NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH RADIOBy Ralph Steiner Former Editor/Publisher, KPFA Folio
Let us be brutally honest with ourselves:
The Pacifica Foundation has been infiltrated and taken over by people with vested interests inimical to the original intent and tradition of Pacifica and community radio. As presently constituted, the National Governing Board does not represent the interests of the communities it is charged with serving. Those who now legally own the assets of the five stations, the News Bureau, Archive Service and satellite distribution system seek to destroy the progressive Pacifica legacy and shall take however much time they need to do so. Money and influence is on their side. Lots of it. Conservative Washington insiders with ties to Voice of America/Radio & TV Marti (U.S. State Department), CPB, Public Radio International, (PRI), the distributors of "Marketplace"; and the FCC itself now hold a large stake in the direction that Pacifica is moving. PRI is currently INVESTING one million dollars in the renovation of WPFW. One of the newly appointed National Board members is on record as an open advocate of corporate underwriting, and has termed Pacifica’s traditional refusal to accept it "ridiculous."
The take-over and subversion of Pacifica began many years ago under former Executive Director Pat Scott, who laid the groundwork for it by her secretive anti-labor tactics and her deliberate "packing of the Board" with cronies. Scott also "got into bed" with Robert Coonrod, current CEO of the CPB, who also used to administer VOA/Radio-TV Marti, both U.S. foreign policy propaganda organs. It was Scott and Coonrod who, in early 1999, signed off on a jointly agreed-upon "governance compliance memo" that effectively closed the National Board off to community input, handing control over the Pacifica infrastructure to self-appointed insiders with hidden agendas. Once appointed into place by Scott, prestigious Washington insider Mary Frances Barry continued to "pack the Board" with cronies representing the interests she truly serves. She has cynically utilized race-bating and the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement to drive a wedge between the progressive communities traditionally staffing and supporting the Pacifica stations.
The July, 1999 attempted armed take-over and lockout at KPFA was not an accident. It was not a knee-jerk incompetent blunder by Executive Director Lynn Chadwick. It was a planned event. A conservative estimate suggests that it had been planned at least two weeks ahead of time; perhaps months ahead. We know this because Chadwick began shipping the archive tapes used as filler during the lockout to KPFA for AT LEAST two weeks prior to the shutdown. The lockout was scripted and executed with help from highly paid anti-labor corporate downsizing consultants. One such consultant, Gene Edwards, probable architect of the attempted take-over, remains on Pacifica’s payroll as "Human Resources Director."
There is some indication from inside sources wishing to remain anonymous, that a forced take-over and sale of one of the most financially or politically troublesome stations, either WBAI or KPFA, dates back to a contingency plan drafted by Pat Scott in the early ’90s. In her hey day as Pacifica’s Executive Director, Scott boasted of her goal to "drag Pacifica kicking and screaming into the 21st Century," and to "professionalize" the organization. Perhaps she did not realize at the time just how far down the road of "professionalism" her successors would be willing to go.
It is unquestioningly clear that the current National Governing Board honors no process of inclusion or democratic process that would permit an interplay of viewpoints representing the diverse Pacifica listening communities. By its current behavior, the Board seeks to evade communication with those communities at all cost. Indeed, to admit such an interchange would stand in the way of power consolidation at the top that is currently unfolding. Their message to the masses, and to the staffs of the five stations continues to be marginality at best, scorn and outright rebuke at worst.
From the vantage point of someone with more than twenty years of affiliation and loyalty to KPFA and to the Pacifica Mission, I brave the following conclusion: To those fighting the good fight to preserve community radio, may I remind you that we are currently at war. For a diverse community with strong commitments to pacifist ideals, this may be hard to swallow, but I believe that by now, it is an irrefutable fact. This is no longer speculation or conspiracy theory; the evidence now speaks loudly for itself. These people are playing hard ball. Those not willing to step up to bat better go find another ballpark altogether The only language the Pacifica Board will ever understand is pressure, and lots of it. This means more lawsuits. This means lighting the fire under local and national politicians. This means badgering the bejesus out of the California Legislative Audit Committee to find out WHY they have done NOTHING since holding investigative hearings last August. This means dogging members of the Governing Board at every opportunity in their places of work, even at their homes; and it means building alliances with Pacifica affiliate stations that currently broadcast Democracy Now and Pacifica National News. It also means being willing to go around Pacifica altogether and create a new national news distribution network that bypasses the censorship currently enforced within the Pacifica system. Free Speech Radio News is only a start: It would also mean bypassing both the Pacifica and NPR satellite distribution systems by using the Internet and micro radio as alternative paths to the listener. Above all it signals a time for increased militancy, a time beyond compromise. It is certainly NOT a time to be overly diplomatic with those who would shove aside 50 years of progressive community radio.
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