FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2000
CONTACT:
Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship, (212) 439-8087 Arron Glantz, Northern California, (510) 644-8365, (916) 705-7528/cell Robin Urevich, Los Angeles, (323) 663-8057 Eileen Sutton, New York, (212) 439-8087 E-Mail: pnnstrikers at igc.org On-Line Press Kit: www.savepacifica.net/strike
STRIKING PACIFICA RADIO JOURNALISTS LAUNCH FIRST "STRIKE CAST"
NEW YORK: Pacifica Radio's top free-lance reporters and contributors, who struck the Pacifica Network News on January 31st to fight what they say is rampant censorship throughout the 50-year-old community-radio network, today launched an alternative news broadcast. The half-hour, magazine-format program will be made available to the nearly 70 affiliate stations across the country that currently air the Pacifica Network News (PNN). The broadcast will be aired via the Internet on the strikers' web page, and strikers hope to put up a cast at least once a week with stories from around the country and around the world.
"Many of Pacifica's best-known reporters are now on strike," said Eileen Sutton, one of the strike's organizers. "And we don't want this strike action to hurt either the sister stations or the affiliates in any way, so we felt offering an alternative to the current PNN cast would be the best solution for everyone," Sutton added.
The striking reporters are backed by numerous organizations concerned with civil liberties, including Media Alliance, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The National Lawyers Guild (L.A Chapter), the National Writers Union and Project Censored. Over a hundred academics and scholars, including Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis, have also signed a petition supporting the strike action. All the signers have agreed not to give commentary to Pacifica Network News until the strike issues are resolved.
Since the strike letter was delivered to management, more stringers have officially joined the action, while many reporters from around the country and around the world say they are unofficially honoring the strike line. One Pacifica-affiliate station, KCSB in Santa Barbara, has already stopped running PNN to protest censorship at the network, while other affiliates are reported to be considering a boycott of PNN as an act of solidarity with the striking reporters.
All of the strikers' written materials, demands and actions have been directed toward Pacifica management. Except for a press release whose contact was PNN's current news director, to date management has not responded directly to the striking reporters. Strikers say repeated requests for written or taped responses from Executive Director Lyn Chadwick have also been ignored. They say a phone number for Chadwick has also been difficult to find.
Pacifica has long been a bastion of free speech--from broadcasting Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," to defying the HUAC witch hunts, to airing the com-mentaries of death-row journalist Mumia Abu Jamal. But in light of censorship at Pacifica, which the Washington Post recently described as "cowardly radio" and "Soviet-style journalism," the striking journalists are demanding that Mary Frances Berry, who chairs both the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the Pacifica Foundation's National Board, publicly renounce censorship throughout the network, reassert the editorial independence of Pacifica's local and national-news divisions and bring back "reassigned" news director Dan Coughlin.
The striking journalists comprise a majority of active contributors and reporters to Pacifica Network News, a daily, half-hour news program that airs on some 70 radio stations nationally. In a recent two-month period, nearly 70% of Pacifica's stories came from its stringers.
"Project Censored fully supports the strikers at Pacifica, who are striking not for wages, not for benefits, but for the freedom of information. That takes a lot of courage, and we applaud their attempt to make true progressive news available to the entire nation," said Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored.
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