By RC Stilwell
This is a hard column to write. It concerns troubles at a station I once volunteered at, and you might as well know that from the start, so you can adjust your interpretations accordingly. But by any standard, what's been happening at Pacifica Radio over the past few months has escalated into a major confrontation between the forces of Management and the staff of one of the foremost stations in the alternative radio scene, KPFA in Berkeley. This column has often pointed out the sad & sorry state of jazz radio today, and this is a prime example of what has happened to a lot of radio stations in this country over the past decade. The major difference is that this time it's happening to one of the most underground, alternative stations in the world! It's also a story that has been steadfastly ignored by the mainstream media.
This is a jazz radio story because while many commercial jazz stations have substituted hip elevator music for real, substantial jazz, the stations of NPR and Pacifica have continued to offer some of the best jazz programming to be found. KPFA in particular has been a station where you could hear experimental & outside jazz that even NPR has little time for. As a non-commercial entity, Pacifica was formed by a group of conscientious objectors following WWII in 1949, and KPFA is the oldest listener supported station in the country. Pacifica also has stations KPFK in LA, KPFT in Houston, WBAI in NYC, and WPFW in DC.What eventually happens with the KPFA situation will have a profound effect on free alternative radio, and the jazz programming they often provide.
The trouble began in February 1999 when the Pacifica National Board of Directors voted to exclude the Local Advisory Board members from the national governance of Pacifica. This move negated the single most important guiding principle of community radio: Major policy decisions about community radio will be made with the input and consultation of the community it serves. This move by the National Board established the first step of most hostile takeovers: Centralize decision making power in the hands of a few, ideologically reliable members of a Mangement Inner Circle.
The next move was predictable enough: Purge the dissidents from the organization. On March 31st KPFA General Manager Nicole Sawa was fired in a terse letter from Pacifica Executive Director Lynn Chadwick. This also puts into play the insidious tactic of dividing formerly united groups, pitting a woman against another woman. Ironically enough, Pacifica claimed that this move was to expand the diversity of the station. The night of the firing KPFA news personnel were told they could not run any stories about the doings at Pacifica or KPFA. This was another tactic of the Corporado Mentality the National Board had adopted as it's modus operandi: Control the flow of information, (some call it censorship). This was done using a Pacifica Gag Rule that prohibits talking about Pacifica related affairs on Pacifica stations, and the penalty for viloating that rule was immediate termination.
Not surprisingly, several KPFA staffers refused to comply, and on April 9th 30-year Pacifica veteran broadcaster Larry Bensky was fired. Bensky is a nationally recognized reporter and music programmer, who won the Polk Award for his coverage of the Iran/Contra Hearings, and had been expressing his concern over the way the National Board had been beefing up it's staff and loading the Pacifica structure with more and more managers & adminstrators for over a year previous to his firing. As a reporter, he'd seen the pattern happen in many other businesses & organizations.
By this time rumors had been circulating that the reason behind Pacifica National's power manipulations was to facilitate the sale of either KPFA in Berkeley, or WBAI in NYC, whose radio frequencies are worth many millions of dollars. On May 5th National Board Chair Mary Frances Berry appeared on KPFA to answer questions from the listening audience. During that show she emphatically stated that KPFA was not for sale. She did not mention WBAI. Clever Mary, she obviously learned a few spin-control techniques hanging around DC.
July 12th saw Mary Frances Berry return to the Bay Area to hold an invitation-only press conference. Far from the traditional press conference which allows free access to any member of the media, (if not any interested party), this invitation-only event excluded many professional reporters. Among the reporters turned away from this conference was the representative from the San Jose Mercury, a mainstream paper with excellent journalistic credentials. The tactic of information control now included not simply presenting a factually distorted, one-sided press release, but now controlling who was to report the story. Berry also said she would not negotiate with the full Steering Committee, but only with the Union at the station. The Union Stewards then met with Berry and insisted she negoiate with the Steering Committee, thwarting a blatant attempt at dividng the Steering Committee against the Union.
Shortly thereafter a memo was intercepted by some KPFA sympathizers from Pacifica National Board member Michael Palmer to Mary Frances Berry. It appeared to be a fake, except that Pacifica admitted to the SF Chronicle that the memo was, indeed, real. Both the style and substance of the memo made what the Boards attitude and intentions truly were. In part the memo states:
"I salute your fortitude in scheduling a news conference in the beloved Bay Area...But seriously, I was under the impression there was support in the proper quarters and a definite majority for shutting down that unit, (KPFA), and re-programming immediately. Has that changed?...My feeling is that a more beneficial disposition would be of the NY signal (WBAI) as there is a smaller subscriber base without the long & emotional history as the Bay Area, far more associated value, a similarly dysfuntional staff, though far less effective, and an overall better opportunity to redefine Pacifica going forward. It is simply the more strategic asset."
That evening one of the most chilling events in American Radio History occured on a station that had build it's whole Being on Free, community-oriented programming. Dennis Bernstein, who had held out as long as he could, went on his regular news program and dared to talk about the troubles at Pacifica. The security team broke into the studio, and with perhaps hundreds of thousands of people listening, physically grabbed him and dragged him off the air. The sound of that taking place, and the silence which followed, was perhaps the most eloquent silence ever heard. A moment later a tape recording of a previous program replaced Bernstein's newscast. This is the kind of thing we'd expect to hear from Cuba or North Korea, not in America, and certainly not at a Pacifica station. But the whole episode points out the truth of one of the tenants of the Left: Corporate Dictatorship is still dictatorship, even if it's practiced by a private enterprise.
Lawuits have been filed, negotiations are underway, and there is still much more to this story. I've tried to present what can be found on the Internet about this situation as fairly as possible, but I urge anyone who is interested to look into this for themselves. Once you've done that, it might be a good idea to contact Pacifica and let them know what you think, and that they cannot conduct this kind of power-play behind closed doors, open only to the carefully Chosen Few of the Cult of Mangement. One thing is for sure, if it happens at Pacifica, it can truly happen anywhere, if it hasn't happened already.
