1 book found – available thru some libraries, Amazon or book sellers.
Uneasy Listening: “Pacifica Radio’s Civil War”
authored by Matthew Lasar, Ph.D.
Strangely, this was published not in USA, but in UK, in 2006 by Black Apollo Press, which publishes “non-fiction titles in media studies….” see :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Apollo_Press][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Apollo_Press]
Starting not on page 1 or even 100, but on page 289, Chapter 6 “In Defense of the Realm, 1999-2000” with a clever quote by Saul Landau : "How are we going to get past this?” . The question still remains valid and unanswered.
Some selected bits & phrases are quoted here to see how little change or improvements have been achieved in these last 18 years [ and not counting the years from 1949's first innovation to KPFK's beginning in 1959 - historically].
Tho Pacifica seems to not feel neither patriotic nor liking this nation's symbols of identity [tho other nations' are preferred on various programs and most programmers] , the question has been asked : how such dysfunctional, conflict-full, never-resolved problems could be sustained at KPFK, as a corporation or organization - in any less open nation - elsewhere. While the continued criticisms and complaints made by all liberals of "never getting 'enough' " and wanting to define what "Should Be Done..because WE know, they / you don't " are never-ending.
Then the stakeholders of Pacifica/ KPFK are using those symbolic USA $$$$ - and deeds and certificates of incorporation - to sustain and still survive. Maybe some better/ fancier symbols - representative of what those who donate to KPFK , not the staff, programmers - can be created: artistically, elegantly and more than a mere microphone [a sterile and mechanical] representation.
Where are any creative artists who want to make KPFK appear or symbolize the more beautiful ?
Bit & quotes are here:
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“ 1999 onward, Pacifica’s civil war expanded into 2 stories…a struggle to maintain authority & control…contributed to the…dissident movement…
“…to explain the Pacifica struggle to a mystified general public….They constructed narratives of the conflict that varied depending on their political perspective of stake in the institution’s future… within organization…were dissidents…senior staff of KPFK saw fight differently…from northern California….a detour on road…to a more effective Pacifica radio network….”
”….2 narrative explanations competing for the attention of the public: …a relevance narrative…went back to the very beginnings of the Pacifica org…..Lawsuits became central to their strategy ….Dan Siegel…KPFA [Berkeley, not LA ] staff had been locked out of their building…impetus for the suit came from David Adelson, ….[he] joined KPFK’s local advisory board in 1990’s and followed purges at station with alarm….[re ] pan-africanist programing ….[when KPFK’s then mgr Mark Schubb] removed…[a radical disturbing program ].
“…. Adelson quickly absorbed the intricate history of Pacifica’s bylaws and plan to centralize the board. …. began calling prominent progressive journalists…write about controversy. He appealed to Molly Ivans, Jim Hightower, and David Corn [all had been on-air guests, hosts, programmed on KPFK too then and later ] to no avail….
“…the [UCLA] biologists’ 22,300 word backgrounder…”Neutering of Pacifica” essay…anticipating Pacifica’s plan to create a self-appointing board…. he learned [CA Corporate Code …raised funds for lawsuit & attorney]… Pacifica had violated state corporation law, because the foundation had “failed to submit the proposed bylaw changes to members of Pacifica’s local advisory board for their consideration & vote…”
“… Siegel filed “David Adelson et al. vs. Pacifica in Alameda County Superior Court"….TV news reporters filmed him… [meanwhile] Carol Spooner …paralegal, on her way to becoming a lawyer…heard dismissal of Nicole Sawaya …went to ‘freepacifica.org' web site, found…”
“… David Adelson's lawsuit…it did not go far enough…no demand removal of the Pacifica board of directors for breach of trust”…so …”I have to do it….decided on class action lawsuit…”
“….Spooner needed…attorney, money…standing……listeners-subscribers were not members of foundation in any legal sense…Only board of directors and LAB members enjoyed that status..."
….only until February 1999…[they] had to win “realtor” status from CA attorney general, which was rarely granted…a long shot…1,000 signed …a petition …[plus other actions, actors got involved too ] demanding a ‘listener-subscriber-election national board.’ “
[someone else] ran an ad in New York Times demanding resignation of Mary Frances Berry and Lynn Chadwick… you have done…’weakened Pacifica to point of collapse …’ “
“…70 academics, organizers, politicians and artists signed the statement, including Jerry Brown…Barbara Eherenreich …Danny Glover.. Angela Davis and Juan Gonzalez…but…larger national discussion overshadowed and created the anxieties that fueled this protest….”
“…mid 1990’s liberal and progressive Americans felt a deep sense of powerless about the rightward drift…newspapers and broadcast media…discontent…[p. 296 :] …Pacifica’s crisis raged…demand for books on media bias and conglomeration appeared …the warlike over the peaceful….Fair ….Counterspin [emerged then]….Indymedia… many lowpower FM stations…operated as democratic collective…”
“…While KPFK threatened with expulsion hosts who wanted to talk about the network’s policies over the air…” Pacifica Fdtn had to broaden its governance structures , and it to
become a more transparent organization….”
“…the Free Pacifica movement’s...narrative…a tale of slow corruption and silent collusion with outside influences that had only recently shown their true face…John Whiting…wrote a book about …Pacifica and KPFA “ Pacifica in Vincula” … like Rousseau…recalled a golden age of the organization, the 1950’s and 1960’s….” the indeterminate mass of the general public…Lew Hill could ignore with impunity the size of KPFA’s audiences because…[he had] no way of measuring them.”
“…To Whiting, the poverty of KPFA endured ennobled its cause…staff...”worked for peanuts and the shells were often empty” ….Idealists came to work, usually unpaid, remained…went on to other employment…staff made decisions as Lewis Hill had first intended, as a democratic collective…[p. 299]”
“This led to ‘delusions of grandeur’ for Pacifica….Ambition led to greater expenditures… KPFA’s new headquarters in 1991…with a huge mortgage… More chat. Same programs every day. …Purges began… Then came secrecy, private board meetings, relatively well-paid managers, the curtailing of the station Folio, and a more rigorously enforced gag rule. “
“…later 1990’s, community radio had succumbed to the blandishments of power and now paid the price as a soulless bureaucracy…when nonprofessional, predominately volunteer staffs ran the Pacifica stations…different from both commercial and institutional radio though it overlapped in certain ways with both…”
[p 300 continued]....Corporation for Public Broadcasting [CPB] funding…came w/a price...a demand that its grantees hire s minimum number of paid staff, achieve a baseline level of listenership measured by Arbitron ratings, or demonstrate a certain amount of community financial support…before community stations got by on listener pledges and local underwriting…”
“…more prominent writers…Alexander Cockburn…focused on contradiction between the democratic rhetoric promulgated on the air and its undemocratic system of governance…
Solomon said …governance of the medium is the message….”
“… David Barsamian …”they [management at Pacifica ] have more power over those 5 Paciifica stations than Rupert Murdoch has over his enterprises…because they don’t have shareholders to account to”..."
“..worried McChesney…’”there’s more secrecy around Pacifica than you’d find at the CIA....”easier…to ask them what they’re doing...than it is to find out what Pacifica’s board’s plans are for their stations.”
“…Marc Cooper…wrote “Whose Pacifica? ” [article in The Nation & another in LA Weekly ]..a bit of gallows humor…“Fueling the conflict is a tension between 2 visions of what Pacifica Radio can and should be “….support ..to stop occupying only the fringe…willing openly to ask questions ….others would only discuss in private.”
“.... [re :KPFA] …the discovery of an email …by a member of the nat’l board proposing the sale of KPFA…advocated the shutdown of KPFA…expulsion of the KPFA staff….Pacifica had fired their gen’l mgr and replaced her…. Private pleas to advisory board had been rendered powerless to do anything at all meaningful at Pacifica….”
“…Pacifica Network News [PPN ] director…was 1/2 hr news-feed produced in Wash DC…..[1999] serious tensions had emerged …over Democracy Now!’s coverage of issues… KPFK’s GM Marc Schubb disliked the program….a fight quickly polarized nat’l staff already deeply divided over the approach that Pacifica should take to news and public affairs programming…”
“…scandal was in progress…for breaking the ‘Dirty Laundry Rule’....a headline in Current magazine …Pacifica manages now reserved the right not only to remove employees for breaking the gag rule, but for running news stories they found displeasing….”
“…a PNN stringer…got a call from KPFK based reporter Robin Urevitch….[she] had been barred from KPFK’s newsroom for publishing in a local nspr a piece about the Pacifica crisis that had angered Mark Schubb…”
“…[p 316] PNN …issued a public statement… [re stringers’ strike] the action wasn’t a strike..it was a boycott. Pacifica wouldnot recognize it…many saw as censorship into news judgment… audience research analyst David Giovannoni wrote …”for most Americans, Pacifica simply does not exist…The organization has lost its influence…the time for polite euphemism is over. By any objective measure of public service, Pacifica has crossed the line from ‘under-performance’ to ‘irrelevance’....”
“…Saul Landau claimed that most of the strikers did not produce anything for PNN ....
‘Stop the Pacifica Bashing !’ …Landau’s statement conceded that Pacifica had made “mistakes”. But so had the dissidents…Pacifica’s shortcomings should be seen as such:.... ‘not betrayals and conspiracies’ ...."
“… 43 prominent scholars and activists signed the document….Barbara Erenreich and Jerry Brown…the appeal for what it was – a partisan statement couched in the language of reconciliation. Landau’s petition made no specific demands on Pacficia management, only on the opposition…after appeal came out, stringers tabulated detailed chart of the stories they had contributed to PNN… 22 reporters filed stories since July 1999… now on strike against the service…”
“… Landau’s call for a truce…resonated with the enormous frustration and confusion progressives felt over Pacifica’s worsening civil war…Was it ever going to end? …Landau could not find the answer he wanted…an untrackable number of protest groups throughout the Pacifica organization….it was morphing into something that frightened them, something that had moved to Washington DC , talked about selling radio stations….”
“…only 1 remedy: the overthrow of the present board and establishment of something that had never before existed, a listener-subscriber-elected network…was their exist strategy.[1999] Cooper wrote…organization is full of shit, but it’s our organization….[others said ] that the rhetoric of moral ownership was nothing more than sweet talk, Pacifica radio was not their organization…[thru p 326]”
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More can be copied, quoted and reviewed from this book later in another posting - because the essences found from 18 years prior to now appear all too similar - and repetitive…
That's making many of us loyalists wondering Why ?
and How? - can true CHANGES and IMPROVEMENTS be made - if the past keeps on replayiing repetitively. Thus it is all stuck in quick-sand-mud-sameness, in scary ways.
The entire organization - all parts of Pacifica included - and KPFK too, are obviously not moving into any more :
viable, trustworthy, stable, professional or transparently & honest organization. The ‘non-profit’ aspect is not giving KFPK et. al any purer image or any stability benefits either.
(c) mj 2017
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