THE STRUGGLE AT KPFA
Staff accuse Pacifica of violating free speech, workers'
rights
By
Gloria La Riva
Berkeley, Calif.
"They can lock us out, but they will have to answer for
this. This isn't CBS."
Wendell Harper, longtime KPFA radio news reporter, spoke to
Workers World July 13 outside the listener-sponsored station
just hours after Berkeley police in riot gear had brutally
evicted 40 workers and community supporters from the facilities
and arrested them.
The arrests capped a shocking episode of media censorship by
KPFA management. At 6 p.m., after finishing his on-air
commentary on the "Flashpoints" program, Dennis Bernstein was
accosted by police and physically dragged out of the studio, on
orders of the management. In those dramatic moments, Bernstein
could be heard shouting: "You're going to hurt me! What's
Pacifica coming to? I'm a news reporter!"
This was all being broadcast throughout the Bay Area.
When his voice was cut off, News Director Mark Mericle broke
in and announced, "Dennis Bernstein is being dragged out of the
studio. ..." Then his microphone was also cut off.
Management imposed gag rule
Management's reason for this outrageous action? Pacifica
management says Bernstein violated a gag order, which was
imposed to prevent listeners from being informed on internal
struggles with management.
That very morning, Houston's KPFT general manager, Garland
Ganter, was flown in to enforce the gag rule. For weeks, tapes
of old programs had been brought in. The raid was obviously
planned ahead of time.
There is a strong sentiment in the community and among KPFA
staff that listeners, who provide 80 percent of KPFA's
operating funds, have a right to be informed of developments at
their station.
Community response to this outrageous media censorship and
attack on the unionized workers was swift. Within minutes,
listeners gathered in front of the Berkeley station. Soon
hundreds were chanting angrily, "Free KPFA!"
For the next week KPFA aired only taped music and old
interviews. All the workers and unpaid staff have been fired,
are on administrative leave, or have been locked out of the
station.
Armed security goons from IPSA, Inc. occupy the boarded-up
building--costing the station $10,000 a day--while Berkeley
police maintain a constant presence to harass protesters.
Founded in 1949
KPFA radio, at 94.1 on the FM dial, is the flagship station
for the Pacifica Radio network of five stations. The other
Pacifica affiliates are WBAI in New York, KPFT in Houston, KPFK
in Los Angeles and WPFW in Washington.
In addition, dozens of independent broadcasters across the
United States, many of them college stations, subscribe to
Pacifica programs like "Democracy Now" and Pacifica news.
KPFA Pacifica, known in the Bay Area as "the people's
radio," was the first noncommercial, listener-funded radio
station in the United States. It was founded in 1949 by Lewis
Hill, a pacifist. Along with other activists, Hill sought to
establish an alternative voice to the increasingly
corporate-controlled media of that time.
In the 50 years since, KPFA and Pacifica's progressive
perspective have become even more essential to popular
movements and struggles, which find it almost impossible to get
coverage in the mainstream capitalist press.
However, since the early 1990s, the national Pacifica
management has initiated a plan of structural and programming
changes that have undermined Pacifica's and KPFA's vision. Many
of these changes are geared toward making the Pacifica network
sound more like National Public Radio, thus making it more
acceptable to major corporate funders and an upper-middle-class
audience.
NPR, ostensibly a listener-sponsored network, actually
receives a large part of its funding from corporations; the
programming content reflects that sponsorship. Most
notoriously, in 1996 NPR canceled its planned broadcasts of
Mumia Abu-Jamal's radio commentaries.
KPFA workers and the community are struggling to keep
similar corporate privatization and program moderation from
being repeated at Pacifica.
As part of its national strategy, since 1993 Pacifica
management has carried out a series of attacks on workers and
on the longstanding concept of local station control in the
affiliate stations. Some of the stations have already undergone
drastic revamping, to the detriment of the communities that
were being served.
For example, in 1995, Pacifica's Acting Executive Director
Pat Scott fired KPFK's management in Los Angeles and seized
control of financial books. A gag rule was declared, banning
staff members from informing the public of the policy
changes.
At Houston's KPFT, many staff members were removed. Local
news was eliminated. And the format was changed to
country-western music.
Still later that year, Pacifica hired American Consulting
Group, a union-busting firm, to curtail workers' rights. New
contracts were drawn up that eliminated the right to strike,
removed unpaid staff from the union, and took away staff's
input in the institution.
1995 gutting of progressive
programs
Kiilu Nyasha is a Bay Area African American activist best
known at KPFA for co-producing the former "Freedom is a
Constant Struggle" program. She talked to Workers World about
the massive 1995 purge by Pacifica management of programs that
had served communities of color, prisoners and women's
struggles.
"So many of our programs were gutted," said Nyasha. She
mentioned "Living on Indian Time," "Freedom is a Constant
Struggle," Ayanna Athinin's prisoners' program, and Mama
O'Shea's live talk show.
"They were all removed by Lynn Chadwick. She also shut down
the Third World Department and the Women's Department. A lot of
our staff and interns of color were eliminated, like Avotcja,
Oba T'Shaka, Bari Scott and Samuel Guia.
"Many of us protested the attacks in 1995, but not enough. A
lot of people were afraid of being fired if they spoke out. You
know that saying, `If they come for you in the morning, they'll
come for us at night.'"
Pacifica's agenda in revamping KPFA became increasingly
intolerable in recent months. The struggle inside KPFA is only
now widely known because of the staff's on-air reporting,
despite the gag order.
The gag rule had become a favorite weapon by Pacifica and
the newly named KPFA management. The situation intensified
starting in February 1999, when KPFA Director Nicole Sawaya
began to challenge national Pacifica's policies.
Pacifica Executive Director Lynn Chadwick then terminated
Sawaya's contract. In defiance of the gag rule, radio staff
publicly announced the firing of Sawaya, and asked for
community support against Pacifica's heavy-handedness.
In April, Larry Bensky, national KPFA commentator, was fired
for supporting Sawaya on the air and exposing Pacifica's power
grab, something that Sawaya herself had publicly
challenged.
Whether the staff initiated the discussion or not, listeners
have made sure to. During virtually every program, listeners
have called in, expressing their anger at harassment by
management. During KPFA's recent annual fundraising "marathon,"
90 percent of all donations were marked as "under protest."
Listeners organize protests
The crisis escalated on June 20 when KPFA suddenly went off
the air during the two-hour scheduled program of Robbie Osman,
who has been with the station for 22 years. Two days before,
Lynn Chadwick had accused Osman of violating orders by publicly
commenting on Pacifica's policies. A demonstration of several
hundred quickly formed.
In another chilling move against the civil rights of even
the station's listeners, Chadwick handed over to the FBI 3,000
letters of protest that radio supporters had written to KPFA in
recent months. The FBI claims it is investigating the letters
for evidence of possible perpetrators of terrorism. Presumably
the investigation is linked to a mysterious shooting several
months ago that left a bullet hole in the station.
There is a great deal of anger that a letter to KPFA would
leave a person open to FBI scrutiny.
Since the arrests on July 13, a mass movement in the Bay
area has quickly developed to defend what many supporters view
as their lifeline to alternative information. A demonstration
the day after Bernstein's arrest drew almost 1,000 people. They
blocked the entrance to a nearby freeway.
A tent city was set up the following weekend. Although
police attacked, it was soon back up with even more tents.
On July 16, when Pacifica bosses attempted to install a line
at KPFA's transmitter so that Pacifica could broadcast programs
from KPFK in Los Angeles, Communications Workers Local 9415 set
up a picket line at the transmitter. Local 9415 represents the
locked-out KPFA staff.
On July 19, a sold-out concert of 3,000 people featuring
Steelhead, Dar Williams, Utah Phillips and Dr. Loco's Rockin'
Jalapeno Band raised money for the fighting campaign to win
back KPFA.
Van Jones, attorney and activist in the Coalition for a
Democratic Pacifica, said to cheers at the concert, "The
struggle to save KPFA is the struggle to make it not only more
independent, but broader and more inclusive." Referring to
management, he added: "They claim to want diversity, but it's
from the top. We want to build diversity from the bottom
up!"
Dennis Bernstein said: "When we talk about diversity, that
means class, too. We are a voice for the voiceless, for the
disenfranchised, a voice for activists fighting for social
change. We're not a voice for the corporations, not a voice for
downsizers."
Despite the stilling of vital voices on KPFA, the
groundswell of opposition in the Bay Area shows that the KPFA
workers--paid and unpaid--have standing in the community, and
that people are fighting back. A mass march that promises to
bring thousands of supporters into the streets will take place
on July 31. For
information, readers can call the
Coalition for a Democratic Pacifica at (510) 594-4000, ext.
202.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME :: U.S. NEWS :: WORLD NEWS :: EDITORIALS :: SUBSCRIBE :: DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page