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CONTROVERSIAL EMAIL RECEIVED DETAILING POSSIBLE CLOSURE OF
KPFA AS LAWSUIT IS FILED TO FORCE ACCOUNTABILITY COMMUNITY
LEADERS DECRY CRACKDOWN
BERKELEY, CA - At a press conference at 1:30 p.m. today, Media
Alliance
Executive Director Andrea Buffa will release a controversial
email she
received yesterday that describes plans by Pacifica Radio to
close KPFA
and possibly sell another Pacifica station, WBAI in New York.
The email
appears to have come from Pacifica board of directors member
Michael
Palmer.
"We are working to confirm the authenticity of this email
and call on
Michael Palmer and Pacifica Board Chair Dr. Mary Frances Berry
to
immediately publicly confirm or refute this email," Buffa
said.
Phone calls by Media Alliance and several Pacifica board members
to
Palmer have not been returned. Local Internet service provider
IGC was
contacted about verifying the path by which the email was sent
to Media
Alliance. IGC's tech services department has stated that the
email looks
to have legitimately been sent from Palmer's account. The full
text of
the email is available at www.zmag.org or www.counterpunch.org.
The press conference takes place immediately preceding a hearing
at
Berkeley Municipal Court at which charges will be filed against
a group
of peaceful protesters who blocked the entry to Pacifica Foundation's
office in Berkeley last month. The demonstrators prevented Pacifica
Foundation Executive Director Lynn Chadwick from entering her
office on
June 22. Chadwick initiated a citizen's arrest when Berkeley
police
refused to cite the activists. Local community leaders decried
the
decision, calling it a terrible contradiction.
Meanwhile, a group of local stations' advisory board members
from Los
Angeles, Berkeley and New York is pressing ahead with a lawsuit
intended
to reverse Pacifica's recent governance changes that eliminated
local say
on the national board. Oakland attorney Dan Siegel will file
suit within
the next few days to restore the last shred of local control
at Pacifica:
the ability of local station boards to recommend members to the
national
board. Seigel will also attend the press conference. "Pacifica,
when
faced with the question of changing its method of choosing its
leadership, opted for the least democratic option imaginable.
It is time
to revisit this issue, and it should be unnecesssary to require
a court
order to do so," Siegel said.
Yesterday, Pacifica national board chair Dr. Mary Frances
Berry arrived
in Oakland, told neither staff nor listeners of her visit, and
attempted
to negotiate with KPFA's union leaders. Shop stewards met with
Berry to
remind her of her promise to meet with the KPFA steering committee,
which
both listeners and staff have designated as their representative,
and
refused to negotiate further.
KPFA paid staff, volunteers, local advisory board members,
subscribers,
and listeners will continue to press Pacifica to: 1) Rehire respected
KPFA station manager Nicole Sawaya, whose termination touched
off massive
protests in Berkeley and the firing of two veteran programmers
because
they violated Pacifica's on-air "gag rule"; 2) Participate
in mediation
and allow for investigation of the dispute between local interests
and
the national bureaucracy; and 3) Reverse the disciplinary or
adverse
actions taken against KPFA and Pacifica staff since Sawaya's
termination.
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