KPFA LEADS
in Real News Broadcasting

By Peter Phillips

(432 words)

Imagine "Real News" as media information that contributes to the lives and socio-political understandings of working people. Such Real News informs, balances, and awakens the less powerful in society. Real News speaks truth to power and challenges the hegemonic top-down corporate entertainment news systems. Real news empowers and keeps key segments of working people in America tuned in, informed and active.

KPFA is filled with Real News. Amy Goodman tells us about the lies and distortions regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal’s imprisonment and the growing police state in America. Dennis Bernstein interviews live Palestinian families under fire from Israel troops and Pacifica news reports outside of the spin. KPFA is cutting edge challenging news, not "liberal" sanitized Democrat news, or whitewashed money-incrusted Republican news, or PR manipulated corporate released news.

Real News builds movements for social change. It keeps the five percent radical vanguard aware of our power and our collective ability to influence positive change. Real News is about stimulating social activism in our daily lives, and making each act deliberate and heart centered. Real News reports to the center of self, and helps us find the collective for shared action. Real News organizes movement towards betterment, shapes policy for equality, and stands in the faces of the robber-baron power brokers.

Real News cannot be measured with Arbitron ratings. It is not there for the selling of materialism, or capitalist propaganda. It is not there for nationalistic grandioseness. Nor is it there to provide entertaining stimulation to self alienated voids.

KPFA Real News can be measured through its success in building democracy, stimulating grassroots activism, and motivating resistance to top-down institutions. Democratic activism underlies the purpose, reason, and message of free speech radio. To accept any other evaluatory measure is to reject the very soul of KPFA.

We the listeners need to remember our reasons for supporting KPFA. Our Real News radio station cannot tolerate censorship. We will not sit by and allow the Pacifica board to attempt top-down content interference with our station. We will not allow the Pacifica managers to censor or water down our news programs and we won’t fall victim to the Arbitron ratings trap. We will resist with our minds, our bodies and our money. We will fight with legal suits, and go back into the streets if necessary. KPFA is the core of Real News radio in our lives. It feeds our souls and keeps us involved. To let it go would be a rejection of our individual and collective selves. Power is rooted in the people and the leaders will follow where we choose to go.

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Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored