could no longer do my work. Sure I could have continued to have performed my job as the "anchor," but I couldn't do my work. Those of you may understand there's a difference between work and a job. Work is the reason you get up in the morning, it pushes you out the door, it's your motivation, your drive, your passion. It's not just collecting a paycheck. Your work is when you make, oh let me make just one more phone call, one more phone call to get that source, just one more, just one more. That's your work. Your job is just something that you just show up, 5 o'clock I'm out of here. Your work gets you up early, keeps you there late, while your kids are at home, perhaps needing some attention. When I realized my work was being compromised, I knew that was unacceptable and there was no reason for me to stay. So we all fight our battles in our own way. While I've left Pacifica, I remain committed to the progressive cause and will until the day I die. And while, (applause) I pursue other avenues for this expression, I urge you all to fight for the station, the network, that we all have grown to love and cherish. And I'm a firm believer in the concept that all things work for good, all things work for good. And I would invite you, my friends, to just hold that thought in your consciousness as we examine the lessons of the tumultuous chapter in the history of this truly, truly precious institution all things work for good- peace and blessings.

Thank you all. (applause)

DanCoughlin Talk at Forum on Pacifica Crises (April 29, 2000)

(Transcribed by Elieen Goodman)

Thank you for that sunny southern California welcome. This is my first time here in Los Angeles and I'm moving. I can't wait to come here, from dreary old New York where it's still winter. Don, thank you, very much, for the introduction, I'm not so sure that writing for The Nation magazine is something very positive these days but so be it.

And I also want to thank the organizers of this event for inviting me and bringing so many different people from all around the country to talk about this crucial issue at Pacifica radio, arguably the most important issue facing the .... on behalf of the networks. I am expressing my own individual views. I am, as they say, exercising my First Amendment rights and I do not expect to be disciplined or punished for doing so.

(applause)

I don't want to get too much into the nitty-gritty of Pacifica today even though you're probably all waiting for that. I do want to put the events there, at the network over the last year into some kind of broader political context. And then what I'd like to try to do is offer some kind of vision of where and how Pacifica should move in the years ahead.

As most of you are aware in the last fifteen years and especially in the last four years we've seen a truly stunning process of media consolidation. This process has nowhere been more dramatic then in Radio broadcasting. Well, it's easy to see a San Francisco Examiner or a New York News Day disappear from the streets, it's less easy to see Westinghouse gobble up radio stations all across the country.

One effect of this process, of course, is that Pacifica's five FM licenses, which were once commercially worthless are now all of a sudden valued at probably more than $200, 000,000 dollars. And it is this commercial context, the increasing corporate pressure that is so profoundly affecting all of public broadcasting, just like corporate interests are affecting public telecommunications, public utilities, public health, public education, this is a worldwide process and it has a name and it's called globalization, or Thatcherism, or privatization. And Pacifica radio, as a public broadcaster, is not immune from these political currents. In fact, for all intents and purposes much of public broadcasting in this country today does not exist anymore. And I'm not just talking about the corporate underwriting of the Lehrer News Hour or public TV or radio shows now being tied to specific commercial sponsors like Archer Daniels Midland, GE or Merck. Public broadcasters have now unambiguously linked their futures with private capital. For instance, NPR has just joined with auto-giants like Ford and Daimler/Chrysler and telecommunications companies like Lorall and Lucent to develop satellite radio. A new radio receiver will soon be installed in your car that will link to a programming stream digitally broadcast from satellites. Daimler/Chrysler has invested $100,000,000 dollars in this project, the Blackstone Group, a very famous Wallstreet firm has invested $200,000,000 dollars; and I can tell you that Daimler/Chrysler is not investing a $100,000,000 dollars to hear stories about DaimlerBenz and the Nazi slave labor camps in Germany in the 30's and the 40's. Nor are they investing that kind of money to hear about the environmental record of Daimler/Chrysler's jeep plant in Toleto, Ohio. So you can see that this process of corporate involvement in public broadcasting will have a direct impact on the content that we hear. And now the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the federal agency that funds public radio is now, in fact, funding NPR, providing NPR $1,000,000 dollars to create programming for this new private venture. And this is another example of how the public treasury is in the service of private industry. So public broadcasters have linked-up and linking their futures to Ford and Daimler/Chrysler and Lucent and Sony and not to local communities, not to the farm workers of the central valley, not to the new social movements against globalization or even the educational and religious and rural organizations that fought and created public broadcasting in the first place. This represents a fundamental shift in the very idea and practice of public broadcasting, away from serving the public interests to serving private profit. And that's important that we understand what is happening with public broadcasting and has been happening and place Pacifica within that context.

So as Pacifica News Director, last year, I found myself in meetings with representatives from Microsoft, from Public Radio International, a public broadcaster - a very large one; or from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the federal agency, telling Pacifica about news coverage or how to restructure the network or how to sell stations or how to sub-contract out station management if a sale was not possible or why to receive corporate underwriting. This may be shocking since Pacifica's whole ethos is independent, non-commercial, listener-sponsor radio with a distinct civil libertarian and anti-corporate culture. But in fact, it is the federal government, corporate America and powerful broadcasters that were, and are, shaping many Pacifica policies. And this is not a secret, this is the context within which Pacifica is operating, this is the context within which the Pacifica crisis is occurring today. And I think it is important to see Pacifica in that broader mix.

Alongside this restructuring of public radio is also a dumbing down of content on both television and radio which you've all probably noticed and which has been widely commented on. That is, we don't have a lot of hard-news anymore and if you do have some hard-news there's nothing that is really said and it is very soft, coupled with those limited hard-news stories now are entertainment stories, business stories, sports stories, so that essentially what you're hearing is pretty vacuous. And again, Pacifica is not immune from these social and political forces that are operating out there. So there's tremendous pressure from CPB, public broadcasters, Congress, corporate America to conform, to tone it down, to be so called balanced, to keep Mumia Abu Jamal off the air. And their idea of balance, of course, is Coke versus Pepsi, Democrat versus Republican, it is not when you have General Wesley Clark on the air that you should balance it with a peace activist. And in fact, even the very liberal idea of the media as the "fourth estate." As another check and balance in the system of government is almost finished, you will never- even that notion- has very little currency today. And the pressure is very direct and unequivocal to become dishwater.

But there is an alternative for public broadcasters, for media workers and communities activists. We do not have to become allied with private corporations or government agencies and become Washington centric. We do not need to listen to the sirens and the finger wavers who are telling us to go mainstream and to abandon Pacifica's "anachronistic" mission of peace and social justice. Instead of inviserating community roots we need to deepen them. Instead of dumbing down, we need to smarten up. Instead of just trying to get into the castle we need to go to the cottage. And I say that purposely because it's like what Verna just mentioned when she says, the derision within the network, itself, for what Pacifica stands for is very deep and folks many people would prefer to be players, would prefer to be in the castle and not in the cottage, and that's an important distinction about where we start our work as journalists and our work as people involved in media organization. And we've seen very successful models of this approach within Pacifica itself. Take a look at Democracy Now, one of the reasons why it's relatively successful like it breaks stories is precisely because it comes from the bottom up. It has community roots and it's sustained by community journalists at a vibrant community radio station, WBAI in New York and 'BAI has reflected very successfully the social and political currents that are washing up on its doorstep, immigration, police brutality, the African Diaspora, student sweatshop activists, the International Human Rights Movement, globalization, the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. And this is true at other stations, less and less so now, but it has been true at other stations in the Pacifica system. Many of the finest work, the finest journalists are produced at the community level. Journalists like Verna, she walked in to WPFW in 1988, Laura Flanders comes out of WBAI, Larry Bensky comes out of KPFA, these people did not drop from the sky, they did not drop from CPB or Microsoft or NPR, they grew up with community radio nurturing them, training them, developing them and becoming some of the finest broadcasters in the country today.

WBAI under the leadership of Samori Marksman produced some of the best programming and programmers in community radio in recent years. WBAI did improve the quality of its shows. It won numerous awards. It sharply increased its audience over the last decade and it hit the first $1,000,000 dollar fund raiser in community radio history in the most competitive radio market in the world, and that's New York city. And it achieved these milestones, not by killing its community ties, or abandoning Pacifica's mission; but, by deepening them, by strengthening those community relations and by strengthening its commitment to the original founding message of people like Lew Hill.

Too often the debate at Pacifica is framed between those who supposedly want to improve programming and those who do not. That's not the issue. The issue is how we improve programming, strengthen our programs, build audience, and the issue is how we move forward as a network. And this is crucial to understand and it has important implications for how the network is organized and what kind of programming we do.

We can have, and need to have, a democratic media organization, one that starts from the bottom up. An organization that is accountable, a media that can deepen and grow through participation and representation, not by exclusion and repression. As an organization, Pacifica needs to have internal democracy and transparency at the highest levels. Pacifica also needs to find space for great broadcasters like Larry Bensky and Verna and Laura. Why are accomplished serious journalists being driven out, at all levels, of the network? Pacifica needs to be an organization where rules are followed, where positions are filled in an open hiring process and where journalistic integrity is respected and journalists are not fired for reporting the truth or for exercising editorial discretion. We don't want a network run on terror, it's unacceptable.

(applause)

Pacifica and Pacifica journalists need not be afraid of speaking truth to power, of tackling the controversial issues, of staying true to its mission of peace and social justice. We should say that we are not afraid of social change, that we believe in the need for a new society, that the present organization of society creates war and poverty and racism and like Lew Hill, we want to abolish these conditions of human life. And this is in fact how we can build a network by challenging, by taking on the establishment, by being critical, this is how we can distinguish ourselves. Again, take a look at Democracy Now, it has built audience, it has raised millions, it has broke/won journalism awards, I believe it's a model for how Pacifica can continue to provide a space for broad, diverse movements for social change and at the same time build audience and be successful. But for Pacifica to be able to air the voice of a journalist from death row and for Pacifica to be able to stand up to Daimler/Chrysler, to Microsoft, to NPR, and the CPB, for Pacifica to provide a real alternative it needs us. We have to organize ourselves. We are part of a growing media and democracy movement that is having a powerful effect, most recently in Seattle and in Washington DC; but, we still need to deepen and broaden our organic relations with communities to overcome divisions, to insure that our work is from the bottom up and not the top down and that is why we need groups like this Free Speech Coalition that came together here today and put on this program and why today....

(applause)

So thank you very much for coming and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak.

(applause)

Laura Flanders Talk at Forum on Crisis at Pacifica (April 29, 2000)

(Transcribed by Eileen Goodman)

(applause)

Thank you. It's really great, it's just great to see all of you here. Thank you. Thank you. I love that you took that moment Don, to remind us, that people do this work out of love. That we are here because of something that we believe in, that we care about.

The folks at FAIR and with CounterSpin, we encourage you to get into a very critical mindset: what's wrong with this coverage, what's wrong with this choice of sources, this selection of sources, what's wrong with this spectrum that goes from the very, very far right, to the little bit less far right and stops right there. We talk, very often, in critical terms about what's wrong and what's so exciting is to remember that we're here because of something that we believe is right.

We're here because we believe in the tradition of publicly owned media, of media that's independent from the corporations that Dan mentioned. In media that is accessible to us so that people like Verna can literally walk in a door. I still believe that's different from a Website. That actual people on their actual feet can walk into a door and meet other actual live, living, breathing people, I think is different.

This is really an exciting weekend to be having this event, I think. If you think about it, this is the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. A war that, I think, 25 years ago, on the verge of its end, a lot of people in the US would have thought this isn't going to happen. We're not going to win this argument. A lot of people in Vietnam were thinking, can we lose more people? Can we have more victims? Can this war go on and on? Well maybe. And what we saw 25 years ago was that a war was brought to an end by fighters in Vietnam, by peaceful fighters here, by a Civil Rights Movement here, that stood up against the racist and classist use of the draft and a policy of the powers that be (for heaven sake, when you think what their agenda was)- that we managed to stop that, to turn that around, to end that war with all of its legacy. It's a victory we need to be remembering this weekend.

Now where are you going to go to hear that victory? To be reminded of how that came about. Where are you going to go to hear that coalition of voices again 25 years later. Well I know in New York you could tune into WBAI tomorrow and they'll be airing a day long, I think they'll be airing, I believe deeply that they will be airing, I have confidence that they will be airing the day long Teach-In about how was that war ended. What did we learn and how can we move forward? It wasn't just white people that ended that war. It wasn't just Americans that ended that war. It was a coalition of interests and it was young people and it was old people and it was unexpected and we won something. And you can turn to 'BAI and hear that.

What else is happening this weekend? Well in London, does everybody know about May Day 2K? What did you hear about it? Probably on Pacifica radio, no? Or was it the web? Now the day was everybody would have heard about it on Pacifica radio, right? The day was you would have been hearing day after day on Pacifica Network News the preparation for what's going to happen in London this weekend. They have probably the largest mobilization of police in London history happening this weekend because a May Day event is going to take place in the same style and the same spirit as an anti-capitalist day of protest last June; when groups among them, many, many different groups, but among them reclaim the streets who were active in Seattle and also Washington, all reclaiming the streets of London and last year, do you remember the pictures? You had bricks through the bank windows, you had the police completely freaked out, you had the whole city of London shut down by people with bicycles and people with kids and people with every possible kind of tool of protest, well they're worried the same is going to happen, they are worried. We are excited the same might happen this weekend, May Day 2K. You can see it on the Web, Mayday 2k.org

Well, we want to know what's going to happen there right? And I know what's suppose to happen; today Saturday, is suppose to be a cycle through the city against pollution. Tomorrow, rumor has it there's going to be piles of manure dumped outside Buckingham Palace. Monday we're going to have a day long, we're going to have a daylong campaign of guerrilla gardening, know what that is? That's people saying listen we complain a lot about multinational corporations, we complain a lot about corporate control of our economy, well if we're going to reclaim, if we're going to complain we have to figure out how we're going to substitute for corporate control of our economy. Well, the first thing

we have to do is produce our own food. And the first thing we have to do is get access to land. Well we don't have very much access to land, so let's get some. So I can't tell you the details, not because I'm hiding them because I don't know them. Because it hasn't been reported, because we haven't been there covering everyday as this was developed; but, as far as I understand it ,guerrilla gardening is going to be taking place all over London, on Monday. People have been asked to bring seedlings, pickaxes, and spades. (applause) I think that's great news, right? That's exciting news and that's the kind of thing we want to be there. We want to hear it. We don't want to hear the ABC news version. We don't hear, heaven forbid, the BBC news version. We don't want to hear the feature story version, if you don't mind me saying so, that's the free lance stringers that PNN is using everyday now. We want to hear the sound of the spade going through that bit of concrete at Trafalga Square, don't we, outside the Houses of Parliament. We want to hear the person pouring the water into the soil to make that seedling grow outside the House of Commons or preferably inside the House of Commons. Wouldn't that be exciting? I mean that's what Pacifica was bringing us throughout the Vietnam war, they sent correspondence, actually to Hanoi and to Saigon to hear what was happening. That's what we heard.

If there had been a Pacifica in the nineteenth century we would have heard from Chicago when workers were shot fighting for their rights and we got the original May Day. If Pacifica would have been there with their microphones just like Errol Maitland was going down to the ground while the cops on his back. Have you all heard that tape? Pacifica Network News wouldn't play it. But we've all heard that tape of him saying, "we're reporting live on 'BAI they're on my back ,they're on my back, I'm on the ACK" That's chilling stuff, you're never going to hear that on BBC. Did you hear it on Pacifica finally? On Democracy Now, all right, well we need to distinguish, I need to distinguish more clearly between Pacifica Network News and Democracy Now, of course Democracy Now aired it. But isn't it an outrage that Pacifica Network News has not yet aired that news, that sound. Politics aside, yes we have a different agenda from the people that run the corporations; but, more then anything we have a different style we have a different sound, we want to give people the information not filtered through five thousands layers of calming devices but rather hear the sound of what happens. Again, I think that's why radio is powerful, we want to protect radio, it's wise because it has to do with sound. You want to hear the person; like Amy in East Timor, chanting as the AK47's (or whatever it was) come towards them, we want to hear Earl on the streets, we want to hear Verna on the tractor. We can get the other stuff in photographs, but radio, what's special about it is how close you get. How excited you can get. How many thoughts it provokes in your own mind while maybe you're cleaning the dishes or preparing the meal or putting out the laundry or cleaning your house. It's a little different from the newspaper where it's all ready flat on the page and you have to be focusing in that way. It's a little different from television where kind of mesmerized by that glowing rectangle. It's definitely different from the Web, where you can go just to where your interested and you might not see the other stuff that happens.

The thing about radio is that people turn that dial, all sorts of people, like Verna said she did. All sorts of people could catch the news just on the air. It flew through the air into their ear and could change their lives right then. So I think there's a lot of exciting stuff happening in independent media.

And, speaking of someone who has worked for years in media criticism of corporate media, we should never reduce our determination to get better from our corporate controlled press. But we need to, at the same time, understand what it is we're fighting for. And, when it comes to community radio: we're fighting for institutions that train new people, that develop expertise, that provoke questions, that get people excited, that sometimes get people furious (but it's right there in front of them, in their ears, they can have their thoughts, they can have their reactions), that get them out into the streets- because you say there's going to be a protest at six about this- go be there and people show up. Meetings like this one. I mean, when I worked at FAIR and we did all the criticism that we did and it was very important and after ten years and I just felt that people cannot live by criticism alone.

We have to also nurture our creativity, and celebrate our creativity, celebrate we ended the Vietnam war- all of us, that very big WE. Celebrate that we have May Day as an international holiday celebrated everywhere but this country. Celebrate that we own these airwaves, that we have this history of Pacifica where we not only own the airwaves but we actually own some licenses. And, that we're not the people, who are deviating from some traditions, we're not the ones who are out of touch marginal, irrelevant. We're the ones who are continuing to express a tradition in this country of speaking truth to power, of going where people hadn't gone yet, of being a mix of people, in a mix of issues all at once in the same room. So you don't just turn to the Discovery channel, you don't just turn to the science channel, you don't just turn to the stock exchange, you don't just hear the Black program, you don't just hear the Asian-Pacific program; but with any luck, you hear all of them, and you get some sense of this world and its connections and what's great about that, and what's difficult about that, and what's exciting about that. You maybe make friends you wouldn't have thought about making before. You go to events you wouldn't thought of going to before. We don't want block programming, like we're told by NPR that we should have. (applause) We don't want to niche-market ourselves just to the few people that we are sure are listening every night. We want to try to reach out to other people. We don't want to be guided solely by how many is it: ten, twenty, thirty thousand people listening in this hour, versus the next hour, and that's the only principle on which we guide our programming. Sure Arbitron ratings and how many people are listening is part of the information that we should have in our heads as we decide how to move forward and what programming to do; but, it shouldn't be the only information, shouldn't be the only thing that counts.

So what else?A-16? I was in Washington DC for the anti IMF anti-World Bank policy meetings, and it was great. There was an independent media center there, as there had been in Seattle, that was literally buzzing; not from all the micro electronic waves, radiation waves, although that too maybe. But, there was so many people and there and there were so many young people who were calling each other and saying, "the action is on this street," "there's tear gas on I&K," (or whatever it is)- 14th and K. "There's a protest outside the Treasury." "Whose got the sound from when the FCC broke down the micro radio station?" Whose has the photograph of when the fire department broke down the convergent center?" "Who has the flyer?" Yeah, I'll tell you about that in a minute. It was exciting they were putting it on the Web.

There were pictures and stories to be downloaded off the Web for free, for people who could do that. There was sound on the Web for people who could run that sound and a lot of community stations around the country ran that sound straight off the web site. There was press conferences with the press. There was a written newsletter that went out, either two days or three days. And, they had a crisis at one point where the Kinkos in the area of the independent media center, three Kinkos were shut down. Why? Well,because the people that ran them were told they were in danger of being in a riot area. There weren't any riots going on. This is your 24 hour printing house and they knew that was the standby for publishers all over, activists all over the country, where you go when your own Xerox machine breaks down, as they're made to do. You go to Kinkos. Well, they shut the three Kinkos around the nearest IMC so that those newsletters couldn't get out. But, they found some other place to get them out. So, anyway, you had this buzzing nerve center of independent media. Where was Pacifica Network News? Banned from it. Why? Because the people that ran it were standing on principle, in support of Dan, in support of Verna, in support of the Stringer Strike....

A lasting image of the A-16 march I was on, I can't remember what intersection it was, but as you heard, people closed down intersections with human chains. The idea was to stop traffic from passing through, you didn't want to let the buses go through that were carrying the delegates to go to the World Bank IMF meetings. Well, I saw one of our reporters at Pacifica Network News; post-purge Pacifica, as I refer to it- one of the post purge Pacifica reporters- screaming at an activist on the corner. I went up to the activist afterwards- she stomped off. What was that about? And, the activist said, I don't know who that was, but she was furious that we had a blockade here that was blocking her way. What is the whole point? The blockade here? This is what we're here for. This is what we're covering. And, that to me really epitomized the problem. That we have a Network that we own, ....with five licenses around the country, with affiliates in every community in these United States, with contacts all over the world. The rolodex of me, Verna and Dan could basically get us to anyone in the world we want to. And, we have this incredible tradition, this amazing resource; and, the people who are in charge of it right now are standing on the wrong side of the barricade.

(applause)

And, I really believe- and in the same way that there's a movement to, as oppose to when I started at FAIR, ten, whatever it was, twelve years ago now- now people are conscious about media control. Now people are very conscious about the power of corporate media, and conglomeratization, and what its doing, and it's great. There's activism around media all over the place. What we have to also maintain, are our independent media sources, our radio stations, where people can walk into the door, people could learn things. And,we have to be where Pacifica would have been years ago, which is at the center inspiring this new movement of independent media activists, on the Web, and on satellite radio, and so on, and so forth.

I'm excited that I'm working with Working Assets with their new radio network, it's not community radio, it's commercial radio. But, I'm excited, nonetheless, that good people are trying to compete for commercial radio space on the AM dial in fact, is where we are, or on the Web. Where was I going with this? Just simply to say, there is a movement going on that Pacifica should be at the heart of. I have to say if Pacifica doesn't catch up this train is leaving the station. These folks are going. It's multiracial, multiage, multiethnic, international, people are going to start turning to the Web for the information about May Day 2K in London, because they can't reliably get it on Pacifica Network News. Amy can't cover everything in one hour a day on Democracy Now, although we know she tries. Her position is always in need of protection et cetera, et cetera. So, just simply to say: there is a movement, we want to be part of it, we are part of it, we have a right to be part of it, and Pacifica better get on board- frankly.

Now an announcement: (applause) the independent media center, the people that brought us the IMC in Seattle and in Washington; are having a revival, are going to do their thing again, here in Los Angeles August 14th through 17th during the Democratic Party Convention. And, I recommend anybody to look up, INDY media, INDYmedia.org, on the Web, and figure out how you can be part of it. They had about a thousand volunteers in Washington DC in a little gallery, in a friendly disheveled part of town and not all the volunteers were media experts or media professionals. Indymedia.org, INDYMEDIA.org, there's a phone number here, flyers in the back, be part of it.

I say to Pacifica be there or be square.

Thank you

(applause)

Excerpts from Mary Frances Berry's Recent WBAI Interview (Wednesday, August 25th)

Courtesy of Gil Gilmore (freepacifica)

(First Listener call referred to Michael Palmer,s infamous email and asked how MFB had the gall to deny her interest in selling the station)

"Your question has a great deal of gall in it if I may be permitted to say so. Any email that says anything about me being committed to selling anything. That is a patent falsehood. It is in fact a lie.

"The email that you're referring to from Michael Palmer, which by the way I never received. He sent it inadvertently to somebody else. The email expresses Mr. Palmer,s desire, which he has expressed publicly on numerous occasions, to sell one or two stations, I've (forgotten?) the details, and asks at the end of the email why is it that we can't move forward with these ideas.

"If we had had plans to do so he wouldn't be asking why we shouldn't move forward. So I can,t help what people write in emails that are their ideas. Mr. Palmer is in favor of selling WBAI and KPFA possibly. He has felt this way for a long long time and he has a right to his own opinion. I don't happen to share it.

(The next caller thanked MFB for her on-air appearance and asked where BAI was incorporated, location of bylaws and if it was possible for listeners to view board minutes)

MFB said minutes of board meetings were kept at each station and under her initiative placed up on the web site. She said it would be a good idea to place the Pacifica charter on the web site and indicated Pacifica was incorporated in CA

(The next caller asked MFB to explain how this conflict really got started with respect to staff and board roles)

"I'd be happy to, and if you want independent verification of what I'm saying from someone who,s not sympathetic to saving the foundation especially, you might read the article and then the letters in the most recent edition of Nation magazine that Marc Cooper, who is a critic of ours, has written.

"And here is basically what happened.

"The staff at KPFA was unhappy when the station manager's contract was not renewed by our executive director. And when she told them that her contract was not renewed, the staff -- who are unionized by the way, they, the Communication,s Workers of >America (a very strong union and we have a contract with them) -- the staff, instead of coming to file a grievance or to complain to the board or to the executive director, went on the air and mounted a protest on the air of this.

"The person in question who was not renewed, did not appeal either from that decision to the executive committee or to the board or anyone. They went immediately to the barricades as it were and started a protest on the air complaining and accusing the board, (which the executive director didn,t renew it, that,s her authority, but we knew about it) but in any case, they started a protest.

"The protest grew. We did not do anything to take them off the air even though there is a rule at Pacifica which has been around since I was a child (and I'm 61 years old now) which is called the Dirty Laundry rule that,s in the personnel book that everybody gets.

"Dart (sp?) Healy {sp?}, whose an old communist who had a radio show on Pacifica since the 50,s, says that when she first came on she was handed it. And it says that you're not supposed to discuss internal matters on the air .

"They discussed it on the air, mounted a protest and then when it became news, they decided to cover it again as news. In other words they made it news.

"So it got bigger and bigger. We thought they would stop but they didn,t. We were mistaken in our judgements and pretty soon you had protesters outside the station. You had people on the air violating the dirty laundry rule.

"One person was given four warnings not to do it anymore. Even after four warnings he kept on doing it and was taken off the air, which they added to the protest.

"Then they started saying we were "gagging" them and this was a free speech movement which got a lot of attention of course. Then they started asking people who give to the station not to give money or to give money only if we did what ever they told em.

"And it got bigger and bigger and finally the city of Berkeley said that they could not protect our station and we have a licence and if you let someone take over your station they become pirates and you may loose your license.

"So they told us they couldn't protect it so we had to hire guards to protect the station as a business judgement because there wasn,t any way to protect it. We heard rumors that it was going to be taken over and it became quite a big thing. They hired media people to represent them and all sorts of things happened.

"And then the next thing that occurred that got a lot of press was one of our on-air programmers went in to violate the rule and was taken off the air. He rushed to the microphones and claimed that he was somehow being assaulted by armed guards (or was going to be assaulted or something) which then caused more people to protest and try to storm the station.

"And so finally, after all of this and with the name calling and everything else, the board decided that what we would do is to tell them that we would reopen the station ( because we had to evacuate it after this last incident because the police said that it was unsafe) and that they could control it, the staff.

"We have given them the right to control the programming on the station. They may do whatever they want and we have suspended the dirty laundry' rule. And now it only applies to stations based on what the station manager thinks is necessary . So at KPFA, they can do whatever they want to do over the air. They can trash their bosses 24 hours a day if that,s what they think is good radio. "But the only thing we have done is to tell them that they must adhere to these goals that we have in mind; grow the audience; diversity; meet the needs of the community; and have progressive programming with a social justice message.

"By the way, their audience numbers had in the last year, before any of this started, gone down again. They only have about 146,000 listeners who tune in at any one time during the week in a market of 8 to 9 million people that reaches from San Jose to Mendocino and we just think that is atrocious and we're hoping to do something about it.

"You may check the facts on that by looking at the magazine articles. But from our perspective it was the fact that the staff did not take other means to pursue their complaints and started this protest that has created numerous problems. We've had to hire lawyers and it's not just the guards but our staff, the national office, can,t go in their offices. They've been out of their offices all this time. There was somebody who fired three rifle shot into their office. The police have never found out who did it.

"I've had numerous conversations with the mayor out there and one with the police chief and they said that they weren't able to provide security so it was quite a mess. We've had other messes in Pacifica so we'll get this one resolved too.

(Question asking what kind of programs she desired to increase listener involvement)

"What I would like to see is for the staff at the station, not me, I can,t do this for every station, to sit down for themselves and figure out (and if they needed anybody to give advice or help we would provide that) what would be in fact a good way to package, for our audience, the kind of programming that would be both progressive and meet the needs of the diversity of our community, whatever that is; so that we can do in such a way that more people might listen and when they turn the radio on and hear it, they might be attracted to it . And do it with high quality too, so that when people hear it they will say "now that sounds like something I ought to listen to and I will tune in to listen to that"

"There's a certain amount of professionalism (that,s not a bad word) that ought to be involved. Professionalism means pride in one,s work so that we get good sound quality ... and you don,t have to be dilute a progressive message to get audience ...... "

(she continued further in this vein observing that people from the community should be seen as a resource for ideas for new shows and perspectives. She further said that the board should establish goals and see to their implementation.

(Question asking what qualifies the current board members and MFB in particular to dictate policy to the local stations)

"First of all, I believe that board members ought to contribute to the organization." ...

(She then went on to make general comments about the responsibilities of non-profit board members and then turned to Pacifica's board)

"Most of our board members were elected, were nominated and then elected from local advisory boards -- the ones that are serving on the board now -- so their credentials come from the local advisory board having nominated them to the board. So whatever they have, those people on the local board must have decided that these were the people that they wanted to send.

"I think that for the future as far as I can see, most of the people who will be on the Pacifica board will be people who local advisory boards (because they,re the one,s involved) will either suggest or will encourage to serve. But it just happens to be that way now so I don,t have to speak to their credentials .

As far as my own credentials are concerned, I've been a social activist all my life" ...

(She went on to briefly detail some of her involvement's in this regard).

"I was asked to come onto this board, I did not seek it. The board itself must have felt I had something to contribute, in fact I turned them down and then eventually accepted it and I certainly don,t need to explain " ...

(The caller next asked the name and position of the official in Berkeley who indicated they couldn't protect KPFA)

"The person who said this, did not tell Me this, because I was not in Berkeley. But our executive director conveyed that to me, that she was told that by officials in the police department. That the kind of security that was needed to secure the building and to secure the personnel, who were subjected to all kinds of harassment and threats, including death threats, was not the kind of thing that the police department in Berkeley, or any other police department in their view, is capable of giving to somebody on that basis.

(Question asking if the demographics of each Pacifica station could be obtained and expressed appreciation and support for "all MFB has done for the station)

She indicates in broad outlines her understanding of the audience composition of each signal area as determined by auditron and census figures.

(A listener asked about the threat of privatizing Pacifica through the sale of stations, locking out the staff of KPFA, and whether her real goal is to transform Pacifica into an NPR clone. The caller asked if she shouldn't thus resign in light of the disastrous events of the past months occurring under her stewardship)

"I think that your packaged comments, which are the same things that people keep emailing me in the same package (although the emails have gone down recently) are mostly false and misleading, that,s all I can say. Patently false, for the most part, and misleading where they,re not patently false.

"First of all, as far as privitizing, what we said was that the Berkeley council passed a resolution saying that they wanted to explore, when the station was closed, whether or not they could in fact buy the station in Berkeley.

"What we said was we did not want to sell the station but that out of courtesy if the council in Berkeley thought (and the way they put it was they didn't want Pacifica in there) that if they thought they wanted to buy it and give it to the people in the community and keep it in Berkeley as a community radio station, that we would out of courtesy listen to them.

"But we said very clearly that we had no intention of selling our station. They immediately responded. In fact we were challenging them for their outrageous suggestion that Pacifica is so offensive that they didn't want us in Berkeley. The immediately of course backtracked and said they weren't serious.

"And that was the end of that.

"The other thing is that you've used words like "locked out" and "union busting group". We haven't hired any union busting group! That is just a patent lie!

"I don,t know what they did before I came to Pacifica , but the lawyer we have is a labor lawyer and was recommended to us by labor unions so I don,t know where you got that idea from.

"As far as locking anybody out nobody was locked out. What happened was that the staff, as a result of the activity of claiming that someone was shot or about to be shot and all these people (who were not supposed to be in the station) ran into it, the security guards and police said we needed to evacuate the station because there was a danger to person and property.

"So if anybody locked anybody out they locked us out. And they locked our national staff out who can,t get into their office. And in fact we continue to pay the staff including the ones who have protested against us and created all of this chaos. We have paid them their full salaries, the entire time they have been in this chaos.

"And I have to point out one other thing to you. These folks belong to the Communications Workers of America Union which is a strong union. I,ve had conversations with the head of that union nationally Martin Darr (sp?) and he agrees that we have been fair to them and in opening the station were reasonable. We've been paying them and in fact, talking about locking them out, as I said, they locked us out. One of the costs of this crisis is the cost of paying people when they,re not working.

"The last thing I will say as far as the security guards is I,ve explained that before. And all I can say is that if we did not have security guards in that station and we'd abandoned it to the protesters and somebody had started a fire in there and it burned up the building and the surrounding buildings close to it we would have people saying, " Pacifica is responsible, they abandoned the building and now all the neighborhood is burned up" . And we had business owners in that neighborhood who were concerned about what was going on there. so that it was a business judgement which really ought to be made..."

Michael Parenti at CSU Fullerton:

Response to Vince Ivory's Question (May 5th, 1999)

(Transcribed by Eileen Goodman)

Vince: We in Southern California are not able to hear KPFA up in Berkeley. We understand a lot of things that are being broadcast there aren't available to local stations down here, like KPFK. One of the great threats to democracy -- like the obvious bought and paid for corporate media -- is the mediocritization of the alternative media that we have come to rely on. Can you tell us what's going on in Berkeley now?

Parenti: I think that happens all the time with alternative institutions in media. They get infiltrated by: 1) people whose paid job is to mainstream it and dilute it; or, 2) people [who] just come in and have no politics of any kind, or who are not working for someone else, and just come in and dilute it, and just want to play music, and want to be touchy-feely, and want to do this and have no education about alternative political perspectives; but just see this as a station where they can come in and maybe someday jump off and go on to NPR, or something like that. This is a constant problem. It's a problem at KPFA/KPFK.

They're all kind of hypocritical, all those stations, because they never play my stuff -- except KPFK plays it -- Roy of Hollywood (if you want to stay up at midnight) plays it.

From audience: They played you yesterday afternoon.

Parenti: That's an unusual thing. That was the exception that proves the rule. I'm glad to hear that. It was in the middle of the afternoon and it wasn't a marathon subscription drive -- that's very rare.

Generally what these stations do is they play me when they can make money on it. This is the part (in fact I signed a KPFK release) -- now I bet this is the part you don't hear on the air.

They're now under attack from Pacifica, which is really wanting to corporatize the whole thing, you know, run it under their clutch for their big salaries and the like -- which is really a dangerous thing because what ever little bits we have in these stations can get lost.

All sorts of people at KPFA saying this is our community station, we're all together -- don't give me that stuff. In fact, KPFA news is more conservative then NPR news. The people who run it, I believe, get another paycheck somewhere else. They read the associated press; and for three years all I've heard is Bill Clinton versus the Republicans. When they wanted to give an alternative view to Bill Clinton it was the Republicans, just like the major media. We never got that alternative perspective. There are other programs on KPFA that are quite good, like Flashpoint -- and Democracy Now is okay, she can be good, she can go this way, go that way.

So we should fight against the Pacifica takeover and the Pacifica repression, but we should also remind these people that they should not run their stations like little satrapies; that they should be more responsive to a truly alternative perspective -- and there isn't enough of that on any of the Pacifica stations.

KPFK "Report to the Listeners" - 7/8/99

KPFK General Manager, Mark Schubb, on the Marc Cooper show, with seemingly screened listener call-ins

(Transcribed by John Sommers, with annotation)

[first 3-4 minutes missing due to inattentiveness by the recordist to start a tape promptly]

(KPFK General Manager )Mark Schubb: ...Well, we've been, I think, for about a decade, sort of living in that sort of..what's that -- that gingerbread house?

Marc Cooper: Yeah.

MS: And we got hungry, so we started eating the house...

MC: Right.

MS: And the success of the last few years has put us on a track to start repairing stuff that should've been repaired years and years ago. Our tower up on the mountain at Mount Wilson is forty years old. It's the original broadcast tower.Our transmitters, which usually have a life of twelve to fifteen years...twenty-four years old. They're obsolete. They don't make parts for them anymore...

MC: Right.

MS: ...some of the parts we have to, you know..jury rig...

MC: In the radio we call these bodakers (sp?).

MS: Yeah, it's extraordinary. And in master control a lot of times you'll hear on the air, you'll hear somebody say "Hey, this mike isn't working". The mikes are fine, it's the board that controls the mikes. It's so old and obsolete, and it gets so much use. Most radio stations don't do what we do, which is all day local origination programming. Even good public radio stations in this market -- most of their programming comes off satellites or is prerecorded. This gear gets a lot of use. So, we have a big grant in to something called the NTIA, which is a federal grant agency that builds brodacasting infrastructure. We're hoping they're gonna put in about a quarter of a million, and we're gonna have to raise about a half of a million dollars. Some of it we've already raised, and we're gonna continue working on it, and we're gonna announce in the next month probably the start of our capital campaign to try to do this big project. We did just do another small repair, another emergency repair on our antenna to try to improve our coverage, and we got about thirty phone calls from people who said it was coming in clear in places where it wasn't. If we can actually replace the transmitter and the antenna and get new stuff, we will get our full coverage back.....

[talking over]

MC: Well, we're actually in the process. We're beginning to do that -- correct?

MS: It's being done. The specs are being drawn up, and the equipment's being ordered, and we're moving forward the way we always do, with the sort of faith that we'll have the money by the time the bill comes....

MC: How much is it gonna cost?

MS: It could be as much as $750,000 for the whole project.

MC: But absolutely necessary.

MS: It is absolutely necessary. We can do it in pieces, but we've got to get those transmitters replaced ASAP, and the board in master control. You hear those mistakes and problems on the air....

MC: Well, I think we should let our listeners know that..by the way, that this plan to restructure, to rebuild the transmitter and master control, etcetera, comes after a large capital investment over the last number of years inside the studios..the studios here in North Hollywood.

MS: Yeah, we've done all the small things. We've fixed all the little newsroom studios. We've put new microphones in here. We've fixed the phone system. We got some computers. We got...All the little stuff has been fixed. Now it's the core transmission chain.

MC: Right.

MS: Master control, the link-up to the mountain, the transmitters, and the antenna on the tower.

MC: Well, we should also...I think you're being too modest. I've got to say that when I worked here the first time around, in the early 1980s, this place still looked like...It kind of had the air of an antiwar office in the 1960s. Lots of..Stacks and stacks of yellow paper and boxes of Dutch knows what and peeling linoleum and peeling paint, and it was like you're really..you know, were taking your life in your hands to walk in here. And it didn't change much in the '70s.....

MS: Well, when you came to do Radio Nation, the same equipment, the same stuff, the piles of stuff were still here....

MC: I actually new the names of the individual tape recorders.

MS: There's Bob. It still doesn't work. [This is nonsense. The tape recorders, at least from 1989-1995 did not have name tags, and none were called "Bob." All of the tape did work, though they were very old and broke down frequently under the heavy use. They were kept running by the saintly and brilliant maintenance engineer Richard Michael, who left KPFK because he could not stand what Schubb had turned the place into. - ED]

MC: Right. This place has really been renovated rather spectacularly. I wouldn't say that it's...I wouldn't say that it's lavish, but I would say that..Really, this place really looks good inside. [No it doesn't, unless you think a hospital waiting room looks good ] And the studios are really up to date. The newsroom really looks terrific and has been rebuilt. The production studios are really...This looks like the number one or two station in a small..maybe in a town of 200,000 people somewhere in America. It doesn't quite look like....

MS: We're up to minimum standards for professional programming.

MC: Right. All right. Enough..enough of the good news.

MS: And I do have to say that was done entirely from listener sponsors. We had a small bequest. And it was done, you know, really cheaply -- little piece by little piece by little piece. But they were really generous, and it was a success of the fund drive that made it possible...

MC: It's really made a tremendous difference.

MS: But this project's a really big one. It's three times the size of all the things we've done rolled together.

MC: All right. Well, let's play..let's play hardball, as they say. Or let's play Meet the Press at least. I'm talking to Mark Schubb, who is general manager of KPFK. I'm Marc Cooper. We're gonna spend the rest of the hour here talking about the state of KPFK and the state of Pacifica. It's a periodic report to the listener in an extended version. And somewhat we'll be bringing the audience into the discussion as well.

But I wanted to deal today with all of the rumors and innuendo and stories that are out there about KPFK and about Pacifica that some of our listeners know about, and some of them don't. And let me start in the general sense.

There's a notion by some in the activist community..And I think it's a small number, but there's a notion by some that there's something very dark happening at KPFK and Pacifica, that there is some kind of right-wing drift, and that there's some move by the management of this radio station to mainstream it, to shear off controversial political ideas, to make this place friendlier to Bill Clinton, to...

[Schubb laughing]

MC: ..I laugh at this hour, 'cause that runs contrary to my mail. I'll tell you that much. Etcetera. Any of that true, Mark?

MS: You know, it's easy to say none of it's true. But there is a real thing that's happened. There is a shift. And to maybe just address the shift head-on. It's my belief -- and this is just me speaking for myself -- As somebody who was a long-time listener...You know, I used to be part of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and a critic of local media, and I never...I tried to do projects with KPFK and had a loose relationship, but knew what was going on at the station. It's my belief that there has been a period of time, almost a decade, where a lot of the focus of the station was on..was emphasizing our need to give a platform to voices, which is one of our core missions -- mission statement values -- that we're gonna provide a platform for voices that would otherwise be unheard. But I think the focus became on serving the voices. In other words, the air got carved up into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces. Somebody had to show every other Thursday. Somebody had to show on the fifth..if there was fifth Thursday, that used to be....

MC: Cafeteria radio.

MS: ...And what that did, what we know is that it makes it impossible to listen to. So I think that a lot of people that hear that certain things are taken off..and it's not necessarily that the show that they were listening to was taken off, but the idea that so and so should be on the air is in their head. And as you clarify the schedule and you try to do strip programming so we have a morning show and we have an afternoon show and do more magazine style stuff to reach more listeners. We're trying to do the same amount of diversity, the same amount of political content, to a more coherent format that's more like the way people use radio, which is what I would call being more listener-focused. How are the listeners using radio? How do we make what we do meet them, as opposed to serving volunteer programmers, who have passions and needs and some great stuff, and frankly some of it was not such great stuff, and...

[talking over each other] [[[[TRANSCRIBER'S COMMENT: This is one of the things Mark Schubb asserts must always be avoided on the radio, as the listener can't tell who's talking and loses track of the conversation when more than one voice is audible at a given time]]]]

MC: Oh, I agree with you. Well, what is...

MS: ..we're trying to make more decisions about what's worthy of presenting to a broad audience and what belongs on the internet.

MC: Well, what does that mean ideologically, though? Does that mean that there's an effort by management to stifle more controversial voices and to more make this air less challenging, less controversial, more homogenous, more hostile to political activists, etcetera?

MS: I don't think so, but I do have an issue with standards of credibility, that just because somebody's an alternative voice, if there's not much basis to what they have to say it shouldn't be on our air. If they're fronting for or spouting hate speech and things that are so counter to our mission, they need to be on our air in a critical context only.

MC: Mm, hm.

MS: And when you implement more editorial standards, some people feel there's like there's some machiavellian control coming on, but, I mean, there isn't a broadcaster or a newspaper or...There's no media outlet in America that doesn't make editorial decisions. Even making no decisions is a decision. And, I mean, you work here. You're..You produce and host. You have also a producer working with you on this show. And you know how much freedom you have to pursue your programming. I mean, how often do I put my thoughts in other than to say....

[talking over each other]

MC: Well, the listeners can't see the gun that you have pointed to my head. So....

MS: Right.

MC: ...I'll pretend to answer under....

[talking over each other]

MS: I mean, you know the working conditions. I think...Well, I guess what I would want to say before you answer is, it's my belief that journalists and people that work on our air have more freedom to pursue the issues and ideas as they see them, more freedom here than at any other broadcast...

[talking over]

MC: Well, I can tell you. I mean, I can tell the listeners. I've met some listeners who've raised these questions outside of the doors of KPFK, and when I've tried to explain this -- how it works -- they say, "Oh, you're just being forced to say that, because you're afraid of getting fired."

MS: Yeah. I know how I intimidate you and how much you cower in fear....

[talkin over]

MC: Yeah. I would say..I mean, to be honest about it with the listeners, I don't think there's any control exerted over the programming here on a day to day basis. That is to say that I'm not aware. You know, this is a pretty small place. I'm not aware that anybody is monitoring the air and checking up on people and saying "Oooo, yeah, this person or that person ought to do this." I think that management does a haphazard job of overall monitoring. I don't...My personal feeling is that there isn't strict enough. I would actually be comfortable with stricter editorial control, because somebody has to take responsibility for what's on the air here.

MS: Right.

MC: I also know that KPFK is under-resourced....

MS: Well, I would answer that there's like ten or twelve people running a twenty-four hour a day locally produced radio station, when there's sixty people working at another public radio station playing music. You know, it's a resource issue, so we....

MC: It's an interesting issue, because while we're talking right now, for example, some listener called in and said.. And this is what really drives me crazy. This is not an attack on the listener, but this is what drives me nuts, is somebody who comes in here and...I'm not a martyr. I get paid for what I do. I don't get paid a lot. But it is still..you know, it is still a..It's still a sacrifice, in some ways. One listener wants to know is KPFK raising as much and just reaching as large an audience as possible? I'm not sure what the tone of that question is, but I've heard it before...

MS: That if we want more audience...

[talking over]

MC: ...in a negative tone, that there's something morally tinged about wanting to reach a bigger audience, so that this...I don't understand why you would have 112,000 watts sitting on top of Mount Wilson with a radical and often..progressive and often radical and always alternative point of view..if you didn't want to reach the maximum number of people. If we wanted to be a club we'd take subscriptions and give you a password and put you on the internet, but I mean...

MS: Well, if we...Our signal covers 13,840,000 people.

MC: Yeah.

MS: That's just our basic footprint. When the transmitter's working right. I think we're about 30% compromised from that. So, call it 10,000,000 people. We're happy now to have the biggest audience that we've measured this decade..that we're figuring about 200,000...

MC: Right.

MS: ...So to me if the mission is to spread a progressive voice, we need to be reaching more people, and I don't think it's a compromise to reach more people. I do know that there're some people who KPFK to serve as a sort of refinement of a narrow ideological incantation...

[talking over]

MC: That would be the death...death for the station...

MS: ...repeated over and over again. And it's better radio, and it's more interesting, and it's better for progressives, and it's better for liberals and mainstreamers who might tune in to hear a more invigorated debate. There's a philosophy difference there...

[talking over]

MC: Let's move to the.....

MS: I do want to say one other thing, though. Some of the people who yell the loudest about..about the kind of...There's like folks who come to the meetings, and they get really exercised about stuff...We have board meetings that're open to the public -- local board meetings. The people who get the most exercised are ABSOLUTELY convinced that there's this machiavellian control of the airwaves, and they're against it, and it's censorship, and it's fascism, and it must stop. And they're always the ones who say "And how DARE Marc Cooper have Ariana Huffington on. How dare Cathy Still interview this person. And how dare..." So they sort of denounce machiavellian control at the same time they're expecting me to have it to their taste.

MC: Oh no.

MS: So there's kind of a hypocrisy there in some of the criticisms. Although I understand the concern, 'cause, you know, you look at the mainstream media and it is so bland and pointless...

MC: Of course.

MS: If I thought KPFK was going that way, I'd be very upset too.

MC: Sure. Well, let me ask you, Mark, some of these other questions, quickly at least. One of the other rumors -- and I can only put it as a rumor and innuendo and charge -- is that KPFK and Pacifica are union-busters, and that the management of this radio station has had an intentional program going to break the union here at KPFK.

[short pause]

MS: I guess I'm so taken aback by the question, I don't even...Look. Pacifica has the largest community radio stations in the country. And I would argue we have a national programming unit and three stations that have bargaining units. We have contracts in effect right now. And very, very good, and extremely progressive contracts. And the idea that we're trying to union-bust in this..you know, anti-union environment that we're in, where we have a labor show, and...You know, of course, there's conflicts. You know, we negotiated a contract a couple of years ago...

[talking over]

MC: ...a lot of contracts...

MS: ...and it was..You know, and it was very heated. But when you're at the left wing, the progressive end of the most generous...I mean, not in terms of bottom dollar salary, but benefits and time and accommodation of human needs. When you're off at one end of..at that far end -- progressive end of the spectrum in a contract arguing about stuff, and people who lose one clause to go this way or that way want to call that union-busting, it's ridiculous...

MC: Well, what...

MS: I used to be on the board of the Screen Actors Guild for many years and was the youngest member on that board, and...

MC: On the union board?

MS: ...part of...Yeah. The union board. Screen Actors Guild. Under Ed Asner and as part of the Asner takeover of...so to speak...

MC: The left-wing faction...

MS: Right.

MC: ...of the Screen Actors Guild.

MS: And, you know, I'm the guy who -- before I was on the board -- made the motion that we should take Ronald Reagan out of the union for firing the air traffic controllers.I'm a staunch unionist. I'm very active...

[talking over]

MC: Well, of the course, the charge, Mark, is...

MS: ...in those union politics. So the idea that we're union-busting is ludicrous. We're talking about eight or nine people in the bargaining unit arguing about a contract, and then other people in the community saying there's union-busting going on because there's an argument about the contract.

MC: Yeah, but the charge is that Pacifica..Pacifica, and perhaps KPFK, paid thousands of dollars to a union-busting firm -- AGC, I believe, are the....

MS: Oh, I heard. Yeah.

MC: ...and that this is proof-positive that KPFK and Pacifica was trying to break the union, because they hired union busters.

MS: Well, I read that stuff on the internet, and I just..it's amazing, the amount of fiction and distortion. I do know that before I got here the executive director at that time, Pat Scott, made a deal. I think she told me it was for a thousand dollars, to have phone consultations about California labor law with a group called AGC. She didn't know who they were.Somebody just said "Oh, this is cheap deal..."

MC: And they are union busters.

MS: Well, apparently they are. So when I got here they had referred an attorney to work on some of the matters down. Then he moved on. Then we hired a negotiator, who was the cheapest negotiator we could find, to be on the management side, because you have to be responsible when you're negotiating. You have the management side, and you have the labor side, and you have to do the best you can to come to a good contract. But, you know, we're..you..The station has more of a constituency to serve than just the people who work here. We have to balance the interests of the whole station...

MC: Right.

MS: So...At one point people came to me and said "This guy had worked for AGC". The staff came to me and said "We've learned through investigations that this guy has done work for AGC"...and he never came back to the bargaining table.And instead we had a delegation of people from the labor community submit three names for us to go find a progressive pro-management person, and we hired that person to do it, and then they called that guy a union-buster. Well, not they didn't...

[talking over]

MC: But, Mark...

MS: ..but some people called that guy a union-buster. So, anybody who's on the management side of the table -- and this is a proressive guy, you know, who's like one of the people in..Southern Californians for Socially Responsible Businessmen....

MC: Whatever. Yeah.

MS: You know, it's...You know, it's...The issue I think is using really overheated rhetoric to distort. I mean, in a way it's taking advantage of our instincts, our over-developed sense of injustice. We're...As an audience, as member of the KPFK audience, which I am, you know, I hear those buzz words and I go "Hey! What the hell's goin' on?"...

[talking over]

MC: Right. I would say...

MS: ...and I think it's unfair....

[talking over]

MC: ..but I would...

MS: ...to play that game. I take it..It's offensive to me.

MC: I would say that given the political sensitivities that exist in this audience, and this audience is very sensitive to these sorts of labor issues, etcetera, clearly in retrospect Pacifica made an egregious mistake, did they not, in hiring a management consultant, even for a brief period, that had this...

[talking over]

MS: ...those ties. I agree.

MC: ...those ties, even though I would..

[talking over]

MS: I agree.

MC: ...argue that go find a management consultant who isn't..

[talking over]..

MS: Well, I....

MC: ...a union-buster. That's what they do.

MS: I agree. And then as soon as it came to light Pacifica dumped it..dumped those guys, so...

MC: Well, what is your commitment then, Mark, to the unions here at KPFK?

MS: Well, we have a union contract. We..

[talking over]

MC: What is your commitment, though, beyond...

MS: ...We'll negotiate a new one next year, or whenever it comes up. You know, we have..We have, I think, the most progressive workplace you can imagine.

MC: Do you think KPFK should have a union?

MS: Well, it's a small workplace, so it's kind of a...It caught me by surprise when I first came along, hearing that there was all this strife over union stuff. And, I figured, you know, with my background we'll be able to straighten this stuff out. But, you know, it's a very small workplace. And a lot of people who are very familiar with unions say the smaller the workforce, the more contentious the unions are. You know, it's very complicated. Should we have a union? If the workers want one, great. You know. Should workers who want a union have one? I'm absolutely for it. Sometimes, though, there's a kind of...

MC: Are you trying....

MS: I want to tell the truth of how...There's a rhetorical drawing of lines -- labor, management. Look, there's fifteen people working in the building. I'm not drivin' up in a Cadillac. Nobody in the management makes even...[Schubb is paid 50K per annum of your hard earned dollars]

[talking over]

MC: ...Rolls Royce...

MS: ...twice what the regular salaried employee makes. You know, it's like there's some huge elite sitting in their offices smoking cigars, and sometimes it seems almost comical..

MC: Mm, hm..

MS: ...to have these big lines drawn in the sand when we're just trying to get work done with very meager resources, so..So that..that....

[talking over]

MC: Well, I wrote...

MS: ..that rhetoric really...

MC: ..I actually wrote in The Nation magazine that what I though was going on...I can say this 'cause I did it publicly. I thought that there was a lot of rhetorical overkill, that...There's a tendency here at KPFK and Pacifica, because of the highly politicized audience..There's a tendency on all sides to take every minor dispute and blow it up to Cinemascope..

MS: Right.

MC: ..that it's never just a fight over this or...It's always "Revolution or counter-revolution! Sell out or rabid defense of noncommercialism" and blah blah blah. I mean, I think it...Which...

MS: But there is one real conflict that's going on in the organization I should mention...

[talking over]

MC: Well...

MS: ..which is WBAI.

MC: Mm, hm.

MS: Now, they're union is also the same union that represents us here, but they have a different contract. And Pacifica is in conflict with UE in New York over a particular issue...

MC: Yes...

MS: The...

MC: ...which I also read about....

MS: Ninety percent of the..that union chooses to include volunteers in the bargain....

[tape machine screw-up -- gap of several minutes -- apologies]

Marc Cooper: ...So we should move through this quickly but thoroughly. The big issue right now in Pacifica is what's happening at KPFA. On March 31st Pacific refused to renew the contract of the manager at KPFA, Nicole Sawaya. The KPFA staff rebelled. There's no other word for it....

Mark Schubb: That's true.

MS: ...they went on the air. They're still on the air, three months later, continuing to denounce this in violation of kind of the internal rules of Pacifica to keep personnel issues off of the air. Larry Bensky denounced this. He lost his show because of that. There's still no replacement manager at KPFA. There was..There has been a couple demonstrations. There was a demonstration there like ten days ago; people were blocking the doors and giving the Pacifica management a pretty rough time. Police were called. Twelve or thirteen people were arrested for blocking the doors.

[[[[SOMMERS COMMENT: PLEASE NOTE --- any and every time Marc Cooper uses a sentence containing numbers of any type, he's lying -- exemplar as above -- by this time ANYONE who's paying attention can certainly quote the correct number of arrested as FOURTEEN]]]]]

Now there's some security guards inside KPFA. That's just kind of the general background...

MS: Yeah, it's pretty awful.

MC: ..But this is stuff that really riles..

[talking over]

MS: Everything you're saying is true. It's pretty awful.

MC: ...It just riles the listeners. On the other hand..On the other hand, I was reading some internet postings today, and I have to laugh where people are saying "We demand the withdrawal of the armed forces from KPFA", and that was done with no irony....

MS: Right.

MC: I think that's hysterical. I mean, whether or not one thinks there should be security forces..security forces...They're private security guards...

MS: Right.

MC: ...at KPFA. Whatever one believes of that, and I understand both arguments. It is intellectually dishonest to call those armed. I mean, that's just absurd...

MS: Right.

MC: ...and doesn't get down to the real issue. So, let's sort this, if we can, in five minutes. Nicole Sawaya was fired. Why did KPFA..Why did Pacific fire her? This manager, which apparently was very very popular at KPFA, if the whole staff rebelled afterwards. Is this a booboo?

MS: This is going to sound like a dodging answer.

MC: Go ahead.

MS: I don't know.

MC: Mm, hm.

MS: I didn't hire or fire Nicole. I didn't take place..part in any discussion about that...

[talking over]

MC: You're hired and fired by the same people...

[talking over]

MS: Nicole was my peer, sh...

MC: ...who hired and fired her. Right?

MS: ...She's a friend of mine. We worked closely together.I think she was one of the people I was closest to in the management of the other stations, in terms of some of our own concerns and things that we've raise about...You know, we were always arguing about stuff. So, a lot of the things we argued about, we agreed about. She was pretty outspoken. I think she was often controversial...

[talking over]

MC: She rocked the boat.

MS: ...Sometimes she crossed lines that I would think were impolitic, you know, in terms of rocking the boat. But I had no notice that she was going to be let go, or not renewed. It just happened. And it's not something that I can do anything about, other than to let my feelings known about what I know about...

MC: All right, but it did reverberate here....

MS: But it is the decision of the executive director and the executive committee of the board to make those decisions. They hire and fire managers, and that's what they do. That's their function.

MC: There was some reverberation here, because one of the KPFA programmers, Larry Bensky, had a national program, Sunday Salon, that was on Sundays from nine to eleven or ten to twelve..

MS: Right. Nine to eleven.

MC: ...And his program got removed. What happened there?

MS: Well, Larry, I mean, wasn't a KPFA programmer, although he...

[talking over]

MC: He was a national....

MS: ...He was a national programmer. You have to understand -- these few national programs that we had. We all raised more money to put in the pot to do these national programs. We put on a daily show, and then Larry got..didn't want to do the daily show anymore, so he created this Sunday show. And there was a lot of wangling to make it happen. So, not too many weeks into the new Sunday show this thing with Nicole happens, and he did about a twenty minute segment on his show denouncing the firing and talking about his own personnel issues, and talking about, you know, how much he didn't like the new executive director, and...

[talking over]

MC: This was a clear act of civil disobedience.

MS: Yeah. Everyone knows there's something we call..refer to the dirty laundry rule, which is..

[talking over]

MC: We'll get to that.

MS: ..you don't debate internal per..conflicts on the air, or else it would be endless. Because we all have issues...

[talking over]

MC: So, Larry's show..Larry's show was pulled because..Larry lost his job because he had violated this...

[talking over]

MS: Yes.

MC: ..gag rule. So....

[talking over]

MS: ..Now, once again, I didn't participate in that decision, but Larry certainly knew, because anyone would know, that if you're gonna that on a national show...

[talking over]

MC: So, you don't..You don't have anything to do with cancelling Larry Bensky's show.

MS: No! No. If Larry was producing a national show I wouldn't want..We WANTED Larry Bensky. We were strong advocates...

[talking over]

MC: Well, here's the question...

MS: ...for Larry Bensky. Although I do disagree with what he did..

MC: Mm, hm.

MS: ...because I'd rather have his show than his twenty minute protest.

MC: And, so what people say..What some people say is "Well, wait a minute. This is a community radio station. We're paying the bills. We're the listener-sponsors. Why can't we come on the air and talk about Larry Bensky -- why Larry Bensky got fired? Why can't we come on and debate whether Nicole Sawaya got fired? Or any other programmer has been fired?" What..Why isn't that a right?

MS: 'Cause it's not fair! I mean, number one, there's a basic rule in broadcasting of not attacking people...

MC: Right. But beyond that.

MS: Right. And it's just not fair. There are hundreds of people who make a radio station happen, and there's just a few people who are at the microphone building that special relationship with an audience. And for someone to take their side to audience -- especially in a personnel matter, because the management of a station...If I had a dispute with an employee and let them...

[talking over]

MC: ...Well, let me interrupt you, 'cause I...

MS: ..I couldn't say why, because that's against the law! I'd be violating their rights saying...

[talking over]

MC: ..so there is two issues here. There's....

MS: ..they did this, they did that. You can't debate personnel issues on the air! It's...

MC: There's two issues.

MS: ...beyond the pale.

MC: One is the person in question. That is to say, the person who's been fired or getting fired. I agree with this. I think it would be...I think it's abhorrent that they should use their privileged position on the air to argue their personal personnel position. But, what about the second half of that? You just mentioned it in passing. What about other people talking about..In this case, say, Larry Bensky, saying "Well, we want to know what happened to.." I was at a demonstration recently, and I was...three..

[talking over]

MS: I repeating the public...

MC: ...three or four listeners came to me and said, "Mark, you're a fascist." I love that. "Mark, you're a fascist, because you refuse to get on the air and talk about Larry Bensky's job." Now, what I tried to explain to them is that I'm not privy to Larry Bensky's personnel files, and if I got fired I wouldn't want somebody talking about my personal business on the air, because there's legal issues involved..

MS: Right.

MC: ..as well.

MS: Right. I mean, you can't go on and say "Yeah, well, Marc Cooper..He put this on his expense", which, you know, this lavish expense account which you're using here at KPFK. Or, "You did this to a person", or "You harrassed this person", or "You did this", or...

[talking over]

MC: Well, well....

MS: ...did this, or....You can't have that conversation! I mean...

[talking over]

MC: ...Well, I'll tell you something interesting...

MS: ...It's against the law!...

MC: I'll tell you something interesting here....

MS: You have a responsibilit as an employer not to do that.

MC: Parenthetically, I can say it, because it is about...Now, I'll tell you something interesting. When I was fired from this radio station, in 1983, for what were clearly poli..small "p" politic reasons. Not ideological, but kind of a power play sort deal. I was accused by management at that time of financial..What do you call it? Financial malfeasance, which...

MS: Outrageous.[This comment by Schubb is interesting, since he was nowhere around - this happened in the early 1980's ]

MC: ..invented and outrageous -- right? And...I don't care now, because I'm an old guy and I don't even think about this stuff anymore. But I would have been horrified...

[talking over]

MS: Plus all the money you took as....[Cooper talking over -- words lost]...

MC: I would have been horrified if that had been debated on the air. Because...

[talking over]

MS: ..it wasn't...[words lost]...

MC: ...Whether right or wrong, I didn't want that attached to my name. It was outrageous!

MS: Yeah. And when I do the report to the listener, which I do about every month or so, you know, I talk for a while and say what's goin' on, and we take calls. And I just say we're not gonna talk about those...

[talking over]

MC: All right, now...

MS: ..but we can talk about policy and issues and ideals...

[talking over]

MC: I really want take these...

MS: ..but you can't debate personnel....

MC: I really want to take these phone calls, but I want to ask you one more question that comes out of this. There are some internet postings that say that Mark Schubb is the gag master, [Cooper loves our site I guess] because what you do is you go around and you oppose this horrendous thing called the gag rule, which means that programmers...I call it the dirty laundry rule. But that...Well, you're not that...Pacifica programmers shouldn't come on the air and speak ill of Pacifica when things like this are happening. And they point to a program, a CounterSpin program, produced by FAIR that was produced in the middle of this Larry Bensky business, where Larry Bensky was interviewed by FAIR...

MS: Mm, hm.

MC: ...and was giving his side of the story. And management here...You made the decision, and others made the decision not to air this. I also want to say parenthetically that was later debated before the whole staff...

MS: Right.

MC: ...And the whole...entire staff that I am aware [without this qualification, Cooper's statement would be a bald-faced lie] of was in agreement with that decision. But having said that, how do you explain that?

MS: Well, you know. First, I take exception to the "gag rule". I mean, imagine like the abortion debate, and, you know, you're saying, you know, a woman's right to kill babies, to kill babies. It's such a distorted word. No magazine or newspaper I know of will spend its air time or its pages arguing about the internal disputes. Ideological questions...

[talking over]

MC: Yeah, if you argue about content all the time...

MS: ...arguing about content. You know, but to have a hundred and twenty or a hundred and forty volunteer programmers saying they want a different time slot, or they disagree with this, or somebody told 'em to do it...You know, it's, it's not what our mission is. Our mission is to serve the audience with information that's about them. We're supposed to focus on the listeners, and bring them information they can't get anywhere else. Complaining they can get by just, you know, being in the hallways of ANY public radio station...

[talking over]

MC: ...Well, I got to...

MS: ...especially a Pacifica station. But it, it's a long-standing policy. I, I've seen copies of the policy stated as early as 1971 by Will Lewis...

MC: Sure.

MS: ...In '89 it was adopted by the national board as part of a Pacifica-wide policy, and I simply say if we have rules we're all gonna follow them. If we have rules we're all gonna follow them....

[talking over]

MC: Well, I've gotta say one thing, Mark. We're gonna take phone calls now. I've gotta say..a personal title as the person as the person who does this program. I'm glad we're doing this program today, because this is a bunch of...There's a lot of rumors out here that have to be dealt with. But I must say, if we had to spend our time at four o'clock to five o'clock semi-regularly talking about this kind of stuff...

MS: Mm, hm.

MC: ...and the internal business of KPFK, I would blow my brains out. I mean....

[talking over]

MS: Well, you have...

MC: ...I would just quit..

MS: ...You'd have sixty, or a hundred, or maybe six hundred people who would intimately engaged...

MC: Totally engaged.

MS: ...and interested...

MC: ...and the other hundred thousand I don't know about..

MS: ...forget the rest of the listeners...

MC: All right. Mark, are you ready to face the firing squad here, of your own lisenters?

MS: Sure. I always enjoy...

[talking over]

MC: ...this...

MS: The only ground rule I tend to have is that I ask people not to attack people who aren't here to...

[talking over]

MC: Well, I want to...Let me just say...

MS: ...to defend themselves.

MC: ...to the listeners that I am going to be very quick on the buttons here, because...I'm not going to censor you, but we're not going to allow personal attacks on anybody who can't answer to them, because that's just unfair. So, we want to hear your well-intentioned and fair questions, and any brief comments, and we're gonna keep 'em brief, 'cause we don't have that much time. Robert in Mission Viejo, you're on the air.

Robert: Yeah. How you doing?

MC: Hi.

Robert: Yeah, you know. I got called a communist on another radio station the other day for suggesting that a minimum that was a living wage might be a good, so I'm not real enthused, you know, about name calling, and I prefer to deal with issues too. The thing is, I know that sometimes, you know, when we divide these lines up, it becomes a personal matter. And I notice that, you know, in the group that is critical of some of the stuff that's going on in KPFK and KPFA, there are people who rational, who do not name call, who do not get involved in that, and who are dealing with the issues, and I think they're..and making legitimate points. At the same time, you know..You know, there's always a crowd -- right?

MC: Sure.

Robert: Well, the thing is...Last time I talked with you, Mark...I don't know if you'd remember this or not, but I asked if we could get Clare Sparks on the air. And you said that yes you would work on that.

MC: Mm, hm.

Robert: And I would appreciate it if you'd tell me what you've done or what's come up that maybe that could happen. Because I think that Clare is way smarter than Ariana Huffington and just as entertaining.

MC: Well, that's a good question, we'll have...

MS: Well, Clare's been on quite a...

MC: Clare's been on quite a bit...

MS: ...number of times.

MC: ...She hasn't been on my program, but she's been on...Clare's an old friend of mine. One of the reasons I was fired here from KPFK in 1983 is that Clare and I worked together. Clare was program director. She was fired six months before me, and I was the next to go. So, there's no problem there. We'll definitely have her on. Robert, thank you. Let's take another call from Bea in West Los Angeles. Bea, you're on the air.

Bea: Hi, am I on?

MS: Yes, you are.

MC: Hi, Bea.

Bea: OK to both Marks. I have to tell you, Marc Cooper, that I live my life around listening to your program...

MS: Uh-oh.

MC: Whoops.

Bea: ...so you know I'm totally on your side. But the two of you are coming across so defensive. The hackles are standing up on the back of my neck. I'm saying "What the hell are they covering up?"...

MC: Well, I don't know. What are we covering up?

MS: That's...that's....

Bea: I don't know, but you...[Cooper chuckling]...The two of you are talking rapidly over each other, trying to distort something, and I don't know what it is. What I would like to know is why can't we hear what the other side is? I mean, this is...I subscribe to the station because I want to hear all points of view, and certainly against authority. And I haven't heard anything except about the Larry Bensky. And there was no mention of the fact that he had an ideological position as well as a personal position...

MC: Well, I have to interrupt you there, Bea. I'm not aware of any ideological difference...

Bea: OK, well then...

MC: ...that is at the basis of any conflict of Larry and this network.

Bea: OK. Well, then, perhaps I'm wrong. But then on the other hand, when management in any of the bureaucratic capitalistic structures that we know of want to get rid of somebody, they always pull out the old expense account, and they always pull out all those things...

MC: That's right.

Bea: ...So, that's...Again, that makes my hackles come up.I say "What the hell are they covering up?"

MS: Well, I was just making jokes....

Bea: I wish you would get somebody else on there to let us know what the other side is saying. And one quick thing. I'll say this very quickly....

MC: We're running out of time.

Bea: I do think the volunteers should have a voice in this kind of radio and this kind of political discussion. This is the whole point of what KPFK stands for, and I have listened to it for a hundred years, since the beginning...

MC: OK, Bea. We're gonna move on. Thank you very much.

MS: I would be willing to bet, Bea, that some caller will lay out the position and challenge us. I'm sure somebody will.

MC: Well, but there's also a problem. I think we should address this more directly. I think there's also a problem, not only of editorial control, but of legal responsibility...

MS: Mm, hm.

MC: ...and the management of the radio station has the legal responsibility to control the air for the sake of retaining the license. And you can't...Unfortunately you cannot just open the microphone and say "Come on on and attack anybody you like", because...

MS: But I truly do not know any more about the dismissal of Larry Bensky or Nicole Sawaya than what I've said on the air.

MC: But I'm also...

MS: People assume....

MC: I appreciate Bea...But I also appreciate Bea's words, but I also have to say I'm uncomfortable with a discussion that says "You must be covering something up. We don't know what it is, but there must be something." I thought that's why people didn't like Kenneth Starr...

MS: Now, he'd sound defensive.

MC: Let's talk to Maggie in Hawthorne. Maggie, you're on the air.

Maggie: Hi there. I have to say I agree with Bea...

MC: Uh-huh.

Maggie: I'm suspicious too, because I'm just hearing one point of view, and no one else is allowed to talk about it. Yet you can come on and talk about it...

MC: Well, come on and tell us about it.

Maggie: What am I gonna tell you? It's...

MC: I don't know.

Maggie: ..They're your issues. You should be telling..You're the one. This is your show...

MC: All right, Maggie, but what is the debate? I want..I'm not playing games with you. I want to know what issue is it that you want to hear about that you're not hearing?

Maggie: I'm not hearing the other side...

MC: Well...

Maggie: In other words, I am so ignorant I don't even know what the issues are!....

MC: All right. That's why, that's why, that's why, that's why, that's why....

Maggie: ...except for the few things that I've heard on the internet too....

MC: All right. Let me explain then. Then let me answer your question, which is that these things are...

Maggie: I don't think I asked one.

MC: Would like to to respond? Or do you want me...I'll just sit here.

Maggie: I don't think I even got to finish.

MC: Go ahead, Maggie, finish.

Maggie: I just wanted to say that I'm surprised at you and what you're saying about editorial control, because I'm telling you it sounded just like something else I heard earlier today when somebody was talking about losing Fourth Amendment rights and that it was OK to lose those rights, because, you know, everyone would be safer...

MC: Well, Maggie, do you believe that should...

Maggie: ..So I'm saying that there's...

MC: ...no editorial control. Do you believe there should be no editorial control over what's the air at KPFK?

Maggie: I'm saying it should be community controlled...

MC: OK.

MC/MS: All right, Maggie [they really said this in unison].

Maggie: ...And I don't see that the community's really involved in it, because if it was maybe I would know more about these issues.

MC: OK. Thank you, Maggie. I'm gonna respond by saying this. One of the reasons that these issues are not debated is that they can't be debated on both sides, 'cause they're personnel issues. And the people involved cannot argue on the air. And other parties cannot argue on the air, because it infringes on their own privacy rights and exposes both sides to all sorts of legal liabilities. What you can talk about is the general drift of the station and what the policies of the station are. And the person who sets the policies is the manager. And that's why we're hearing his view of it right now. If you disagree, that's fine. But again, I'm gonna say, I'm very concerned about people being suspicious without facts, and I'm not...I understand the counter argument, but it doesn't...

MS: Maybe as we move through calls, maybe somebody can really give us a rough time and....

MC: Well.

[talking over each other -- both untelligible]

MC: Let's here from Gene in Ojai. Gene, you're on the air.Hello, Gene.

Gene: Yeah. Hi. Just a simple statement...

MC: Sure.

Gene: ...and perhaps a very question. I'm someone who's wanted to support the station for years, but every time I kind of relax over a long period of time while listening to programs, all of a sudden I would hear voices of hate and automatically turned off the station...

MC: Sure.

Gene: ...and then later on would turn it on again and relax, and then experience that hate. And recently, fortunately, I've been able to consistently relax and would like to, at some point, hopefully subscribe. I'm just waiting for the point at which I believe I'm not gonna hear any more hate off the air once and for all. I enjoy the controversy..civil controversy, and not the hate speech. So I just wanted to make that point.

MC: OK, Gene. Thank you.

Gene: And then the question I'm hearing -- this debate -- I'm curious why Mark does not know why the station manager was fired. And he says that she is or was his friend...

MC: OK, Gene, let's get Mark to respond to that. Thank you very much for the call.

MS: I know what Nicole has to say about the situation. And as a friend, or as the manager of another station, I'm not gonna repeat what she said. But I was not included in any discussion about why she was let go. Nobody sent me a memo...

MC: Well, it's your superiors who fired her.

MS: Right. And they..Managers serve at the pleasure of the executive director and the national board. I assume that there were clashes over vision. I mean, some of them were public, some of them weren't, and that's maybe what led to it, but I don't know.

MC: Well, I've written publicly. I mean, I can speak on my own title. I think that no matter what the reasons were, this manager was clearly so popular that it was a mistake to fire her. If there was some dark reason that she had to be fired....

MS: I don't believe there was.

MC: ...and I don't believe there was. I think that Pacifica made a gigantic booboo in not immediately dealing with this and letting it drag itself out. And I think Pacifica is to blame for this. I've said that in print, and I've said it publicly. And that is my opinion. But, you know, Pacifica is made up of human beings. They make the same mistakes as everybody else. What bothers me is the hyper rhetoric. I'm not defending Pacifica, because I think they were completely wrong. But to blow this up into some crime against humanity really is of concern to me. I think we have bigger fish to fry. Let's hear from Mark in...I'm trying to get on line here, Mark. Mark in Winnetka. You're on the air.

Mark: Good afternoon.

MC: Hi.

MS: Three Marks, all together.

Mark: We ought to do the markathon, I guess.

MC: Go ahead, Mark.

Mark: Yeah. Basically I'm calling about the programming. I know you can't address some of the rumors I've heard about the removal of, you know, one hostess in particular. But...

MS: Well, well, who would that be?

Mark: Well, Pam Reyes, when she had a wonderful program on Belizian and Carribean issues in general..

MS: I think I could...

Mark: ...Belize, Carribean folks. And I never really got a straight answer. Now, I've emailed both Dr. Berry and Earl Hutchinson and spoke to Earl once when I happened to see him on Leimert Park, but..And the guy went pasty when I tried to get a, you know, just offer the record kind of comment from him on it. You know, she provided a springboard, basically, for him, in some respects.You know, his commentaries, and guess probably his show. But I never really got a good answer on why her pro..although I think it kind of was because of some of her participation with commercial interests and whatnot. But I know you may not be able to address that, but..

MS: Well, I wouldn't comment...

Mark: ...But maybe we can get a program that just doesn't, you know, play reggae music and something that addresses not just the Belizian community in particular, but the Carribean bain in general and...You see, her program..Now, I was probably one of her biggest critics, calling in and whatnot, but I do appreciate that format. In fact, on foreign policy I'm probably decidedly right of center and libertarian on social issues. But, you know, I did appreciate the forum. Also, why was Wirewaist, Ms. Wirewaste, removed from Voice of Jamaica? I came back from vacation and found that her program had gone...

MC: Well, let me let Mark answer those quickly. Thank you, Mark, for calling in. We're just running out of time. Mark, very quickly.

MS: Regardless of any other issues you may have about. Regardless of any other issues that may or may not exist, both of those programs had been on the air for a long time and really weren't serving as large an audience as they should. And you gotta make changes. And we're trying new stuff. And it seems to be doing better than what was there before in terms of audience...

MC: Any program...

MS: ...support....

MC: Any program that's on the air attracts an audience...

MS: Right.

MC: ...small or large. And when it's changed, the people who like it are gonna get angry...

MS: Yeah.

MC: ...And the people who like the program that replaces it are gonna be pleased. Unfortunately there's only a hundred and sixty-eight hours in the week. Let's take Robin in Los Angeles. Robin, you're on the air.

Robin: Hello?

MC: Hello.

Robin: Hi. Yes. I've been curious to know why Julianne Malvaux's (sp?) show was cancelled a while back, and if it's possible to bring that show back, because I thought she was just really excellent, as good as Marc Cooper and Amy Goodman, the two shows..my two favorite shows on KPFK.

MS: Yeah, I really....

MC: Thank you, Robin.

MS: ...I really like Julianne too. That was our first attempt at a national show, and it just wasn't well funded enough...

MC: It wasn't cancelled. It ran out of money.

MS: ...It just ran out of money, and, you know, people were frustrated with lack of resources. But she was very good, and....

MC: It ran its course. There was no decision to cancel that program...

MS: You know, I don't remember exactly how it happened. It was right when I was getting here. But it was clear there wasn't enough funding to continue at the level...

MC: Yeah, it wasn't....

MS: ...Julianne wanted more resources and there weren't...

MC: It was..

MS: ...enough resources to do it....

MC: ...an experimental program in national programming and....

MS: ....which is a very interesting voice. Thank you.

MC: Interesting. Theresa in Los Angeles, you're on the air. Hello.

Theresa: Mark, this is Theresa Bonpane.

MC: Hi, Theresa.

Theresa Bonpane: And I'm glad at least that I have thirty years of credibility in the community to not let this sound like sour grapes..

MC: Sure.

MS: Right.

TB: ...because it isn't that. I was reading Gil Contreras's letter this morning about why he's resigning, and I was amazed at the similarities between what has happened to him and what happened to Blase. And I know...

MS: Resigning from where?

TB: Pardon me?

MS: Gil resigning from where?

TB: Oh.

MC: Gil Contreras?

MS: He was filling in as the host for many months on Mondays Beneath the Surface. Resigning as in that?

TB: Well, I heard that...I have something...

MS: That's a couple of months ago.

TB: ...and I assumed it was already out, so I hope I'm not...

MC: No. That's all right.

MS: No. He hasn't....

TB: I guess it's on its way. At any rate, there's something that I received today from Gil saying that he was resigning, and talked about the things that brought this out, and said the pattern of harassment against its nonpaid, volunteers and paid staff, you know, creating a hostile work environment...

MS: I've never heard any of these charges from Gil.

TB: Oh. Well, I think you probably will, then, if you haven't, because I'm reading from his letter.

MC: Well, let me just clarify this for a minute. Gil Contreras wasn't an employee. He was a volunteer programmer...

MS: No, no....

TB: No. He makes that clear.

MC: My understanding....

TB: Mark, could I just finish, 'cause there's not a lot of time. I just want to say, then..Forget Gil for a moment, then. That there is this pattern of people there treating the volunteers..whether or not...When people aren't paid, at least in our organization, we treat them even better than the paid workers, because we know they're giving their lives to this, and to -- again, not to sound like sour grapes -- but Blase was with KPFK for thirty years and was never treated as horribly as he was...Mark Schubb would not even answer letters, phone calls and whatever. We get responses from people like Ed Asner in three hours, [heavy sigh in the background from one of the Marks] and Mark Schubb doesn't time for the courtesy...

MS: Actually...

TB: ...of returning calls and letters and trying to clarify issues. People call Blase constantly: "Why are you off the air? They didn't even announce that you weren't on any more. They never announced that you were moved from one station to another. What is going on?" I believe that the personal is political, and I'm glad so many people are dealing with the content, because I have some feelings about that as well..

MS: Well, Theresa, I do have to respond.

MC: We need to have Mark respond, Theresa, 'cause we're almost out of time.

MS: I've spoke to Blase on several occasions. Kathy Lo has met with him many times, even came to your office to meet to discuss it, and Blase is always welcome to do his commentaries here. The disagreement was over whether you would use your phone number for your organization -- which we support as individuals here -- during the newscast, attached to the commentary -- practice that had been going on for a while. And we felt that the news should stand alone and commentary should stand alone of promoting a specific organization, even though I personally have supported your organization, and I support your work. I think you're both wonderful people. But we disagree about this matter, and he's always welcome to do commentary here. It just needs to be commentary that stands alone without the phone number for the organization during our newscast.

MC: Well, I need to say something, because I was the person, in 1981 or so, as news and public affairs director here, who put Blase Bonpane on the air. That was my decision along with Clare Sparks. But it was directly my decision. And my own comment would be is that I understand the current conflict to be more or less the way that it's just been described by Mark Schubb, and I would tell Theresa Bonpane on the air, as I told her in person, that I would be delighted to act as any kind of intermediary to try and negotiate a deal. If I were news director right now at KPFK, I would think that I would have to take the current position and insist that commentaries not carry telephone numbers on them. I just don't think it's appropriate to be in the middle of a newscast. In some other kind of program, OK, but not the newscast. That's my personal opinion. But I don't think that should be a deal breaker. Let's try and get one more call in, if we can. Very quickly. Sarah. I can't read that far. Sarah in Los Angeles, you're on the air.

[this caller is actually Farah Davari, an Iranian woman now living in Los Angeles]

Farah Davari: Hello?

MC: Hello.

FD: It's not Sarah, it's Farah.

MC: OK.

MS: Hi.

FD: Yeah. You know, I have a couple of problems with your comments. One..The first thing is, you keep saying that there's no..Who is the opposition? And what are they opposing to you? What you are discussing if there is no opposition and no other discussion involved -- it's just employees...

MC: Well, that's not quite what I said, but I...

FD: Yeah. Well, that's what keeps coming up...

MC: I see.

FD: ...but let's -- wait, wait....

MC: So what is the problem?

FD: OK. The problem is..The whole point is that the management, or the governing board, is not letting community into these discussions, and this is supposed to be a community radio, and that's what it was based on when it started. Now it's changing, and I think the whole discussion is about those who want to change in a different..to a different system, which is more of a coporation system, than those who want it to be community-based and with community openly participating...

MC: Farah...

FD: Wait, 'cause....

MC: You have ten seconds, 'cause we're gonna lose..we're gonna go to a computer break, so...

FD: I know, but let me comment on one more thing...

MC: Go ahead, quickly.

FD: ...because the whole thing about KPFK is quality and not quantity...

MC: Mm, hm.

FD: We don't go after quantity -- how many people listen to it -- because..I was giving $600 a year to KPFK. I stopped giving it this February, because the governing board choose to choose themselves. And tell me what's different between Pinochet and the governing board of this radio station...

MC: [chuckling] OK. Farah, I'm gonna have to stop you right there, because as somebody who lived through the military coup in Chile and had friends and people very close to me murdered by General Pinochet, I'm afraid that I can't countenance that sort of...I think that that's an outrage. And if you have...You know, to compare the people who volunteer their time to the board of KPFK to General Pinochet I think robs you of a certain amount of credibility. There is an issue around the incredibly arcane and bureaucratic nature of KPFK's bureaucracy that is interesting, that we should deal with, butwe don't have time right now, 'cause we're out of time. Clearly, Mark Schubb, the listeners are engaged and interested. There's a lot of suspicion and lots of dark rumors that persist among some, and we should do this again soon and take some more phone calls.

MS: The thing that strikes me, in my time here, is that when you make programming decisions, especially when it means making decisions as who's gonna be on the air and who's not gonna be on the air, there's gonna be a huge number of people who are gonna have a different opinion about it, who'regonna feel that whatever standard we're trying to impose...There are people...The guy who said he was waiting to be sure that he's not gonna hear hate on the air. There're people who feel that it was censorship not to let the people who were spewing hate continue on the air. I will not let them continue. Blase and Theresa made it clear they think it's arbitrary to say we can't put the Office of the Americas phone number in the commentary. We think it's an important style for raising the credibility of our news and making it sound more appealing to more listeners to bring them this radical content and these great ideas that Blase....So these differences of opinion happen. The question is, you know, how do you debate them and how do you...How do you survive in this milieu where the invective becomes so personal. And I know we've probably sounded def...I've probably sounded defensive in this hour. But sometimes these emails come my way and leaflet come my way that are just so patently insulting. It's as if you have a difference of opinion about how to achieve an end. You must be on the other side and, you know...

MC: Well, also there's a...

MS: ...to the dark side.

MC: I've gotta say we're taking an extra minute or two.

MS: ...It's unfortunate.

MC: I have to say also that..You know, I've worked for many progressive organizations. I'm not aware of any organization that spends a lot of its time broadcasting its internal disputes. That's not a question of defensiveness. It's a question of that that's not why people are there. People don't join FAIR, for example, or subscribe....

MS: There's plenty of internal issues.

MC: ...or subscribe to The Nation magazine to find out who and why is being fired -- other than on a dramatic basis. To suspect that there is some kind of...One of the problems that came out in the discussion with the audience today was the suspicion that something's being covered, because we're on the air talking about it. We're on the air talking about it because a lot of suspicous allegations have been raised, and I'm sorry that we can't provide substantiation to those rumors. The fact is that people have the perfect right to believe that there is a rightward drift, a corporate crackdown, a quashing of democracy at KPFK. These all might be very comforting notions for some. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, they're not true.

MS: Well, we've made changes, and change is scary...

MC: Yeah.

MS: ...and people just hope it's for the best.

MC: Well, we want to thank Frank Scarpelli, who is our technical director and engineer. We also want to thank Brittany Martinez for her assistance today. Heidi Pickman is producer. Mark Schubb, general manager of KPFK, thanks for sitting on the hot seat.

MS: My pressure. I mean pleasure.

MC: I'm Marc Cooper, and I have to go now to continue organizing the corporate takeover of KPFK. However, I will be back tomorrow at four. See you then.