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The Hidden Theft at KPFK and the Ongoing Firings, Purges and Bannings: You’re Next????

An analysis of why KPFK sounds different, and why it’s losing listeners (and money).

What’s missing on the airwaves of KPFK and Pacifica? In the name of belt-tightening and fiscal responsibility, the network and the station have once again begun purging the voices of grassroots activism, and particularly from poor and working-class communities of color, communities of resistance.

At KPFK, local news is gone, Jerry Quickley is gone, even the new general manager is already gone. Are you hearing from the young people struggling for a meaningful, quality, liberating education? Have you heard about grassroots resistance to gentrification in Boyle Heights or Venice? Do struggles against organized white supremacists, police abuse or Zionist aggression going on in Orange County make it onto the air? Has KPFK provided significant air-time for a new generation of activists to host their own shows and bring their own perspectives to bear, offering fresh solutions to long-standing complaints?

Is Pacifica creating a buzz and forcing the corporate media to cover stories through independent, aggressive investigative journalism? Does open, scintillating debate or honest self-critical examination of issues and weaknesses facing the left in the era of Obama happen on-air?

Has the listenership been informed about or allowed to comment on the future direction of the station and the network?

Can you hear beat reporters exposing spineless Democrats in Sacramento, educational privateers at LAUSD, or police abuse around Southern California? Is there significant coverage of and from the diverse Asian communities of the L.A. basin?

If your honest answer to these questions is a truthful “NO,” then you must act now to change the status quo at KPFK and Pacifica before it’s too late. Only concerted action and support for a slate of community-rooted dissidents can save KPFK and Pacifica.

Pa’lante En Lucha
Lawrence Reyes

Our station KPFK and the Pacifica Network is being primed for a take over by a collection of Non-Profiteers that has been set in motion by the individual’s hell-bend on obtaining power.

Some of us saw it coming. We were running as a loose coalition of candidates for seats on the board of the non-commercial station, and we couldn’t miss what was shaping up as we watched these individual’s rake in donations to finance their campaigns for the KPFK local station board, even as they curried favor and allies from among and staff and Programmers to take over the board.

In so doing they introduced all of the unfairness and imbalance inherent in unregulated campaign financing into the local political culture  – the fishbowl, really – of not-for-profit, progressive community radio.

Other candidates, no matter how qualified, well meaning, honest and experienced, stood no chance against the campaign juggernaut financed by the thousands of dollars the “Committee” used to buy the access to KPFK voter roles – roles that candidates without outside financing could not see or touch. The election was for sale. The list of voters was for rent, and, as always, those with the gold ruled the day.

We see it all of the time in other elections; this is how it comes to pass that the poor, the working class, people of color, and all of the other “Others” are “underrepresented,” “disenfranchised”" is the word. I was one of those “Others.”

Unlike the Power Brokers, my politics are not of the pro-Democratic Party, neo-liberal “light”, Euro-centric liberal variety. Like many – if not most – KPFK listeners, I’m one of the “dissenters.” Like most KPFK Listeners, I remain an outsider, against my will, and largely unrepresented in KPFK’s supposed “Representative Listener-Democracy.” The individual’s took over the board in a rigged election – and it’s important to look at what they have come to represent. By now, the Committee and its allies on the Pacifica National Board have brought the network to a tipping point.

The future of KPFK and Pacifica as a voice of honest dissent and independent journalism is at stake. Even our flagship national programs – Democracy Now! and Free Speech Radio News have not been paid, and no one knows where the money has gone. In the meantime though, the de facto leader of this Committee, has been crying that Pacifica is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Without prior warning, out of the blue, it was revealed that a move was underway to put KPFK’s building up as collateral for a million dollar loan to cover the shortfall and avoid the non-existent “bankruptcy.” In the meantime, Aaron and her allies on the Pacifica National Board were angling to use the loan to hire an unqualified group of outside financial consultants- a group with no experience in radio- to overhaul the network and reorient its programming in order to “save” the network.

They also began to push what’s called “underwriting” – the non-commercial commercials that allows sponsors of programs to control programming content while maintaining the appearance – the illusion – of independence for the programming.

Karl Rove and the people who have applied the “Shock Doctrine” to undermine and radically re-orient Third World economies and gain control of their direction could not have done a better job. KPFK and Pacifica really are in danger – of losing their role as an independent voice of truth with the freedom to dissent.

If these Power broker’s and its allies hold sway, the station and the network may no longer reign as what Amy Goodman calls “The Exception to the Rulers.” The dissenters to the Committee’s buy-out of the KPFK elections are few in number- but right now, we are all that stands in the way of another hijacking of the network and another betrayal of its purposes. Last time it happened thousands from across the nation organized a listener revolution to take back the network and establish the democracy that has now been betrayed. It’s time to do so again.

Please read my Q/A and the Proposal that I support called:
A Call To Join The Pacifica Resistance

Contact me, Lawrence Reyes alianzapr@hotmail.com or 310-460-8586

Me estoy presentando como candidato para la Mesa Directiva Local de la estacion por ser incansable en propugnar los intereses de nuestros dedicados oyentes. Yo confront a la LSB en el 2003 cuando se opuso a la Participacion de Oyentes en los Comitas Asesor y Permanente LSB de la radio KPFK; y nuevamente en el 2007 y 2009 a darles exenciones a nuestros oyentes mis pobres en tiempos economicos dificiles. Propuse que la participacion de los patrocinadores de oyentes era esencial al nivel de las bases de una radio de la comunidad y de medios democraticos propulsados por una mision, lo cual sigue siendo mi mayor interes ase como lo es la preservacion de la programacion en espanol, que apoyo totalmente. Le pido su clasificacion #1. Para mas informacion por favor visite www.Pacifica.org o llame al 310 460-8586.

A CALL TO JOIN THE PACIFICA RESISTANCE

Listeners, paid and unpaid staff across the Pacifica Foundation (The Pacifica Radio Network), are coming together to address a series of firings of employees, threats of program cancellations, and undemocratic actions taken by the current management.

The changes at Pacifica include targeting mostly people of color and a movement towards the main-stream, clearly not a time to exclude the voices of the most affected communities in the current political and economic climate in the US.

And not the time to exhibit cowardly behavior towards an empire-building USA, hate crimes and mass persecution of immigrants.

At stake here is the future of the country, riddled with an unprecedented indebtedness, a never-ending war on terror with its severe consequences on civil and human rights, and the future of democracy, both inside Pacifica and in the US.

OUR PROPOSAL

“The Pacifica Resistance” alliance proposes the creation of a web site filled with daily updates, news headlines, clips of banned and cancelled radio programs, links for the extended version of those programs, and a live-stream featuring audio clips produced by members of the alliance and its supporters.

The inclusion of intellectuals, community activists, and others to reverse the current trend, and to advance the network into a more interactive body in tuned with the rest of the democratic globe.

As a point of departure, “The Pacifica Resistance” alliance proposes the nomination and support of candidates for the upcoming July 2009 Local Station Board elections.

WHAT WE CAN DO

A nation-wide victory could give Asian, African, European, Indigenous and Latino communities (real people of color, not white supremacists or careerists in disguise) the opportunity to share the radio air waves as one family.

A new Pacifica could bring together multi-national and multi-ethnic collectives, get them trained in all aspects of radio production, and have them address all the important issues related to their communities.

The opportunity for people to work together and become familiar with each other’s concerns could make the Pacifica Mission a reality and move the network away from the predictable daily routine of lip-service.

We can as well create news bureaus across town and around the country, especially in areas where there are no Pacifica radio stations.

As well as LIVE broadcast of Town Hall meetings and music festivals geared to make community improvements.

More community based reporters with news bureaus and training of community reporters in these areas. Also web links to these news bureaus with reports from the regions and that can be reached on the web through Google and other search engines.

Re-establish and Open up the Program Council meetings to the public. Programmers and management can have a voice but no vote. The listeners need to be the decision makers on changes of programming.

Reorganize the network’s news departments to get more in depth news reporting and make segments such as labor and environment available as a Google news feed.

The ground-up development of a national and regional community network designed to produce national programming.

Re-establish regular community town hall meetings every 6 months that are required under station bylaws but have been ignored by the current management.

A victory for “The Pacifica Resistance” means also the opportunity for the network to engage in serious investigative journalism and multi-disciplinary training that includes audio, video and print, and all matters in line with the Pacifica Mission; to explore the roots of conflicts in order to promote peace.

For more information call me at: 310-460-8586 or write to: alianzapr@hotmail.com

JOIN US NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! www.pacificaresistance.org

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