> John Adams wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, March 9, 2004, at 11:29 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>>> Another point. Pacifica desperately needs to widen its audience
>>> beyond its hardcore base.
>>
>> Been there, done that. KPFT got very, very trashed for succeeding at
>> it.
>
> By dropping a lot of the politics, no? That's not what I mean.
Partly true. They did dump a lot of long political talk shows, and that's a good thing in my book. Those are generally feel-good (or bad) jack-off material for the hardcore base.
Where they failed was in not building a local news department (a priority of the new management, and good for them!) and using the power of the PSA. Those were the things I'd planned on pushing for, until my stay in Houston turned very brief. (Missed a Good Job at Enron by _just that much_.) News matters, opinions don't.
As it is, I haven't set foot in Houston in over two years, but KPFT still gets my monthly donation--and I guess they will, as long as they keep Ray Hill and _The Prison Show_ on the air. That is so much more powerful and affecting than the boring crap (I should listen to your show someday, Doug, so I can either leave it in or take it out of this generalization) that passes for left political programming that it should put all their competitors to shame. I'm not sure I've ever made it through an entire broadcast of _Democracy Now!_ or whatever the free speech radio thing is they play here in Atlanta. I used to listen to _The Prison Show_ until I couldn't listen any more because I was tired of crying.
All the best,
John A