Dear WBAI Producer,
I am making this special appeal to you because the Pacifica Network today faces the worst crisis in its history. For much of the past five years those of us who worked at one of the Pacifica stations or for the network's national programming division were largely unaware of how profound the problem had become.
If you are like me, you probably figured this was just another of those periodic internal squabbles for which Pacifica is famous, and you were convinced that it would eventually pass. Moreover, we were so busy trying to make our own shows a success while juggling a myriad of other commitments -- our families, our favorite political causes, another job to make ends meet -- that we didn't have time to investigate the facts. So we watched events unfold from a distance, like those at KPFA in 1999. Maybe, like me, you depended on someone else at your station to give you their interpretation of what was happening, or maybe you went as far as signing an open letter of protest but you were determined not to get sucked into the heat of battle. And you were sure that, whatever the problem was, it would not affect your station or your program.
Unfortunately, as we sat on the sidelines a cancer quietly took hold of Pacifica and began to spread. By mid-January, I decided that I could no longer sit by and allow the dictatorial regime that had taken power only weeks earlier during the "Christmas Coup" at WBAI in New York, as it had in other parts of the network, to go unchallenged. I was already fed up with the way Pacifica management was treating my co-host on "Democracy Now!," Amy Goodman, harassing her at every turn while claiming hypocritically to support her. So I made my on-air resignation January 31. I announced that I was joining with those groups and individuals seeking to oust the Pacifica Board and to bring back some form of democratic accountability between those who run Pacifica and the listeners, staff and communities the network serves. Thousands of listeners responded by e-mail and phone to my resignation, and many of them have contributed money to help finance our Campaign to Stop the Corporate Takeover of Pacifica, better known as the Pacifica Campaign.
It is impossible in a few short words to explain to you how deeply these cancers of dictatorial management and corporate commercialism have already penetrated the institution we all treasure. But we at the Pacifica Campaign have compiled a 300-page book called The Pacifica Files. It provides the most in-depth picture of how and why this crisis developed, complete with copies of internal Pacifica letters and memos to back up our analysis. If you would like a copy of the entire Pacifica Files, you can contact us by phone or e-mail and we will send you one.
It is no accident that the battle at Pacifica has received unprecedented coverage in the corporate mass media. Scores of articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, Newsday, Time, Current, The New York Daily News, and many other publications. The growing power of the mass media in the world today means that a popular movement for democracy, even if it begins at a radical, independent radio network, can have far-reaching implications for all media.
We have been organizing a listener boycott of the five stations, and we intend to continue to do so during the coming May pledge drive. We take this action reluctantly, because the Pacifica Board, much like the Israeli state, is creating a new reality on the ground within Pacifica. While it purports to want to negotiate and talk with reform groups and to diversify its audience, it is systematically firing or banning dissidents, watering down programming, and eliminating the diversity of shows at stations like KPFT, KPFK, and WPFW. It is even ordering programmers to cut off listeners who call in to its shows to object. We have all watched the tragic decline in quality and radical edge of the PNN news to the point that it is now only a poor imitation of NPR.
A listener boycott is the only vehicle available for the audience of Pacifica to vote in a national referendum on the board's policies.
At this point, we think it is morally unacceptable for listeners to keep financing a network whose actions contradict the very spirit and the principles on which Pacifica was founded. Recently, for example, WBAI interim station manager Utrice Leid, interrupted a broadcast, the long-running "Building Bridges" labor show, and ousted and fired its producer, Ken Nash, in the middle of the show while he was interviewing a New York congressman by phone. The congressman, Major Owens, was knocked off the line merely because he dared to criticize what was happening at Pacifica. A few days later, Pacifica issued a press release falsely claiming that Leid had been assaulted by a Pacifica Campaign supporter while she was interviewing the congressman.
These are lies of Orwellian proportions. No such assault ever took place. And we have never condoned or urged anyone associated with our movement to engage in violence, to illegally harass or threaten anyone in Pacifica management, or to use racist, sexist or inappropriate language in phone, e-mail or written correspondence with Pacifica. Yet few producers or journalists still left at WBAI dared condemn this outright fabrication and this public slander of a fellow producer. How can we look ourselves in the mirror, how can we claim to expose lies and hypocrisy in the broader society when we fail to speak out against similar acts within our own institutions? Such are the depths to which the dictatorship at Pacifica has plunged us. Owens is now organizing May 15th hearings of the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. Congress that will look into the situation at Pacifica.
We do not believe a boycott will force a sale of any station, nor that it will destroy Pacifica. Yes, it will create temporary economic hardship. It may even lead Pacifica to opt for layoffs. We believe those layoffs, if they do occur, should start in national programming, since Pacifica's share of national funds has ballooned from 3% to 17% in recent years, yet it does not provide the same increased percentage of national programming to the stations. If Pacifica does attempt to layoff staff at local stations, we at the Pacifica Campaign are committed to raise funds to assist any laid off worker, as we already have with the fired workers at WBAI. Furthermore, we believe that if any layoffs do occur they will be temporary.
But the boycott will make it especially difficult for Pacifica management to stay in power by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of listener funds for law firms like the union-busting Epstein, Becker & Green; for security guards and cameras; for public relations spin masters; and for high-priced consultants. A top lawyer for Epstein, Becker, for example, told a Pacifica reform activist recently: "I don't know how much longer Pacifica can afford us."
For those of you who are paid staff, your primary concern may be losing your job or income. That is perfectly understandable. I am not asking you to quit in protest, nor am I asking you to refuse to ask for money during the pledge drive. But I do plead with you to search your conscience and, if you do not support the current Pacifica Board, to use your imagination and quietly assist our reform movement. There are many ways you can do so. You could "work to rule." That is, do the pledge drive, but do it with reduced enthusiasm -- your regular listeners will be able to tell the difference. Do not work overtime to find attractive premiums. (We are currently appealing to all progressive writers, publishers and academics to deny Pacifica permission to use their speeches and books.)
In addition, you can shave off minutes from your actual time pitching for funds. Acknowledge the crisis at Pacifica during your pitch. Allow listeners who call on-air and who oppose the board to get some words in before they are cut off. If you must cut them off, make it clear that you are under orders not to allow such comments by the public. In other words, let the world know that you are operating under a regime that is hostile to dissent. You could also privately encourage listeners who are friends of yours to withhold their contributions. Even those small actions, if taken by scores of producers, will have a dramatic impact. And should your local station management resort to even more irrational and dictatorial measures, I urge you to organize staff resistance.
It is especially difficult for us to ask the listeners and staff at KPFA to cooperate with our boycott since KPFA is the only part of Pacifica that has managed, through much difficult struggle, to maintain relative autonomy from the national board. But the Pacifica Board is only biding its time. They will come back to seize KPFA. So we must act now, while the national movement is strong, to reduce the Pacifica Board's income. This means temporarily reducing KPFA's income as well.
To underscore how we are attempting to revive Pacifica not destroy it, the Pacifica Campaign has agreed to help fund a daily half hour news report by the striking Pacifica reporters throughout the May pledge drive. We are asking all affiliates of Pacifica to dump PNN news in protest and broadcast strikers daily news program instead.
We believe that if there is a drop in pledges this month, coupled with the growing public pressure and demonstrations against the individual board members, that Pacifica management will soon find itself between a rock and a hard place. We believe several key board members will resign and that the rest of the board, faced with expensive trials beginning later this year over the three California lawsuits, will be forced to seek peace talks with our movement.
Each of you can play an important role in either bringing this crisis to a swift conclusion or prolonging it unnecessarily. But there is one thing you can be sure of, thousands of us in the growing Pacifica reform movement will not rest until democracy returns to the network. Once that happens, and the hijackers have been removed from Pacifica, we pledge to do everything possible to raise back all the money -- and more -- that the network has lost.
I urge you to make the right choice. We are creating the new Pacifica in the battle to oust the hijackers.
Sincerely,
Juan Gonzalez
********************************************** Mailing Address: The Pacifica Campaign 51 MacDougal St., #80 New York, NY 10012 Tel: (646) 230-9588
http://www.pacificacampaign.org pacificacampaign at yahoo.com