Mark Mericle: Veteran Pacifica broadcaster Larry Bensky has been fired. He's the first KPFA or Pacifica employee to lose
his job for discussing on the air last week's firing of popular KPFA station manager Nicole Sawaya. Executive director Lynn
Chadwick dismissed Sawaya last week, saying she was not a "good fit" for the organization. Chadwick terminated Bensky with
a letter, dated yesterday, that reads:

                        Dear Larry,

                        I'm sorry that I have to communicate this important issue via a
                        messenger. However, since you have refused to meet with me,
                        and communicated that refusal via this morning's 8 a.m. KPFA
                        news broadcast, unfortunately I must convey this information to
                        you solely by this letter.

                        As you are aware, Pacifica policy specifically prohibits
                        discussion of internal matters on our air.

                        Since you have repeatedly violated that policy, your employment
                        with Pacifica is now terminated. Enclosed please find your final
                        paycheck as well as any accrued but not used paid vacation.
                        Please contact me directly if you wish to talk over this matter. I
                        wish you the best in future endeavors.

                        Sincerely,

                        Lynn Chadwick Executive Director
 

It's the second time in five months that Chadwick has fired Bensky. At least six other KPFA staff members have been
disciplined with a verbal warning, for reading an on-air statement by the staff, demanding Chadwick re-hire Sawaya, and agree
to independent mediation of Pacifica disputes. I spoke to Larry Bensky earlier today and asked for his reaction to his
termination.

Larry Bensky: I must say I am surprised, especially since over the past few days as Pacifica has been going through this little
dance of "reprimands," the corporatist-militarist model of Lynn Chadwick and her cohorts I expected to at least get the same
courtesy of warnings as other people are getting, but apparently I'm not due such courtesy. So I am a little surprised that it
came this precipitously. On the other hand, it's clear that those of us who believe that Pacifica's on a totally wrong track and is
out of control need to continue to speak out, and I had every intention of continuing to do so this coming Sunday and beyond.
So I guess that this was a pre-emptive strike on the part of Lynn Chadwick, Mary Frances Berry, and Pacifica, on me.

MM: A source told us that the decision to fire you had been made mid-week, before you announced in your weekly
promotional messages your decision to devote part of this week's "Sunday Salon" to the Pacifica crisis.

LB: That may well be, but whenever it was made it's clear that it was made because I'm a national programmer, and then only
national programmer, who is speaking out right now about this crisis. And Pacifica's the kind of organization right now that can't
stand for any discussion or dialogue. This coming Sunday, by the way, my producer Sheryl Flowers and I had invited Lynn
Chadwick and Mary Frances Berry to be part of this discussion about Pacifica's fiftieth anniversary and the crisis which they've
caused to arise. It's very sad for me that I won't be on this Sunday, because I have long had that date, April 15th, circled on my
calendar, knowing that April 11th, Sunday, was the closest we could get with my weekly program. I looked to looking back at
my thirty years with this organization, I'd started looking at tapes from as long ago as 1972, when I was tear-gassed at the
Republican convention in Miami, covering it for Pacifica going up through many other events including Iran-contra and other
hearings. But clearly that kind of contribution means nothing to the type of people who are now running this organization.

MM: Many people are stupefied, astounded, shocked by what's going on here, trying to figure out what IS going on here. In
your analysis, Larry, what IS going on here? What is Pacifica management trying to accomplish?

LB: Well I think it's either a blind and foolish and stupid power grab, or there's a master plan behind it. If there's a master plan
behind it, I don't know what it could be. Nothing in Pacifica's history and traditions led us to believe that people would get into
power and do something like this. You hear all kinds of things about how they want to sell the stations etc but those wouldn't be
legally or practically possible. I think you just have some people who are completely isolated from the Pacifica listeners, from
the Pacifica staffs, from the local advisory boards, who are careerists, who make high salaries whereas those of us who work
here make low salaries - or in most cases no money at all - who feather their own nests, hire each other and their friends as
consultants, have a good thing going for themselves and want to preserve it by any means necessary. This has happened at
other organizations before, and it has to be fought. And I don't consider myself having done my last program for Pacifica, any
more than I did in December when I was fired. It took an uproar by hundreds of people to get me hired back then, and I think
there will now be thousands of people involved. Because this is not about me, it's not even about Nicole Sawaya any more, it's
about whether this organization will survive. We got through fifty years by being a very different kind of place than we've been
in the last few months. If this kind of behavior continues I think the future life of this organization is extremely limited. And I
would hope that people will continue to protest, to be jamming the phone lines and FAX lines and e-mails of Lynn Chadwick
and Mary Frances Berry, and I hope to see as many of our listeners as possible in front of the station where I will now be
unfortunately confined I had hoped to be on the air on KPFA next Thursday but that will not now seem to be possible so now
I'll be on the street with our listeners Thursday April 15 at noon in front of KPFA.

MM: Bensky added that he hoped Pacifica's management would understand how inappropriate KPFA's management's
actions are; at a time when the war in the Balkans is worsening, KPFA's staff are required to devote time and energy to a crisis
within Pacifica itself. Pacifica's executive director Lynn Chadwick declined to comment on this story, the firing of Larry Bensky.
She also declined the offer made by KPFA news last night for an interview to respond to an interview we aired last night with
Philip Maldari, KPFA's morning show co-host, one of the six staffers who has been reprimanded for talking about the crisis on
the air. Executive director Chadwick delivered a bouquet of flowers to KPFA today, in recognition of the "stress that the staff
is under." The flowers were returned to Chadwick with the message "Here are your flowers back; please bring us our general
manager back." Listener reaction to the events at Pacifica and KPFA has been overwhelming. A new voice mail number has
been set up just to handle comments on the issue. It is: 510-287-8819.