July 8, 1999
RACE AND POWER AT PACIFICA RADIO:
The Future and the stakes today
by Rafael Renteria
former programming and news director, KPFT Houston
DIVERSITY AND POWER:
THE POLITICS OF DISTORTION
A storm has been unleashed in the struggle
over the direction of Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley, and
the battle between rebellious staff and listener-sponsors there,
on one hand, and the Pacifica hierarchy, on the other, has grave
implications for the future of community broadcasting throughout
the US
It is time that the issues at stake receive
a thorough examination, and , in particular, that the charges
of racism being leveled at the KPFA group are examined in the
actual context in which they occur. Indeed, as the Diversity
Group ( which supports Pacifica Executive Director Lynn Chadwick's
position) suggests, the real issues pertain to Power and in whose
interests that power will be exercised.
What the Diversity Group consciously ignores,
however, are the larger questions at play here with respect to
the use of governmental power and issues of class. The Diversity
Group shunts aside the fundamental issue at stake, which can
be formulated as follows: Will Pacifica continue to serve the
interests of the propertyless and the oppressed, or will its
programming agenda be mainstreamed to serve the interests of
the normal functioning of power through containing the content
of programming within parameters that are acceptable to mainstream
audiences, and thus to the elites that rule us?
We don't see such fundamental issues formulated
or addressed in the Diversity Groups paper, instead we encounter
in their arguments certain buzzwords - like 'diversity' itself
- that can be made to mean many things to many people - and that
are used in the context of their communiquÈ to justify,
ultimately, Pacifica's 'Five Year Plan,' a document that has
guided Pacifica in the gutting of programs devoted to the constituencies
in whose interests Pacifica and the Diversity Group claim to
be acting. But before analyzing these matters in depth, allow
me to present a very concrete example of what is meant by 'diversity'
in the realpolitick of Pacifica today.
THE DEATH OF DIVERSITY:
THE PACIFICA AGENDA
Mary Francis Berry, Chair of both the US
Civil Rights Commission and of the Pacifica Board, held, in a
talk at Columbia University, that Pacifica station KPFT represents
the direction Pacifica should be moving with respect to diversity.
As a former Program Director at that station, I have an intimate
knowledge of just what she means by this. The record here speaks
for itself and paints its own picture as to who and what is being
served by Pacifca's Five Year Plan. This, then, is a partial
record of the changes that have occurred at KPFT, Berry's 'model'
of diversity.
KPFT 's locally produced news programming
has been completely eliminated.
Mid-Day public affairs programming no longer
exists.
There is no longer a single public affairs
program rooted in the Latino community - a community that makes
up fully a third of Houston's population.
The Persian Program - founded by anti-Shah/
anti-Khomeni activists - was eliminated at a time when there
was imminent danger of war between Iran and US imperialism, as
the US had warships in the Persian gulf.
The Arabic Hour - one of the most intellectually
respectable programs on KPFT, was eliminated. during Desert Shield
- as the US prepared to go to war against Arab Iraq to seize
strategic control of the world's oil supply.
Gay programming has been significantly cut
- its been depoliticized - it is no longer the force - or the
threat - it was when KPFT volunteer programmer Fred Paez, a high
profile gay activist, was murdered by Houston Police.
Lesbian programming has been driven off the
air - including Breakthrough - a hugely popular program that
was one of the stations' highest revenue generators.
There is now one hour of feminist programming
each week.
Peace, Pipes and Visions, the Native American
program, is gone.
The Atheist program is gone.
The Viet Namese program is gone.
The Chinese program is gone.
The Pakistani program -gone.
Only one Black program remains today at KPFT
and an African music program.
Variety in musical programming has been dramatically
curtailed. (While there has been an increase in overall listenership
for the station, what they are listening to is a homogenized
blend of NPR style talk programs with a kind of country music
format that bears no resemblance to the kind of programming the
original Pacifica Mission statement required.)
The Music of India program is gone after 19
years of service. There is not a single Asian program left on
KPFT.
Gary Coover's brilliantly produced Celtic
music program, Shepherd's Hey has fallen, because Gary stood
up and spoke out against the changes. Indeed, all organized opposition
was crushed.
KPFT once broadcasted in 8 languages. Today
the trend is "English Only."
Such, then, is the record. At KPFT, Berry's
model for diversity, and throughout the network, diversity in
programming is systematically being killed. These changes represent
a protracted assault on and betrayal of the values that Pacifica
has long embodied and represent the essence of Pacifica's Five
Year Plan. That plan is, in its origin, its effect and as we
shall see, in its very essence, racist and classist. Similar,
though less drastic changes have occurred throughout the network,
including the virtual elimination of Spanish language programming
at Pacifica's Los Angeles station, KPFK and the elimination of
the more radical Black programmers at KPFA in Berkeley.
The open letter from the "Diversity Group"
asserts the following:
"The problems facing Pacifica and KPFA
are not new ones. They have existed in various forms for the
past 20 years. The underlying issue is about power; its overarching
theme is about diversity and what that means for the future of
Pacifica. The outcome, whatever that may be, is about how to
bring about change. Pacifica has defined the change in its long-term
vision statement as an attempt to make the Pacifica stations
more relevant and more representative of the audiences that they
should serve. However, on a local level, the KPFA staff have
defined the issue as their ability to make programming and financial
decisions without oversight. These are two completely different
formulations of the same issue - the exercise of power. In the
process of staking out these positions, what is lost is the common
issues that unite Pacifica management, KPFA staff, and the community.
It is important to remember that the current state of affairs
at KPFA does not have to be viewed as an "us and them"
situation, nor do possible solutions have to be limited to "either
one or the other..."
We can see that, indeed, ONE of the key issues
at Pacifica is diversity. We can see what the Five Year Plan
has meant in practice ( that plan is also referred to as the
'vision' document') and we can also see , in small part, what
is meant - and what is not meant- by the term 'relevant and more
representative of the audiences that they should serve.' It means
Not serving those audiences, despite the rhetoric of the Diversity
Group, Berry, Chadwick and Pacifica itself.
THE CPB AND PACIFICA'S 'FIVE YEAR PLAN'
What remains to be seen is the nature of
Pacifica's 'vision' in the context of governmental string-pulling
and pressure to mainstream programming throughout the world of
public radio, how this pressure gave birth to the Five Year Plan
and the drastic and antidemocratic results of all this in the
entirety of the Pacifica network-- including the racist and sexist
programming policies that engendered such heavy changes at KPFT,
where the Pacifica vision has advanced farthest, union busting
efforts on the part of Pacifica. Only then can we properly address
the issue of the demands being raised by the KPFA staff. It is
, contrary to the Diversity Group position, and 'us or them'
situation. What follows is a brief sketch of the relationship
between 'diversity,' Corporation for Public Broadcasting manipulation
of the direction of programming in public radio, and its impact
at Pacifica. Perhaps the sharpest and clearest way in which to
illuminate this process will be to look at it through the lens
of the allegations of racism leveled By Dr. Berry and the Diversity
Group against the KPFA staff and supporters...
Lynn Chadwick, Pacifica's Executive Director,
comes to us from the NFCB ( the National Confederation of Community
Broadcasters,) and also by way of having played a role in establishing
new CPB standards for the eligibility of community radio stations
to receive goevernment funding. These standards require of community
radio stations a higher level of income from listener -sponsors
if they are to qualify for government monies. Only those entities
that can be shown to qualify as 'minority' groups can be exempted
from these standards.
Despite the admiration of some groups for
Chadwick's commitment to diversity, these changes force community
stations- if they have become dependent on CPB funds for staffing
or other needs ( real or perceived) to alter their programming
schedules so as to appeal to a higher income bracket, White,
and more mainstream audience than has been traditional at many
community stations- most especially in the Pacifica network.
This, as we have seen in the example of KPFT above, leads to
the elimination of diversity at the stations effected, especially,
as should be obvious by now, it leads to the elimination of programming
for lower income, non-White groups and other audiences not in
the mainstream of American culture and cash flow. In short, the
CPB policies which Chadwick helped to create, are, in their essence,
racist and classist. Of course the kind of radical politics that
are at the heart of the Pacifca tradition - including some feminist
programming- are being mainstreamed out of the schedules as well.
Another result has been the tokenization
of the Pacifica's national board. The presence of 'minority'
representatives on the Board has little to do with serving the
objective interests of their respective communities and everything
to do with the 'need' to retain CPB funding, which, of course,
is the linchpin in a schema that that squeezes out programming
for the oppressed nationalities and propertyless and other non-mainstream
audiences.
All the talk in Pacifica's Five Year Plan
about the professionalization of the air sound, the capturing
of the mainstream news/ talk audience and the 'vision' concentrated
therein of a Pacifica that is influential in Washington- all
this reduces, in fact, to the elimination of the Pacifica tradition
in programming. The simple fact that 'The New Pacifica' eliminated
the original Mission Statement of the Foundation bears eloquent
testimony to this point. A Board that promotes this agenda is
hardly promoting an agenda of 'diversity,' the presence of a
few 'minority' faces in high places notwithstanding.
Yet these are the forces, Dr. MF Berry foremost
among them, that, while falsely claiming the mantle of 'diversity,'
attack their opponents with charges of 'racism.' That these charges
are disingenuous, (even given the unsubstantiated likelihood
that in a few instances racially motivated slurs may have occurred
on the part of scattered individuals in what is a very broad
based movement,) should be obvious by now.
But to complete the picture, let's examine
the record in light of the following comments by John Stauber
of PR Watch on the measures taken by many corporate PR offices
to discredit oppositional movements, bearing in mind as we do
the recent charges by Pacifica and the Diversity Group of extremism,
localism and racism on the part of their opponents at KPFA and
their characterization of the broad based movement to free Pacifica
as 'violent.'
PACIFICA'S WAR ON TRUTH:
SPIN CONTROL AND POLICE MEASURES
From "War on Truth, The Secret Battle
for the American Mind - an interview with John Stauber".
Sentient Times, June 1999.
"Some years ago, in a speech to clients
in the cattle industry, Ron Duchin, senior vice-president of
the PR firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin (which probably represents
a quarter of the largest corporations), outlined his firm's basic
divide-and-conquer strategy for defeating any social change movement.
Activists, he explained, fall into three basic categories: radicals,
idealists, and realists. The first step in his strategy is to
isolate and marginalize the radicals. They're the ones who see
the inherent structural problems that need remedying if indeed
a particular change is to occur. To isolate them, PR firms will
try to create a perception in the public mind that people advocating
fundamental solutions are terrorists, extremists, fear mongers,
outsiders, communists, or whatever.
After marginalizing the radicals, the PR
firm then identifies and "educates" the idealists -
concerned and sympathetic members of the public - by convincing
them that the changes advocated by the radicals would hurt people.
The goal is to sour the idealists on the idea of working with
the radicals, and instead get them working with the realists.
Realists, according to Duchin, are people
who want reform but don't really want to upset the status quo;
big public-interest organizations that rely on foundation grants
and corporate contributions are a prime example. With the correct
handling, Duchin says, realists can be counted on to cut a deal
with industry that can be touted as a "win-win" solution,
but that is actually an industry victory."
That the Diversity Group and Pacifica intend
to isolate and split the movement arrayed against them, painting
it as racist and violent, that they intend to sour relations
between the Berkeley groups and their progressive supporters
nationally while serving up a 'solution' that would constitute
a victory for the pro-CPB, pro- Five Year Plan and pro-government
forces within Pacifica itself, cannot be denied.
We will deal now with the Diversity Group's
call for a 'win- win' solution to the Pacifica crisis in its
proper context, that of the brutal conditions that face the KPFA
staff in the workplace and the tactics most recently employed
by Pacifica in its effort to divide and crush the Berkeley movement
and its nationwide network of support.
The KPFA staff operates under the daily oppression
of fear- of loss of jobs, career, of livelihood. Pacifica was
founded as a bastion of free speech- yet even the news staff
lives under constant threat of firing if they report the events
taking place within Pacifca as news.
This pertains not only to the most immediate
issues surrounding their own strike- but the larger issues as
well of the merits or demerits of CPB funding, Pacifica's union
busting activities - even the condemnation of Pacifica by the
National Labor Relations Board for unfair labor practices at
KPFA's sister station in New York, WBAI, to the finding of the
CPB itself that Pacifica is in violation of regulations regarding
open meetings, to say nothing of the overall direction represented
by the Five Year Plan and to recent vote by Pacifica's national
board to make its membership immune from all formal local input
and to convert itself into a self-perpetuating entity.
In the wake of recent protests which included
a sit-in in the tradition of nonviolence, board chair Mary Berry
placed a call to the US Justice Department, urging that agency
to lean on the Berkeley police for not being more aggressive
in arresting the protesters ( this from Berry as the head of
the US Civil Rights Commission.) Pacifica has also placed a half-dozen
armed guards within the station itself from an organization with
close links to the Justice Department.
Not content with these measures, Pacifica
has also targeted its listeners for intimidation- recently (
within the last week) handing over to Berkeley Police all of
the thousands of letters from KPFA staff supporters for investigation
by a criminal psychologist.
The justification for this investigation is
that any one of these people may have been responsible for a
suspicious shooting around the hour of midnight some two months
ago that shattered a computer in the empty building that houses
Pacifica's national offices. Pacifica public relations manager
Elan Fabbri characterized this not as a gross violation of the
civil rights of its listeners, but as an investigation for 'attempted
murder' - a spin that is transparently false but that does great
service in painting the movement to democratize Pacifica as 'violent'
and in intimidating Pacifica's listener sponsors, who had just
made the most recent KPFA fund drive the most successful in its
50 year history by pledging some $610,000 - 85% of which was
contributed under protest. In the meantime Dr. Berry has held
forth a promise of federal 'conciliation' meetings to the staff
and listener support groups in Berkeley. The results of these
meeting, by definition are non-binding, and only the federal
'conciliator' can define what is to be discussed. The carrot
to follow the big stick.
As the movement to free Pacifica grows by
leaps and bounds, garnering support and press at a national level,
the moves by Pacifica headquarters to counter the movement grow
increasingly extreme, harsh, and desperate.
It is in this context that the Diversity Group
holds forth its clichÈs regarding 'win / win' possibilities.
Pacifica itself holds forth a different premise - negotiations
on their terms- or else.
PRINCIPLES, POWER AND PERSONALITIES:
THE UNDERLYING ISSUES
The Diversity Group asserts the following:
'The underlying issue is about power and
its overarching theme is about diversity and what that means
for the future of Pacifica. The outcome, whatever that may be,
is about how to bring about change. Pacifica has defined the
change in its long-term vision statement as an attempt to make
the Pacifica stations more relevant and more representative
of the audiences that they should serve. However, on a local
level, the KPFA staff has defined the issue as their ability
to make programming and financial decisions without oversight.
These are two completely different formulations of the same
issueó the exercise of power.'
We have seen the meaning of 'diversity' in
its current manifestations within Pacifca, and we have gotten
a taste of what it means to live under Pacifica's power under
the influence of federal agencies like the CPB and the power
of the highly placed members of the federal government, like
Dr. Berry, that run Pacifica today. Nonetheless, while localism
does not equate with racism or moral and cultural backwardness
(as the movements detractors attempt to suggest,) the current
formal definition of the struggle by KPFA staff and supporters
does not explicitly address many key issues - but instead makes
the mistake of mutineers who still place unwarranted trust in
their captain - leaving these matters undefined under a demand
for negotiations on all of the underlying issues that have caused
their rebellion.
There is some truth in the Diversity Group's
criticism of the movement for focusing on personalities - but
not because Pacifica's Executive Director emobies justice and
diversity, but because the movement has failed ,as is often the
case in new movements against injustice, to grasp the political
motives and guiding forces of the personalities involved and
the class interests they represent.
Popular perception in Berkeley defines these
issues broadly as the need for democratic accountability on the
part of a now-insulated and self perpetuating national board,
the need for a restructuring of Pacifca's by-laws to reflect
democratic concerns and the reinstatement of staff fired for
breaking what is popularly known as the Pacifica 'Gag Rule.'
But there is another, deeper agenda that has significant currency
among KPFA staff and supporters, a set of comprehensive demands
that gives lie to the effort by the Diversity Group to characterize
the Berkeley position as localistic, narrow and without a larger
vision of the role of Pacifica for the future. These demands,
known as the '15 Demands' follow:
1) WE DEMAND the abolishment of the "Gag
Rule"
We demand the abolishment of the "dirty
laundry" or gag rule and the initiation of a process of
unscreened and uncensored discussion regarding these demands
concerning Pacifica on the Pacifica airwaves and through other
appropriate means that may be at Pacifica's disposal or under
its control.
2) WE DEMAND the rehiring of any Pacifica
staff person fired for violating the "Gag Rule"
We demand the re-employment of any staff
members fired for violating the gag rule and the replacement
of any program removed from the air for violation of that rule.
We demand the re-employment of any staff removed by Pacifica
in retaliation for their opposition to the Pacifica policies
under discussion in these demands. We demand that layoffs resulting
from anticipated revenue shortfalls due to this strike begin
in and remain concentrated among staff at Pacifica's National
Offices.
3) WE DEMAND an end to political censorship
4) WE DEMAND the end of racist and sexist
programming policies
We demand an end to racist and sexist programming
policies. We demand the cessation of attacks on and an end to
the removal of programs devoted to Women, the Black and Latino
communities and many other minority groups and a reversal of
the wholesale removal of programs that Pacifica initiated against
almost all programs with radical leftist content.
5) WE DEMAND that Pacifica's so-called 5
year plan be rescinded.
6) WE DEMAND the firing of all outside programming
consultants.
7)WE DEMAND the immediate cessation of all
union busting activities and the withdrawal of all legal action
against unions associated with Pacifica.
8) WE DEMAND the re-unionization of all Pacifica
stations on the basis of new contracts.
9) WE DEMAND the cessation of all CPB funding
at Pacifica.
This funding source threatens to compromise
Pacifica's integrity in a way the founders believed they had
made impossible. The CPB interference in Pacifica's internal
affairs is no different than that of any other corporate or
governmental sponsor, and accepting such funds violates the
fundamental premises of the foundation.
10) WE DEMAND that Pacifica refuse grants
from all foundations and other corporate entities and that it
place complete reliance on its listener sponsors as the only
safeguard of the foundation's integrity.
11) WE DEMAND that no Pacifica station shall
be sold and that all plans for the sale of WBAI and /or KPFA
and other stations be immediately abandoned.
12) WE DEMAND roll back of National Office
management positions and of the National Office's level of centralized
control to 1977 levels ( as outlined in the Bensky proposal.)
The return of decision making power to local stations and the
sharp curtailment of the power of the executive director.
13) WE DEMAND the reconstitution of the Pacifica
national and local boards based on democratic elections and
the resignation of all national board members.
14) WE DEMAND the creation of a governance
system for Pacifica that includes meaningful participation and
binding decision making powers for Pacifica's listener-sponsors
and its paid and unpaid workers.
15) WE DEMAND the popularization of the process
of selecting general managers and program directors at all Pacifica
stations and the emplacement of mechanisms of accountability
to the staffs and listeners for those who hold those positions.
This set of demands reflects the understanding
of former Pacifica staff, programmers volunteers and listeners
from across the nation who have done years of research into the
underlying causes of what has now erupted as the crisis at KPFA.
Among the hundreds of documents recorded and generated by these
forces, are a redrafting of Pacifca's now-adulterated by-laws.
These demands are designed to lay the groundwork for the restoration
of Pacifica to its original Mission.
It is an honor to be among those who have
remained loyal to the vision and tradition of Pacifica's founders,
and an honor to play some role, however small, in opposing those
who have betrayed it, who dance to a tune called from the highest
levels of power. The enemies of Pacifica have repeatedly attacked
the network for its radicalism from the floor of the US House
and Senate and elsewhere. They have an agenda of destroying the
network's independence that dates back to the late 1970's and
is a matter of public record, including the Congressional Record.
Their ultimate agenda, of course, is to continue their record
of imperial conquest and domination - without resistance from
the legacy of radicalism embodied in the Pacifica tradition or
the power of such a medium of mass comunication as a force for
organizing resistance to their empire. Speaking for myself, my
resistance to the New Pacifica is and will remain a part of my
desire to be rid of the system into whose hands Pacifica is being
betrayed.
Amor y Lucha Hasta la Victoria!
Rafael Renteria
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