[pf] ZNet Commentary

by Jill Taylor Bussiere

30 December 2000 16:29 UTC

THE PACIFICA COUNTERREVOLUTION HITS WBAI:
Another Call for Action
By Edward S. Herman

One of the most crushing series of blows to the U.S. left, and to democracy
in this country, has been the gradual transformation of the five station
Pacifica Radio network from locally-based and left-oriented stations into
centrally controlled, mainstream institutions. Before 1990, all five
stations in the network were locally oriented, locally managed with strong
inputs from local audiences and employees, and both highly political and
progressive. During the 1990s, however, three of the stations--Houston,
Washington and Los Angeles--were pushed into the mainstream by the Pacifica
management, with only KPFA in Berkeley and WBAI in New York City remaining
as holdovers of the earlier tradition.

On December 26, however, the Washington management seized control of WBAI,
removing the long-time manager Valerie Van Isler, firing Program Director
Bernard White and producer Sharan Harper without notice, changing the locks
on the doors in the middle of the night, and installing a new manager from
within the WBAI staff secretly primed for her new job. Only people on an
approved list, which did not include Pacifica Foundation board member Leslie
Cagan, were admitted to the station on December 27. There has been nothing
democratic about any actions of the Pacifica management for many years, and
with one of its board members a member of a law firm with a specialty in
union-busting, the management has long mastered the art of using every trick
in that trade.

It will be recalled that the Pacifica management had tried to remake KPFA in
Berkeley several years ago, locking out the employees, firing many, bringing
in security forces and strikebreakers, but meeting such resistance, with
10,000 protesters in the streets, and getting such negative publicity that
the management had to retreat. The stalemate resulted in a tacit settlement
that gave KPFA and WBAI temporary autonomy and led to the appointment of
several new representatives of the audiences and stations to the Pacifica
board.

But this settlement was only temporary, and the new board members quickly
discovered that they were not listened to and were kept outside any
decision-making process, sometimes by illegal actions (and two of the
dissident board members have an ongoing suit against the board based on
these illegalities). That the central management was on the march again, and
that a takeover of WBAI might be in the works, was suggested by the
sustained attack on Amy Goodman and her Democracy Now! program that
escalated this past September and October. Goodman has long been harassed by
the Pacifica top management for her lack of sympathy with Clinton and
general failure to stick with the approved media agenda. She was brought to
Washington in September and told quite clearly that her focus on East Timor,
capital punishment, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Lori Berenson (etc.) was excessive.
Former board chair Mary Frances Berry called her "troublesome," and said
that she had "embarrassed" the network, possibly meaning Berry herself and
her friends and colleagues in the Democratic Party. In October Goodman was
once again brought to Washington and directly threatened with termination
unless she refrained from using volunteers and cleared her programs in
advance in Washington (among other demands). She immediately filed a
grievance with the union for harassment and censorship.

A problem for the Pacifica elite is that Goodman's show heavily outdraws
their regular news programs, and most other Pacifica programs as well. This
makes it awkward for them as they claim to be reforming Pacifica in the
interest of enlarging audience size, which they have been trying to do by
substituting popular music for politics (and softening any politics that
remains). But Goodman's show and its successes in drawing audiences suggests
that critical politics can be quite popular if done well. That she is
regarded negatively by the Pacifica brass reflects political bias and a
determination to defang and depoliticize the network in accord with the
biases of the top management and their constituency. The constituency of the
"old Pacifica" was the local audiences and employees and volunteers; the
constituency of the "new Pacifica" of Bessie Wash and Mary Frances Berry is
Washington power brokers, officials of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, and the Democratic Party.

Even the New York Times notes that the Pacifica Foundation was initially
based on "a lack of corporate control and its dedication to peace," and
represented "grass roots, alternative broadcasting" (Jayson Blair, "Pacifica
Foundation Locks WBAI Station Manager Out of Office," Dec, 28, 2000). The
"new Pacifica" has changed course, and has abandoned both its grass roots
base and alternative broadcasting. Its attack on Amy Goodman and the current
takeover of WBAI are a part of this de-democratization and political
neutering. This process has resulted from the capture of the Pacifica
Foundation by a small group of liberal technocrats and Democratic
Party-linked officials, who have added to their controlling board membership
businesspeople in the real estate, construction, and corporate law fields to
support them in their remaking of Pacifica. They have moved Pacifica's
headquarters from Berkeley to Washington DC, in keeping with the shift in
their constituency from audiences and employees to Washington power brokers.

We are dealing here with a kind of coup d'etat, and a systematic destruction
of a major left institution in the wake of that coup. Given the importance
of the media in hegemonic processes, and in contesting those processes, what
is happening to Pacifica, and now WBAI, should be first order business for
the left. This was our only radio network, and it is being destroyed! It is
a horrifying fact that a chunk of the left actually signed Saul Landau's
letter in 1999 which defended the Pacifica management and urged the left to
stop its "Pacifica bashing," with "Pacifica" identified with the management
group that was destroying the old Pacifica and picking off left journalists
and stations one by one. Some of the signers are people trying, for example,
to contest corporate globalization, a subject on which Amy Goodman and the
old WBAI would give their contesting position extensive and friendly
coverage, but which the emerging "new Pacifica" will ignore or treat
perfunctorily. (The "new Pacifica" Washington station WPFW, formerly run by
current Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash, has been notoriously
uninterested in protests against not only the dominant political party
conventions, but those against the World Bank and IMF.) The lack of left
solidarity involved in signing the Landau letter is equalled only by the
sheer short-sightedness and stupidity of helping destroy a media institution
that was a natural ally, if not part of the left itself.
The battle over Pacifica and WBAI is not over. There are mounting protests
against the WBAI takeover, and there are at least three legal suits in
process against the Pacifica Foundation control group. I would urge people
to get into action now. This is important! It was encouraging to see the New
York Times finally come up with an article on December 28 putting the WBAI
takeover in a negative light for both tactics and implied violation of
organizational purpose. This is the time to move into action with letters,
phone calls, picketing, and contributions to the funding of legal responses
to illegitimate authority. Information on the issues and names and actions
under way can be obtained from these key sites:

Hotline:
800-825-0055 to volunteer
718-707-7189 for e-mail and updates

Local WBAI sites:
www.glib.com WBAI union
www.wbai.net WBAI listeners

Sites: general info and background
www.radio4all.org/freepacifica
www.savepacifica.net

Committee to Remove Pacifica Board:
707-526-2867, Carol Spooner for info
wildrose@pon.net