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
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