Letters to the Folio - X -

(338 words)

 

I saw the POV documentary in July; comments were sought by the producers - I then provided the following comments, without knowing if there was a any possibility of having the production modified

The POV document really falls into two parts. The first part describes the birth and the development of PACIFICA as a defender of free speech in broadcasting.

The second part describes something of a conflict between the PACIFICA board/organization and the persons active in doing the actual broadcasting at KPFA.

The first part is first class.

But the second part is not, just because it depicts conflict without reporting either adequately or anything much about the dynamics and the personalities behind the conflict.

That stuff is well documented elsewhere; I suspect that the inclusion of that material would have resulted in the program NOT being aired on OPB or many of the other PBS stations.

What that material involved was a series of acts involving Rep. Dellums and some associates as Pacifica Board members to turn Pacifica into an obedient servant of the Democrat party by shutting down the kind of alternative News and Public affairs programs that was anti-war, anti-big corporation and is NOW pro-Nader.

I know this is a kind of brief analysis on my part, but just look in the POV for any kind of analysis of what caused PACIFICA management to close down KPFA, to bring in security guards to throw out broadcasters in mid-program, and such like. The most you'll hear is that management imposed a gag order and justified later action on breaches of the gag.

Now it may be reasonable to impose a gag to prevent someone from reporting really sensitive internal or private matters. But the KPFA situation came to the point where the SF Chronicle, the NY Times were reporting news about the situation and people were roughed up and the KPFA station closed down (July 1999) for reporting what was in the national news programs.

Michael Papadopoulos, Corvallis, Oregon (Michael is a long term KBOO volunteer)

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