Dark Night of the Soul
by
Gregory Wonderwheel
(2147 words)
This is the dark night of the soul for the Pacifica Foundation. We know that it is always darkest before the dawn, but we don't know what the new day will bring. More of the same daytime horrors which only incarnate our nightmares or the passage of the carnage and a time for burying the slain?We watch as our so-called progressive friends, the Saul Landaus and David Corns, make their personal access to Pacifica their priority and collaborate with the likes of Mary Berry, Lynn Chadwick, and Bessie Wash to whitewash the takeover of Pacifica by the New Democratic Party centrists.
We watch as Pacifica hires Levick Strategic Communications 1, its latest team of public relations experts, who specialize in global propaganda, proudly sharing their repackaging of "a senior official with the CIA" into a private practice expert on encryption policies, the threat of terrorism, and the role of the CIA. Levick boasts how they recognized their client's potential: "By having the added credentials associated with her prior involvement with the CIA, she had an advantage in that she was one step ahead in establishing credibility with reporters 2." Well, how can the CIA, whose goals are selling lies and placing spies, have any credibility? Anyone who knows journalism knows that the CIA buys its journalistic "credibility" with political access and cold cash. These are the people Bessie Wash and the Pacifica Board of Directors lie down in bed with.
Bessie Wash, the executive director, is the epitome of everything that is wrong with Pacifica. Her motto is "let's do great radio" but everywhere she has stated this in print she has failed to specifically define what she means by "great," except to say that it means "expanding our programming so that we reach a wider and broader audience 3." It is obvious, to anyone with half a mind willing to squarely face what "expanding" means, that to Ms. Wash "great" radio is any radio that gets higher Arbitron ratings.
To Ms. Wash, the radio message is not what makes radio great, the number of listeners is what makes radio great. But what does that say about the message? The clearest example of what "great radio" means to Ms. Wash is in her own words. She has pressured Pacifica News staff to tone down their reporting of government actions because, as she has said, "Many of our listeners work at the Pentagon; they don't want to hear about killing babies in Kosovo."
Ms. Wash is a living example of the Peter Principle that people rise to the level of their incompetence. Ms. Wash hosted a fancy dress concert Washington fund raiser for so-called big spending Pacifica supporters to which one person came, needless to say it was a complete money loser. Ms. Wash is known to respond to criticism by accusing her critics of racism, as she does in the Levick news release, thus avoiding having to respond to any particular charge with specifics.
When recently asked about the hiring of a general manager for KPFA and if she was considering rehiring Nicole Sawaya, Ms. Wash responded, "As you know that incident happened before I became executive director. I'm not involved 4." This is the level of denial and obfuscation that Ms. Wash calls honesty. This is the caliber of person that the Board of Directors has put at the helm of Pacifica?
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting through Robert Coonrod and National Public Radio through Kevin Klose 5, are run by USIA and Voice of America alumni with almost identical resumes. This nationwide take over of public broadcasting is the direct precursor to the takeover of Pacifica. Through NPR, the "Healthy Stations Project," and the direct collusion of the CPB (by providing threatening letters at the request of Pacifica directors, while the CPB refused to enforce CPB rules that the same Pacifica directors had violated) Pacifica has been taken over. A takeover that the pseudo-progressives at the Nation and the Institute for Policy Studies have refused to acknowledge and have aided by their collusion.
Pacifica foundation is now chaired by Mary Berry, a Clinton appointee. The new co-chair David Acosta is a CPA from Houston; the new vice-chair Ken Ford is a Washington lobbyist for the construction industry; the new treasurer Michael Palmer is a Houston commercial real-estate broker in one of the world's largest real estate companies who advocated the sale of KPFA. There are no progressives in charge at Pacifica. Mary Berry has personally brought on anti-progressive board members such as: Bertram Lee a media-sports-communications entrepreneur who has a history of big bucks leveraged deals buying and selling team franchises and radio stations without sticking around to belong to any of them; John Murdock, an HMO defense lawyer working in a law firm specializing in union busting; and Karolyn van Putten, a personal friend of Lynn Chadwick whose public comments rival Bessie Wash's in their inanity.
In addition to Levick, Bessie Wash has brought in another public relations consultant -- Phyllis Shearer Jones, currently President and CEO of Elan International, LLC 6. Ms. Jones is a former Assistant US Trade Representative for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison for the White House 7. Ms. Jones is also on the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. In the spin control news release put out by Levick's self described "highly experienced and uniquely trained legal publicists 8," Bessie Wash defends the Board's actions as fighting against those who "seem to have an agenda to maximize only their only parochial interests and power 9." Like all good propaganda, the issue she points to has a germ of truth that is mischaracterized and twisted into her claim that she is being attacked for trying to make Pacifica into a "vibrant and effective national voice." In fact, it is the attempt to make Pacifica's national voice less vibrant and effective that is being opposed. But by defining the "war" as "parochial" verses "national," Ms. Wash (as packaged by Levick) avoids acknowledging that it is the content of the national voice which is at issue behind the struggle to make the National Board of Directors accountable to the Pacifica community. Her unaccountable Board can define the national agenda for Pacifica and attack those who criticize her goal of "broadening the appeal" as racists opposed to including Hispanic, Asian, and African-American communities.
Unfortunately, the germ of truth upon which the great lie of Ms. Wash's and Levick's propaganda is created is the self-image that the progressive community always confronts when it tries to do something in concert: the difficulty of working together toward the common goal. This is the bitter truth that we had better deal with before Pacifica is irretrievably lost. Ms. Wash's spin-doctors have expertly reminded her that this is the Achilles' heel of our movement and to capitalize upon it. We have no central command that can hire spin-doctors like Levick to prepare strategic pronouncements. We have no central command to organize our efforts to repulse the takeover of Pacifica. We sat around for months arguing which of the Directors were "good" directors or "bad" directors while the same board unanimously endorsed the firing of Nicole Sawaya and the takeover of KPFA. Now that some of the so-called "good" directors are trying to find their voice, they can't even work together to forge common cause against the false progressives. Personally, I find these petty jealousies disgusting to watch. We only give credence to the Pacifica propagandists when we do not forge a national perspective and proclaim it and act on it.
What is happening in Pacifica and Ms. Wash's brand of "nationalism" is analogous to the National Socialist takeover of Germany. Each station community is threatened and becomes protective of itself first, and then that protectiveness is used against it as the "evidence" of an anti-national outlook that must be eradicated by the national vision of Pacifica. This is nothing other than the old story that they came for homosexuals first, then for the Gypsies, then for the Jews. The failure of the staff and listeners at each station to recognize the shared threat to the national network and to loudly voice their shared national interest provides the fake basis for Ms. Wash's pronouncements.
This failure allows Pacifica to run roughshod over the affiliate stations as well. By report, Pacifica is offering the affiliates a seven-year contract with cost increases of 10% per year over term. This outrageous offer could only be put on the table because there is no accountability for the Pacifica Board and no alternative national network. Pacifica Network News is widely perceived as half a joke under its current leadership and only Amy Goodman's program Democracy Now is keeping the affiliates within the Pacifica orbit. Were she to go independent (or at least "on strike") there would be no incentive for the 60 affiliate stations to stay hooked to Pacifica.
That the basis of Ms. Wash's anti-national criticism is fake is proved in large part because Pacifica itself has done every thing it can to prevent station to station communication and the building of a legitimate national perspective in the network. All the so-called "national" posture of Pacifica has been top-down imposed nationalism which has only created defensive reactions from the station communities. If Pacifica Directors really wanted a national voice they would provide opportunities for programmers at all the stations to meet annually and discuss their shared concerns and visions. They would provide program sharing between stations. They would lift the gag rule and allow Pacifica issues and the discussion of what makes "great radio" to be aired nationally.
If Pacifica really wanted a national voice they would have Board of Directors meetings in all the station areas in accessible locations. They would encourage listener participation in providing feedback and recommendations. As it is, Pacifica has met exclusively in Washington D.C. for the last several meetings and at high price locations unaffordable to the average member of the progressive Pacifica community. When they do allow listener input at Board meetings, it is only at the end of the meeting when all the voting is done and there is noting left to be decided. There are no avenues for input by the listeners in the process, and absolutely no accountability to the listeners for what the Pacifica Directors decide. This situation is the true source of the "disenchantment" with Pacifica and the revolt. This is an axiomatic situation. When people have an avenue of authentic communication they do not revolt. When all avenues are closed then people revolt. It is as simple as that.
Will the dawn bring a new day for Pacifica or just another day of Pacifica selling its soul for the false hope of "broad appeal"? This will depend on whether the people who are currently leading the fight against the likes of Berry, Acosta, Ford, Palmer, and Bessie Wash can work together with the people who are in a position to further the fight. Will the station staffs and LABs come to terms with the national threat to Pacifica and quit hiding behind their facade of business as usual? Will the station staffs ever come together to fight the gag rule on a national scale? Will the "friendly" directors get their act together and act for the common good rather that jockeying for position? Will the fence sitting directors face the facts that the Pacifica National Board fears accountability more than anything, and will they speak up to save the network? Will the listeners wake up to the NPR-ization of Pacifica before its too late?
Until the current Board of Directors of Pacifica is replaced there will be no end to the sellout of Pacifica. Already the Houston station KPFT is in bed with the commercialized Public Radio International and listed as one of its affiliates. Further commercialization of the Pacifica network is inevitable under the current regime of CPB backed and corporate based Directors. Every group that is fighting the Pacifica Board must clearly focus on how its efforts are directed to bringing down the current corporate sponsored Directorate of Pacifica.
Every fight doesn't have to be directed at the ultimate goal, but every fight must be oriented to the ultimate goal. In World War II the road to Berlin led through North Africa and Greece as well as through Normandy. The road to the Pacifica National Board may lead through the stations as well as the courts, but the goal of bringing down the false nationalism of Bessie Wash and the Pacifica Directors and replacing it with a truly accountable and progressive national perspective and network that honors the local communities of the sister stations and the affiliates must always be guiding us.
1. http://www.levick.com/
2. http://www.levick.com/case_studies/Public_to_Private.html
3. http://www.interweavers.com/berkeley/article.cfm?storyID=901
4. http://www.interweavers.com/berkeley/article.cfm?storyID=910
5. http://www.npr.org/inside/bios/kklose.html
6. http://www.globalalliancesmet.org/wmitt/04report/report.htm
7. http://www.ncapec.org/abac/roundtable.htm
9. http://www.igc.apc.org/pacifica/info/releases/pr7_21_00.html
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