That's exactly the point-everybody agrees that Democracy Now is exactly the sort of show which Pacifica (or any progressive network) should be putting out and it emerged with the blessing of the national board.
While Herman et. al. don't disparage DN per se, they are suspicious of the national board's moves to establish minimal standards which challenge the autonomy of the local stations. One component of this strategy was, as I understand it, to develop national programming as an alternative to the lameness of the local shows. The problem is that any national programming, whether it comes from Pacifica, or independently, as Doug noted earlier, is resisted by the producers who jealously guard their time slots-to the extent of, in one case at least, attempting to pass them on to their friends in their wills. (see http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Pacifica/franckint.htm)
As you yourself notice, preserving local autonomy means, to a great extent, preserving a parade of music shows presided over by DJs who have not wised up to the fact that spinning John Coltrane, world music, blues or gospel no longer carry the same "transgressive" punch that they did in the 60s. Cockburn, in particular, wails about his "friend Opal Nations, an English transplant and one of the world's great authorities on gospel and blues" who lost his show "after fourteen years of unpaid, brilliant programming." Why gospel music, whose practitioners are generally either apolitical or openly reactionary, requires a home on a "progressive" station can only be chalked up to nostalgia for the halcyon days of the civil rights movement. As for blues, B.B. King's jamming with Lee Atwater at the Bush inaugural should put to rest any lingering hopes that aesthetic sympathies with the music of rural blacks will carry over to sympathies with the plight of black folks who happen not to have recording contracts.
> In a previous message you said something like: "well never mind
> the locals not carrying RadioNation, the locals should have
> covered the WTO themselves". Well I've finally stopped laughing
> so I can reply. KPFT has no news department or staff nor any
> public affairs dept. The only locally produced public affairs
> programing is a one hour show called "Progressive Forum" (which
> is pretty good). They covered Seattle, but by remote control
> and without many resources.
>
I was referring to WBAI-which has a superb news department by the way-and has lots of locally produced public affairs programs. Even if the local insists on going with locally produced programming, there is no reason why a local show can't get someone on the phone who is well informed about what is going on and can answer questions relevant to the constituency to whom the program is directed. Instead, at BAI the producers ignored the march, and insodoing chose not to strengthen the coalition.
John