TakeBackKPFK Community Radio

The following emails, which appeared on the New Pacifica Yahoo group, say much about their author, KPFK listener candidate Christopher Bayard Condon. They’re posted here in the interest of informing and educating the electorate.  Condon is responding to a blog by Doug Henwood, host of “Behind the News” at KPFA in Berkeley. Condon, who answers to “Chris” and often signs himself as “Bayard,” is not running with a slate, but as of this writing, he remains a committee member of one of them, the Committee To Strengthen KPFK. We’ve highlighted those ideas that we find troubling, but we ask that you judge for yourself.

Photo by NoHoDamon.

Subject: [Fwd: Doug Henwood: the state of WBAI]
Posted by: “bayardcondon” lacitizensgrandjury@earthlink.net bayardcondon
Date: Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:49 am ((PDT))

Gentle Pacificans,

There are two types of people in the world; those who take responsibility and those who blame others. Now I have been a fan of Doug Henwood’s since I lived in NYC and listened to the then much better WBAI, so this is not a personal attack although I can predict that he will take it as such and respond with a personal attack. He knows a great deal about the economy and wall street, pre-911, but he knows nothing about the 911 attack, planning, execution, and cover-up; and knows even less about natural medicine.

Part of the reason he knows nothing about these things is that he, and for that matter the entire left gatekeeper leadership, Jews and Gentiles alike, have swallowed from the beginning the pre-scripted propaganda fabrication of the fictitious al-quaida and Osama bin forgotten conspiracy theory – advanced by the most powerful propaganda apparatus in world history. Not only that, but he cannot even see this apparatus and grip on the intellectual jugular of the left for having become part of it, any more than fish can see the water they swim in.

Now they can’t, aren’t big enough, to acknowlege being wrong from the beginning, played a role themselves in advancing the propaganda fabrication, and failed to educate themselves in the now conclusive body of evidence that points to, well, other parties as the perps of the 911 attack summed up in the assertion that “911 was an inside job.”

Flowing from this intellectual collapse is a failure to understand all its consequences; the purpose and meaning of Guantanamo, the preplanned attack on Afganistan, the pre-scripted Patriot Act, the plan for permanent occupation and control of central Asia, the control of the global drug trade, and, dear Doug Henwood, the control of the global financial system. In short, a failure to understand anything else and a retreat into the comfort of the collective delusional hallucination into which our media has invited us to live, permanently, for the rest of our lives. No thank you.

All this, and much more, was the objective of coup d’etat which we suffered on September 11, 2001. We, and our stepinfetchit President, are now governed by those who planned, executed, and covered-up the greatest crime in American History. Henwood, most of the so called Pacifica public affairs programmers, most specifically including Amy Goodman, cannot, will not, wrap their tender little brains around the magnitude of their intellectual failure. Nor do they have the capacity to look directly into the heart of darkness, describe what they see, and give challenge to absolute evil.

Thats why we can’t attract and keep listeners, because we are politically, intellectually, and morally irrelevant. Read more…

9/15/09

By:  Fernando Velazquez

(NOTE: Spanish follows)

KPFK’s Interim Program Director Alan Minsky has taken valuable space at the station web site in this time of economic hardships to respond to criticism regarding “his decision” to change the broadcast hours for “Informativo Pacifica” from 5.30 A.M. Monday to Friday, to week nights at 10.30 P.M. Monday thru Thursday (starting September 15, 2009), to let us know that he cares deeply about the Latino community and that he respects Informtivo’s news team.

He also has taken the time “to explain” to us how important it is for his political ally Roy Tuckman to get two extra hours of air time (hours that Minsky is taking from “Informativo Pacifica” to give them to “Roy of Hollywood”), on top of the 23 he already has, to raise money for KPFK.

And to tell us that Informativo’s change in no way will have a negative effect on the program’s distribution, its audience, or the producers.  Nothing can be further from the truth.

Let’s start with the effects on its local audience.  KPFK broadcasts its signal in Southern California.

This is the home of the largest Mexican, Central and South American communities, and the largest concentration of Spanish Language speakers in the country. This Spanish speaking community goes to bed early because it needs to get up early in the morning given its work needs.  They will be the first hit, as well as Northern Mexico’s “Radio Bemba” who airs Informativo simultaneously by taking every morning the signal off the Internet.

No one disputes that there is an economic crisis in the world (according to most economists, a crisis created by the US), at KPFK and Pacifica Radio. But to strike at the Latino community by sending them to the back of Alan Minsky’s bus, to the hours when most Spanish Language speakers are sleeping, because the Los Angeles white  middle class needs to stabilize “their station” sounds a bit punitive and in line with the anti-immigrant, anti Latino times we live in. Read more…

Fernando Velasquez, former KPFK News Director, produces “Informativo Pacifica,” a Spanish-language morning news program, and broadcast from it three Pacifica stations and across four countries.  The budget axe of November 2008 swung at KPFK’s news department, and Fernando was jobless, but he continues to produce “Informativo” as a volunteer.

The New York station’s WBAI Unpaid Staff Organizing Committee is under ferocious attack from the new interim WBAI General Manager, LaVarn Williams, who was installed after Pacifica Executive Director Grace Aaron removed the management from that station.   On July 15, the USOC wrote a letter to performers at a WBAI fundraiser, mentioning, “In Berkeley, after a baseless, public smear campaign, Chief Financial Officer Lonnie Hicks was fired. In Los Angeles, KPFK Program Director Armando Gudiño has been fired, as have News Director (and “Informativo Pacifica” producer) Fernando Velasquez, and programmer Jerry Quickley. In Washington, D.C., General Manager Ron Pinchback was fired and humiliatingly escorted from the premises.”

In response, Williams inflamed the situation when she asked the Pacifica National Board and others for help, “in countering this contra appeal to the Staff at WBAI that encourage Staff insubordination with an intent to also deleteriously impact Staff morale.”

Velasquez was the only one of the four mentioned by the Unpaid Staff Union still affiliated with Pacifica.  Six days later, “Informativo Pacifica” disappeared from its daily slot at Houston station KPFT, and the time slot remained empty of regular programming until August 19, when the decidedly English BBC World News took over the time slot.

On July 23, Velasquez spoke at an event with Tim Wise in New York City criticizing the racism in progressive media and at WBAI.  At WBAI, the show disappeared from live broadcast for several weeks, although it still appeared in the station archives, until local pressure by Take Back WBAI forced its return.

On August 27, Velasquez was informed by KPFK’s interim Program Director Alan Minsky that “Informativo Pacifica” would be reduced to a 4-day broadcast and moved to 9:00 p.m. from its 5:00 a.m. timeslot to make more time for Roy Tuckman’s “Something’s Happening.”  The new time meant that “Informativo Pacifica” would be “yesterday’s news fresh to you today” for it’s international affiliates morning news shows.

Tuckman regularly broadcasts Gary Null, who promotes his Natural Living methods and, by extension, his Natural Living products. Speculation is that Null will fill Tuckman’s new half hour, perhaps, ironically, with more of his rants against unintellectual, demented Latino Program Directors and screams that ethnic- and race-identified programs are, “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

The Pacifica National Board established “Informativo Pacifica” in January 2005 at the urging of its Committees of Inclusion and listeners from across the network.  Motions to fund the program were never implemented, but, nevertheless, the program’s staff made the transition from the bilingual “Pueblos sin Fronteras” to the Spanish-language “Informativo” and continue to arrive at the station at 3:00 a.m. to prepare for the early morning broadcast.

Norma Martinez, host of KPFK’s bilingual program now broadcast in four countries, sent us the following letter.  Her Spanish version follows the English.

Los Angeles, California
28 de agosto del 2009.

Dear compañeros and listeners,

With sorrow and disbelief I want to inform you that last Thursday interim Program Director Alan Minsky notified us that starting September 15, the national and international Spanish newscast Informativo Pacifica broadcast Monday through Friday at 5:30 am will be re-scheduled to 9 pm Monday through Thursday.

The reason Mr. Minsky gave us is that he is restoring the half hour to Roy Tuckman’s show “Something’s Happening,” currently broadcast Tuesday through Friday, from midnight to 5:30 am.

As you may recall, some 6 years ago, half an hour of Mr. Tuckman’s 6-hour slot was assigned to a bilingual show called Pueblos sin Fronteras, which later turned into the Spanish newscast Informativo Pacifica.

For people not familiar with KPFK’s programming let me explaining to you that for the last 32 years Mr. Tuckman produced “Something’s Happening” broadcast Tuesday though Friday from midnight to 5:30 am. And also on Sunday he produces the Alan Watts show from 8 to 9 am.

So, he is actually in charge of producing 23 hours a week at KPFK. And now Mr. Minsky is planning to give him back 2+ hours and at the same time cutting Informativo on Fridays.

I salute Roy Tuckman’s hard work and commitment to the station, but I think to give a person 25 hours of programming would be very hard to justify in the corporate media.  How can community radio Pacifica explain this? We know he had built, in 3 decades, a very loyal audience, but we also want to bring to the station other communities living in los Angeles, neglected by the private, corporate media.

Let me explain to you how the changes at the time slot and the cut of half an hour for Informativo will be very harmful for our program.

We produce Informativo Pacifica on a daily basis as volunteers working during the night to broadcast at 5:30 am at KPFK.

At the same hour in Mexico (7:30 am there), Radio Bemba picks up the internet signal to broadcast Informativo in Hermosillo City in the state of Sonora.

Also at least a dozen community radios in the US, Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico broadcast Informativo Pacifica, which we put together every morning with the most relevant news of the previous day.

Our newscast covers stories from the US and Latin America, as well as other regions of the world with special emphasis on the people’s struggles and the social and political challenges in the global south. Also we cover issues related to war and peace, discrimination and persecution against the migrant community.

With the cancellation of Informativo on Fridays and a new slot four nights a week, our collaborative effort with other community radio stations will be severely damaged.

Not only that, but we don’t even receive much publicity during the day on KPFK, like the entire Spanish language programming block. Nevertheless, we are building  an early morning listenership, consisting mostly of Latino workers preparing for work or on their way to work, as some people have let us know. Those listeners will be irremediably lost.

For those not familiar with Informativo Pacifica, please don’t hesitate to listen Monday though Friday at 5:30 am or on the KPFK audio archives

We will keep you posted on the future developments for our show.

Gracias.

Norma Mtz.
Informativo Pacifica
5:30 am Monday though Friday

KPFK Radio Pacifica
90.7 FM Los Angeles
98.7 FM Santa Barbara
www.kpfk.org

Email: pwithoutborders@yahoo.com Read more…