REPORT FROM KFCF

By Deborah Speer

 

While all eyes in the KPFA family have been on Berkeley from the firings of 1995, including those of Bill Mandel and Mama O’Shea, the latest purging of Larry Bensky and Nicole Sawaya, to the forcible lockout of staff and 15,000 supporters marching in the streets last summer, and up to the Pacifica National Board meeting taking place this month, Central California’s KFCF 88.1 has been, and will continue to be, working in Central California to lend its wholehearted support to KPFA, despite going through some tumultuous changes of its own.

KPFA’s battle with Pacifica does not end at the Altamont Pass. At the height of the latest crisis at KPFA, while its staff was locked out of its studio and "the sounds of Texas" from KPFT in Houston were being forced over KPFA’s airwaves, the staff of KFCF, with the help of Ralph Steiner and others, dedicated streaming MP3 audio over the internet, enabling anyone with an internet connection and a sound card to hear "KPFA in Exile" radio including Dennis Bernstein’s "Flashpoints Free," live and unfettered by Pacifica censorship. Former Fresno Free College Foundation President Doug Noll did battle with Lynn Chadwick over Pacifica’s use of a Ku-band satellite uplink purchased by KFCF, that was used by KFCF and Pacifica. The system was damaged during Pacifica’s occupation of the KPFA building and was eventually abandoned by Pacifica when KPFA staff returned to the Berkeley studio in August.

The dish has since been repaired, but is no longer in use by Pacifica. KFCF uses it to relay the KPFA signal to Fresno.

As a direct result of the KPFA’s struggles with Pacifica, and calls for democratic participation for the listening community, the Fresno Free College Foundation (which owns and operates KFCF wholly independently of Pacifica) experienced a ten-fold increase in membership, which voted in November to extend Foundation membership, and all voting rights, to all KFCF subscribers. The Foundation, nearly moribund with a membership total of nine last summer, is now stronger than ever with a voting membership estimated at around 1,200. While keeping a large and far-flung membership informed and involved will create a new set of challenges, we welcome those challenges as a price of full participation by our listeners. We hope that Pacifica will one day follow our lead and extend the same right to its listeners.

Thanks to an agreement with KPFA, KFCF is able to coordinate marathon fundraising with the assistance of KPFA’s business office, but despite that connection, NOT ONE DIME of KFCF subscriber money ends up in Pacifica’s coffers. The Foundation, in a meeting after press time, is considering various options for making the North Bay for KPFA FOLIO available to KFCF subscribers.

KFCF has experienced heated debate over the amount of local programming it should carry in light of the ongoing uncertainty over KPFA’s future. Listeners and subscribers should be aware that while KFCF will continue to support and air KPFA as long as the struggle continues, local programming continues to be considered. A group is actively working towards a community calendar, and other programming will be heard on the air soon. The Foundation is also hard at work building the Distinguished Speakers’ Series, which hosted Bill Mandel in Fresno on Feb. 11th.

The Fresno Free College Foundation welcomes KFCF subscribers to the membership fold, and we look forward to an unprecedented year of community service and in support of KPFA. The Foundation also wishes to express its gratitude to North Bay for KPFA for the resurrection of this Folio, and for making it available to our subscribers. Anyone with Internet access can get further information, including Foundation board meeting announcements, minutes, agendas and by-laws at KFCF’s website at http://www.kfcf.org, the only official source of KFCF information on the net.

 

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Deborah Speer is the Secretary of the Fresno Free College Foundation

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