[first 3-4 minutes missing due to inattentiveness by the recordist to start a tape promptly]

(KPFK General Manager )Mark Schubb:  ...Well, we've been, I think, for about a decade, sort of living in that sort of..what's that -- that gingerbread house?

Marc Cooper:  Yeah.

MS:  And we got hungry, so we started eating the house...

MC:  Right.

MS:  And the success of the last few years has put us on a track to start repairing stuff that should've been repaired years and years ago.  Our tower up on the mountain at Mount Wilson is forty years old.  It's the original broadcast tower.Our transmitters, which usually have a life of twelve to fifteen years...twenty-four years old.  They're obsolete. They don't make parts for them anymore...

MC:  Right.

MS:  ...some of the parts we have to, you know..jury rig...

MC:  In the radio we call these bodakers (sp?).

MS:  Yeah, it's extraordinary.  And in master control a lot of times you'll hear on the air, you'll hear somebody say "Hey, this mike isn't working".  The mikes are fine, it's the board that controls the mikes.  It's so old and obsolete, and it gets so much use.  Most radio stations don't do what we do, which is all day local origination programming.  Even good public radio stations in this market -- most of their programming comes off satellites or is prerecorded.  This gear gets a lot of use.  So, we have a big grant in to something called the NTIA, which is a federal grant agency that builds brodacasting infrastructure.  We're hoping they're gonna put in about a quarter of a million, and we're gonna have to raise about a half of a million dollars.  Some of it we've already raised, and we're gonna continue working on it, and we're gonna announce in the next month probably the start of our capital campaign to try to do this big project. We did just do another small repair, another emergency repair on our antenna to try to improve our coverage, and we got about thirty phone calls from people who said it was coming in clear in places where it wasn't.  If we can actually replace the transmitter and the antenna and get new stuff, we will get our full coverage back.....

[talking over]

MC:  Well, we're actually in the process.  We're beginning to do that -- correct?

MS:  It's being done.  The specs are being drawn up, and the equipment's being ordered, and we're moving forward the way we always do, with the sort of faith that we'll have the money by the time the bill comes....

MC:  How much is it gonna cost?

MS:  It could be as much as $750,000 for the whole project.

MC:  But absolutely necessary.

MS:  It is absolutely necessary.  We can do it in pieces, but we've got to get those transmitters replaced ASAP, and the board in master control.  You hear those mistakes and problems on the air....

MC:  Well, I think we should let our listeners know that..by the way, that this plan to restructure, to rebuild the transmitter and master control, etcetera, comes after a large capital investment over the last number of years inside the studios..the studios here in North Hollywood.

MS:  Yeah, we've done all the small things.  We've fixed all the little newsroom studios.  We've put new microphones in here.  We've fixed the phone system.  We got some computers. We got...All the little stuff has been fixed.  Now it's the core transmission chain.

MC:  Right.

MS:  Master control, the link-up to the mountain, the transmitters, and the antenna on the tower.

MC:  Well, we should also...I think you're being too modest. I've got to say that when I worked here the first time around, in the early 1980s, this place still looked like...It kind of had the air of an antiwar office in the 1960s. Lots of..Stacks and stacks of yellow paper and boxes of Dutch knows what and peeling linoleum and peeling paint, and it was like you're really..you know, were taking your life in your hands to walk in here.  And it didn't change much in the '70s.....

MS:  Well, when you came to do Radio Nation, the same equipment, the same stuff, the piles of stuff were still here....

MC:  I actually new the names of the individual tape recorders.

MS:  There's Bob.  It still doesn't work. [This is nonsense. The tape recorders, at least from 1989-1995 did not have name tags, and none were called "Bob."   All of the tape did work, though they were very old and broke down frequently under the heavy use. They were kept running by the saintly and brilliant maintenance engineer Richard Michael, who left KPFK because he could not stand what Schubb had turned the place into. - ED]

MC:  Right.  This place has really been renovated rather spectacularly.  I wouldn't say that it's...I wouldn't say that it's lavish, but I would say that..Really, this place really looks good inside. [No it doesn't, unless you think a hospital waiting room looks good ]  And the studios are really up to date.  The newsroom really looks terrific and has been rebuilt.  The production studios are really...This looks like the number one or two station in a small..maybe in a town of 200,000 people somewhere in America.  It doesn't quite look like....

MS:  We're up to minimum standards for professional programming.

MC:  Right.  All right.  Enough..enough of the good news.

MS:  And I do have to say that was done entirely from listener sponsors.  We had a small bequest.  And it was done, you know, really cheaply -- little piece by little piece by little piece.  But they were really generous, and it was a success of the fund drive that made it possible...

MC:  It's really made a tremendous difference.

MS:  But this project's a really big one.  It's three times the size of all the things we've done rolled together.

MC:  All right.  Well, let's play..let's play hardball, as they say.  Or let's play Meet the Press at least.  I'm talking to Mark Schubb, who is general manager of KPFK. I'm Marc Cooper.  We're gonna spend the rest of the hour here talking about the state of KPFK and the state of Pacifica.  It's a periodic report to the listener in an extended version.  And somewhat we'll be bringing the audience into the discussion as well.

But I wanted to deal today with all of the rumors and innuendo and stories that are out there about KPFK and about Pacifica that some of our listeners know about, and some of them don't.  And let me start in the general sense.

There's a notion by some in the activist community..And I think it's a small number, but there's a notion by some that there's something very dark happening at KPFK and Pacifica, that there is some kind of right-wing drift, and that there's some move by the management of this radio station to mainstream it, to shear off controversial political ideas, to make this place friendlier to Bill Clinton, to...

[Schubb laughing]

MC:  ..I laugh at this hour, 'cause that runs contrary to my mail.  I'll tell you that much.  Etcetera.  Any of that true, Mark?

MS:  You know, it's easy to say none of it's true.  But there is a real thing that's happened.  There is a shift. And to maybe just address the shift head-on.  It's my belief -- and this is just me speaking for myself -- As somebody who was a long-time listener...You know, I used to be part of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and a critic of local media, and I never...I tried to do projects with KPFK and had a loose relationship, but knew what was going on at the station.  It's my belief that there has
been a period of time, almost a decade, where a lot of the focus of the station was on..was emphasizing our need to give a platform to voices, which is one of our core missions -- mission statement values -- that we're gonna provide a platform for voices that would otherwise be unheard.  But I think the focus became on serving the voices.  In other words, the air got carved up into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces.  Somebody had to show every other Thursday.  Somebody had to show on the fifth..if there was fifth Thursday, that used to be....

MC:  Cafeteria radio.

MS:  ...And what that did, what we know is that it makes it impossible to listen to.  So I think that a lot of people that hear that certain things are taken off..and it's not necessarily that the show that they were listening to was taken off, but the idea that so and so should be on the air is in their head.  And as you clarify the schedule and you try to do strip programming so we have a morning show and we have an afternoon show and do more magazine style stuff to reach more listeners.  We're trying to do the same amount of diversity, the same amount of political content, to a more coherent format that's more like the way people use radio, which is what I would call being more listener-focused.  How are the listeners using radio?  How do we make what we do meet them, as opposed to serving volunteer programmers, who have passions and needs and some great stuff, and frankly some of it was not such great stuff, and...

[talking over each other]
[[[[TRANSCRIBER'S COMMENT:  This is one of the things Mark Schubb asserts must always be avoided on the radio, as the listener can't tell who's talking and loses track of the conversation when more than one voice is audible at a given time]]]]

MC:  Oh, I agree with you.  Well, what is...
 

MS:  ..we're trying to make more decisions about what's worthy of presenting to a broad audience and what belongs on the internet.

MC:  Well, what does that mean ideologically, though? Does that mean that there's an effort by management to stifle more controversial voices and to more make this air less challenging, less controversial, more homogenous, more hostile to political activists, etcetera?

MS:  I don't think so, but I do have an issue with standards of credibility, that just because somebody's an alternative voice, if there's not much basis to what they have to say it shouldn't be on our air.  If they're fronting for or spouting hate speech and things that are so counter to our mission, they need to be on our air in a critical context only.

MC:  Mm, hm.

MS:  And when you implement more editorial standards, some people feel there's like there's some machiavellian control coming on, but, I mean, there isn't a broadcaster or a newspaper or...There's no media outlet in America that doesn't make editorial decisions.  Even making no decisions is a decision.  And, I mean, you work here.  You're..You produce and host.  You have also a producer working with you on this show.  And you know how much freedom you have to pursue your programming.  I mean, how often do I put my thoughts in other than to say....

[talking over each other]

MC:  Well, the listeners can't see the gun that you have pointed to my head.  So....

MS:  Right.

MC:  ...I'll pretend to answer under....

[talking over each other]

MS:  I mean, you know the working conditions.  I think...Well, I guess what I would want to say before you answer is, it's my belief that journalists and people that work on our air have more freedom to pursue the issues and ideas as they see them, more freedom here than at any other broadcast...

[talking over]

MC:  Well, I can tell you.  I mean, I can tell the listeners. I've met some listeners who've raised these questions outside of the doors of KPFK, and when I've tried to explain this -- how it works -- they say, "Oh, you're just being forced to say that, because you're afraid of getting fired."

MS:  Yeah.  I know how I intimidate you and how much you cower in fear....

[talkin over]

MC:  Yeah.  I would say..I mean, to be honest about it with the listeners, I don't think there's any control exerted over the programming here on a day to day basis. That is to say that I'm not aware.  You know, this is a pretty small place.  I'm not aware that anybody is monitoring the air and checking up on people and saying "Oooo, yeah, this person or that person ought to do this."  I think that management does a haphazard job of overall monitoring. I don't...My personal feeling is that there isn't strict enough.  I would actually be comfortable with stricter editorial control, because somebody has to take responsibility for what's on the air here.

MS:  Right.

MC:  I also know that KPFK is under-resourced....

MS:  Well, I would answer that there's like ten or twelve people running a twenty-four hour a day locally produced radio station, when there's sixty people working at another public radio station playing music.  You know, it's a resource issue, so we....

MC:  It's an interesting issue, because while we're talking right now, for example, some listener called in and said.. And this is what really drives me crazy.  This is not an attack on the listener, but this is what drives me nuts, is somebody who comes in here and...I'm not a martyr.  I get paid for what I do.  I don't get paid a lot.  But it is still..you know, it is still a..It's still a sacrifice, in some ways.  One listener wants to know is KPFK raising as much and just reaching as large an audience as possible? I'm not sure what the tone of that question is, but I've heard it before...

MS:  That if we want more audience...

[talking over]

MC:  ...in a negative tone, that there's something morally tinged about wanting to reach a bigger audience, so that this...I don't understand why you would have 112,000 watts sitting on top of Mount Wilson with a radical and often..progressive and often radical and always alternative point of view..if you didn't want to reach the maximum number of people.  If we wanted to be a club we'd take subscriptions and give you a password and put you on the internet, but I mean...

MS:  Well, if we...Our signal covers 13,840,000 people.

MC:  Yeah.

MS:  That's just our basic footprint.  When the transmitter's working right.  I think we're about 30% compromised from that.  So, call it 10,000,000 people.  We're happy now to have the biggest audience that we've measured this decade..that we're figuring about 200,000...

MC:  Right.

MS:  ...So to me if the mission is to spread a progressive voice, we need to be reaching more people, and I don't think it's a compromise to reach more people.  I do know that there're some people who KPFK to serve as a sort of refinement of a narrow ideological incantation...

[talking over]

MC:  That would be the death...death for the station...

MS:  ...repeated over and over again.  And it's better radio, and it's more interesting, and it's better for progressives, and it's better for liberals and mainstreamers who might tune in to hear a more invigorated debate.  There's a philosophy difference there...

[talking over]

MC:  Let's move to the.....

MS:  I do want to say one other thing, though.  Some of the people who yell the loudest about..about the kind of...There's like folks who come to the meetings, and they get really exercised about stuff...We have board meetings that're open to the public -- local board meetings.  The people who get the most exercised are ABSOLUTELY convinced that there's this machiavellian control of the airwaves, and they're against it, and it's censorship, and it's fascism, and it must stop.  And they're always the ones who say "And how DARE Marc Cooper have Ariana Huffington on.  How dare Cathy Still interview this person.  And how dare..."  So they sort of denounce machiavellian control at the same time they're expecting me to have it to their taste.

MC:  Oh no.

MS:  So there's kind of a hypocrisy there in some of the criticisms.  Although I understand the concern, 'cause, you know, you look at the mainstream media and it is so bland and pointless...

MC:  Of course.

MS:  If I thought KPFK was going that way, I'd be very upset too.

MC:  Sure.  Well, let me ask you, Mark, some of these other questions, quickly at least.  One of the other rumors -- and I can only put it as a rumor and innuendo and charge -- is that KPFK and Pacifica are union-busters, and that the management of this radio station has had an intentional program going to break the union here at KPFK.

[short pause]

MS:  I guess I'm so taken aback by the question, I don't even...Look.  Pacifica has the largest community radio stations in the country.  And I would argue we have a national programming unit and three stations that have bargaining units.  We have contracts in effect right now. And very, very good, and extremely progressive contracts. And the idea that we're trying to union-bust in this..you know, anti-union environment that we're in, where we have a labor show, and...You know, of course, there's conflicts.  You know, we negotiated a contract a couple of years ago...

[talking over]

MC:  ...a lot of contracts...

MS:  ...and it was..You know, and it was very heated.  But when you're at the left wing, the progressive end of the most generous...I mean, not in terms of bottom dollar salary, but benefits and time and accommodation of human needs.  When you're off at one end of..at that far end -- progressive end of the spectrum in a contract arguing about stuff, and people who lose one clause to go this way or that way want to call that union-busting, it's ridiculous...

MC:  Well, what...

MS:  I used to be on the board of the Screen Actors Guild for many years and was the youngest member on that board, and...

MC:  On the union board?

MS:  ...part of...Yeah.  The union board.  Screen Actors Guild.  Under Ed Asner and as part of the Asner takeover of...so to speak...

MC:  The left-wing faction...

MS:  Right.

MC:  ...of the Screen Actors Guild.

MS:  And, you know, I'm the guy who -- before I was on the board -- made the motion that we should take Ronald Reagan out of the union for firing the air traffic controllers.I'm a staunch unionist.  I'm very active...

[talking over]

MC:  Well, of the course, the charge, Mark, is...

MS:  ...in those union politics.  So the idea that we're union-busting is ludicrous.  We're talking about eight or nine people in the bargaining unit arguing about a contract, and then other people in the community saying there's union-busting going on because there's an argument about the contract.

MC:  Yeah, but the charge is that Pacifica..Pacifica, and perhaps KPFK, paid thousands of dollars to a union-busting firm -- AGC, I believe, are the....

MS:  Oh, I heard.  Yeah.

MC:  ...and that this is proof-positive that KPFK and Pacifica was trying to break the union, because they hired union busters.

MS:  Well, I read that stuff on the internet, and I just..it's amazing, the amount of fiction and distortion.  I do know that before I got here the executive director at that time, Pat Scott, made a deal.  I think she told me it was for a thousand dollars, to have phone consultations about California labor law with a group called AGC.  She didn't know who they were.Somebody just said "Oh, this is cheap deal..."

MC:  And they are union busters.

MS:  Well, apparently they are.  So when I got here they had referred an attorney to work on some of the matters down. Then he moved on.  Then we hired a negotiator, who was the cheapest negotiator we could find, to be on the management side, because you have to be responsible when you're negotiating.  You have the management side, and you have the labor side, and you have to do the best you can to come to a good contract.  But, you know, we're..you..The station has more of a constituency to serve than just the people who work here.  We have to balance the interests of the whole station...

MC:  Right.

MS:  So...At one point people came to me and said "This guy had worked for AGC".  The staff came to me and said "We've learned through investigations that this guy has done work for AGC"...and he never came back to the bargaining table.And instead we had a delegation of people from the labor community submit three names for us to go find a progressive pro-management person, and we hired that person to do it, and then they called that guy a union-buster.  Well, not they didn't...

[talking over]

MC:  But, Mark...

MS:  ..but some people called that guy a union-buster.  So, anybody who's on the management side of the table -- and this is a proressive guy, you know, who's like one of the people in..Southern Californians for Socially Responsible Businessmen....

MC:  Whatever.  Yeah.

MS:  You know, it's...You know, it's...The issue I think is using really overheated rhetoric to distort.  I mean, in a way it's taking advantage of our instincts, our over-developed sense of injustice.  We're...As an audience, as member of the KPFK audience, which I am, you know, I hear those buzz words and I go "Hey! What the hell's goin' on?"...

[talking over]

MC:  Right.  I would say...

MS:  ...and I think it's unfair....

[talking over]

MC:  ..but I would...

MS:  ...to play that game.  I take it..It's offensive to me.

MC:  I would say that given the political sensitivities that exist in this audience, and this audience is very sensitive to these sorts of labor issues, etcetera, clearly in retrospect Pacifica made an egregious mistake, did they not, in hiring a management consultant, even for a brief period, that had this...

[talking over]

MS:  ...those ties.  I agree.

MC:  ...those ties, even though I would..

[talking over]

MS:  I agree.

MC:  ...argue that go find a management consultant who isn't..

[talking over]..

MS:  Well, I....

MC:  ...a union-buster.  That's what they do.

MS:  I agree.  And then as soon as it came to light Pacifica dumped it..dumped those guys, so...

MC:  Well, what is your commitment then, Mark, to the unions here at KPFK?

MS:  Well, we have a union contract.  We..

[talking over]

MC:  What is your commitment, though, beyond...

MS:  ...We'll negotiate a new one next year, or whenever it comes up.  You know, we have..We have, I think, the most progressive workplace you can imagine.

MC:  Do you think KPFK should have a union?

MS:  Well, it's a small workplace, so it's kind of a...It caught me by surprise when I first came along, hearing that there was all this strife over union stuff.  And, I figured, you know, with my background we'll be able to straighten this stuff out.  But, you know, it's a very small workplace.  And a lot of people who are very familiar with unions say the smaller the workforce, the more contentious the unions are.  You know, it's very complicated. Should we have a union?  If the workers want one, great. You know.  Should workers who want a union have one?  I'm absolutely for it.  Sometimes, though, there's a kind of...

MC:  Are you trying....

MS:  I want to tell the truth of how...There's a rhetorical drawing of lines -- labor, management.  Look, there's fifteen people working in the building.  I'm not drivin' up in a Cadillac.  Nobody in the management makes even...[Schubb is paid 50K per annum of your hard earned dollars]

[talking over]

MC:  ...Rolls Royce...
 

MS:  ...twice what the regular salaried employee makes.  You know, it's like there's some huge elite sitting in their offices smoking cigars, and sometimes it seems almost comical..

MC:  Mm, hm..

MS:  ...to have these big lines drawn in the sand when we're just trying to get work done with very meager resources, so..So that..that....

[talking over]

MC:  Well, I wrote...

MS:  ..that rhetoric really...

MC:  ..I actually wrote in The Nation magazine that what I though was going on...I can say this 'cause I did it publicly. I thought that there was a lot of rhetorical overkill, that...There's a tendency here at KPFK and Pacifica, because of the highly politicized audience..There's a tendency on all sides to take every minor dispute and blow it up to Cinemascope..

MS:  Right.

MC:  ..that it's never just a fight over this or...It's always "Revolution or counter-revolution!  Sell out or rabid defense of noncommercialism" and blah blah blah.  I mean, I think it...Which...

MS:  But there is one real conflict that's going on in the organization I should mention...

[talking over]

MC:  Well...

MS:  ..which is WBAI.

MC:  Mm, hm.

MS:  Now, they're union is also the same union that represents us here, but they have a different contract.  And Pacifica is in conflict with UE in New York over a particular issue...

MC:  Yes...

MS:  The...

MC:  ...which I also read about....

MS:  Ninety percent of the..that union chooses to include volunteers in the bargain....

[tape machine screw-up -- gap of several minutes -- apologies]

Marc Cooper:  ...So we should move through this quickly but thoroughly.  The big issue right now in Pacifica is what's happening at KPFA.  On March 31st Pacific refused to renew the contract of the manager at KPFA, Nicole Sawaya.  The KPFA staff rebelled.  There's no other word for it....

Mark Schubb:  That's true.

MS:  ...they went on the air.  They're still on the air, three months later, continuing to denounce this in violation of kind of the internal rules of Pacifica to keep personnel issues off of the air.  Larry Bensky denounced this.  He lost his show because of that.  There's still no replacement manager at KPFA. There was..There has been a couple demonstrations.  There was a demonstration there like ten days ago; people were blocking the doors and giving the Pacifica management a pretty rough time.  Police were called.  Twelve or thirteen people were arrested for blocking the doors.

[[[[SOMMERS COMMENT:  PLEASE NOTE --- any and every time Marc Cooper uses a sentence containing numbers of any type, he's lying -- exemplar as above -- by this time ANYONE who's paying attention can certainly quote the correct number of arrested as FOURTEEN]]]]]

Now there's some security guards inside KPFA.  That's just kind of the general background...

MS:  Yeah, it's pretty awful.

MC:  ..But this is stuff that really riles..

[talking over]

MS:  Everything you're saying is true.  It's pretty awful.

MC:  ...It just riles the listeners.  On the other hand..On the other hand, I was reading some internet postings today, and I have to laugh where people are saying "We demand the withdrawal of the armed forces from KPFA", and that was done with no irony....

MS:  Right.

MC:  I think that's hysterical.  I mean, whether or not one thinks there should be security forces..security forces...They're private security guards...

MS:  Right.

MC:  ...at KPFA.  Whatever one believes of that, and I understand both arguments.  It is intellectually dishonest to call those armed.  I mean, that's just absurd...

MS:  Right.

MC:  ...and doesn't get down to the real issue.  So, let's sort this, if we can, in five minutes.  Nicole Sawaya was fired. Why did KPFA..Why did Pacific fire her?  This manager, which apparently was very very popular at KPFA, if the whole staff rebelled afterwards.  Is this a booboo?

MS:  This is going to sound like a dodging answer.

MC:  Go ahead.

MS:  I don't know.

MC:  Mm, hm.

MS:  I didn't hire or fire Nicole.  I didn't take place..part in any discussion about that...

[talking over]

MC:  You're hired and fired by the same people...

[talking over]

MS:  Nicole was my peer, sh...

MC:  ...who hired and fired her.  Right?

MS:  ...She's a friend of mine.  We worked closely together.I think she was one of the people I was closest to in the management of the other stations, in terms of some of our own concerns and things that we've raise about...You know, we were always arguing about stuff.  So, a lot of the things we argued about, we agreed about.  She was pretty outspoken.  I think she was often controversial...

[talking over]

MC:  She rocked the boat.

MS:  ...Sometimes she crossed lines that I would think were impolitic, you know, in terms of rocking the boat.  But I had no notice that she was going to be let go, or not renewed. It just happened.  And it's not something that I can do anything about, other than to let my feelings known about what I know about...

MC:  All right, but it did reverberate here....

MS:  But it is the decision of the executive director and the executive committee of the board to make those decisions. They hire and fire managers, and that's what they do.  That's their function.

MC:  There was some reverberation here, because one of the KPFA programmers, Larry Bensky, had a national program, Sunday Salon, that was on Sundays from nine to eleven or ten to twelve..

MS:  Right.  Nine to eleven.

MC:  ...And his program got removed.  What happened there?

MS:  Well, Larry, I mean, wasn't a KPFA programmer, although he...

[talking over]

MC:  He was a national....

MS:  ...He was a national programmer.  You have to understand -- these few national programs that we had.  We all raised more money to put in the pot to do these national programs.  We put on a daily show, and then Larry got..didn't want to do the daily show anymore, so he created this Sunday show.  And there was a lot of wangling to make it happen.  So, not too many weeks into the new Sunday show this thing with Nicole happens, and he did about a twenty minute segment on his show denouncing the firing and talking about his own personnel issues, and talking about, you know, how much he didn't like the new executive director, and...

[talking over]

MC:  This was a clear act of civil disobedience.

MS:  Yeah.  Everyone knows there's something we call..refer to the dirty laundry rule, which is..

[talking over]

MC:  We'll get to that.

MS:  ..you don't debate internal per..conflicts on the air, or else it would be endless.  Because we all have issues...

[talking over]

MC:  So, Larry's show..Larry's show was pulled because..Larry lost his job because he had violated this...

[talking over]

MS:  Yes.

MC:  ..gag rule.  So....

[talking over]

MS:  ..Now, once again, I didn't participate in that decision, but Larry certainly knew, because anyone would know, that if you're gonna that on a national show...

[talking over]

MC:  So, you don't..You don't have anything to do with cancelling Larry Bensky's show.

MS:  No!  No.  If Larry was producing a national show I wouldn't want..We WANTED Larry Bensky.  We were strong advocates...

[talking over]

MC:  Well, here's the question...

MS:  ...for Larry Bensky.  Although I do disagree with what he did..

MC:  Mm, hm.

MS:  ...because I'd rather have his show than his twenty minute protest.

MC:  And, so what people say..What some people say is "Well, wait a minute.  This is a community radio station.  We're paying the bills.  We're the listener-sponsors.  Why can't we come on the air and talk about Larry Bensky -- why Larry Bensky got fired? Why can't we come on and debate whether Nicole Sawaya got fired? Or any other programmer has been fired?"  What..Why isn't that a right?

MS:  'Cause it's not fair!  I mean, number one, there's a basic rule in broadcasting of not attacking people...

MC:  Right.  But beyond that.

MS:  Right.  And it's just not fair.  There are hundreds of people who make a radio station happen, and there's just a few people who are at the microphone building that special relationship with an audience.  And for someone to take their side to audience -- especially in a personnel matter, because the management of a station...If I had a dispute with an employee and let them...

[talking over]

MC:  ...Well, let me interrupt you, 'cause I...

MS:  ..I couldn't say why, because that's against the law!  I'd be violating their rights saying...

[talking over]

MC:  ..so there is two issues here.  There's....

MS:  ..they did this, they did that.  You can't debate personnel issues on the air!  It's...

MC:  There's two issues.

MS:  ...beyond the pale.

MC:  One is the person in question.  That is to say, the person who's been fired or getting fired.  I agree with this.  I think it would be...I think it's abhorrent that they should use their privileged position on the air to argue their personal personnel position.  But, what about the second half of that?  You just mentioned it in passing.  What about other people talking about..In this case, say, Larry Bensky, saying "Well, we want to know what happened to.."  I was at a demonstration recently, and I
was...three..

[talking over]

MS:  I repeating the public...

MC:  ...three or four listeners came to me and said, "Mark, you're a fascist."  I love that.  "Mark, you're a fascist, because you refuse to get on the air and talk about Larry Bensky's job."  Now, what I tried to explain to them is that I'm not privy to Larry Bensky's personnel files, and if I got fired I wouldn't want somebody talking about my personal business on the air, because there's legal issues involved..

MS:  Right.

MC:  ..as well.

MS:  Right.  I mean, you can't go on and say "Yeah, well, Marc Cooper..He put this on his expense", which, you know, this lavish expense account which you're using here at KPFK.  Or, "You did this to a person", or "You harrassed this person", or "You did this", or...

[talking over]

MC:  Well, well....

MS:  ...did this, or....You can't have that conversation! I mean...

[talking over]

MC:  ...Well, I'll tell you something interesting...

MS:  ...It's against the law!...

MC:  I'll tell you something interesting here....

MS:  You have a responsibilit as an employer not to do that.

MC:  Parenthetically, I can say it, because it is about...Now, I'll tell you something interesting.  When I was fired from this radio station, in 1983, for what were clearly poli..small "p" politic reasons.  Not ideological, but kind of a power play sort deal.  I was accused by management at that time of financial..What do you call it?  Financial malfeasance, which...

MS:  Outrageous.[This comment by Schubb is  interesting, since he was nowhere around - this happened in the early 1980's ]

MC:  ..invented and outrageous -- right?  And...I don't care now, because I'm an old guy and I don't even think about this stuff anymore.  But I would have been horrified...

[talking over]

MS:  Plus all the money you took as....[Cooper talking over -- words lost]...

MC:  I would have been horrified if that had been debated on the air.  Because...

[talking over]

MS:  ..it wasn't...[words lost]...

MC:  ...Whether right or wrong, I didn't want that attached to my name.  It was outrageous!

MS:  Yeah.  And when I do the report to the listener, which I do about every month or so, you know, I talk for a while and say what's goin' on, and we take calls.  And I just say we're not gonna talk about those...

[talking over]

MC:  All right, now...

MS:  ..but we can talk about policy and issues and ideals...

[talking over]

MC:  I really want take these...

MS:  ..but you can't debate personnel....

MC:  I really want to take these phone calls, but I want to ask you one more question that comes out of this.  There are some internet postings that say that Mark Schubb is the gag master, [Cooper loves our site I guess] because what you do is you go around and you oppose this horrendous thing called the gag rule, which means that programmers...I call it the dirty laundry rule.  But that...Well, you're not that...Pacifica programmers shouldn't come on the air and speak ill of Pacifica when things like this are happening.  And they point to a program, a CounterSpin program, produced by FAIR that was produced in the middle of this Larry Bensky business, where Larry Bensky was interviewed by FAIR...

MS:  Mm, hm.

MC:  ...and was giving his side of the story.  And management here...You made the decision, and others made the decision not to air this.  I also want to say parenthetically that was later debated before the whole staff...

MS:  Right.

MC:  ...And the whole...entire staff that I am aware [without this qualification, Cooper's statement would be a bald-faced lie]  of was in agreement with that decision.  But having said that, how do you explain that?

MS:  Well, you know.  First, I take exception to the "gag rule".  I mean, imagine like the abortion debate, and, you know, you're saying, you know, a woman's right to kill babies, to kill babies.  It's such a distorted word.  No magazine or newspaper I know of will spend its air time or its pages arguing about the internal disputes.  Ideological questions...

[talking over]

MC:  Yeah, if you argue about content all the time...

MS:  ...arguing about content.  You know, but to have a hundred and twenty or a hundred and forty volunteer programmers saying they want a different time slot, or they disagree with this, or somebody told 'em to do it...You know, it's, it's not what our mission is.  Our mission is to serve the audience with information that's about them.  We're supposed to focus on the listeners, and bring them information they can't get anywhere else.  Complaining they can get by just, you know, being in the
hallways of ANY public radio station...

[talking over]

MC:  ...Well, I got to...

MS:  ...especially a Pacifica station.  But it, it's a long-standing policy.  I, I've seen copies of the policy stated as early as 1971 by Will Lewis...

MC:  Sure.

MS:  ...In '89 it was adopted by the national board as part of a Pacifica-wide policy, and I simply say if we have rules we're all gonna follow them.  If we have rules we're all gonna follow them....

[talking over]

MC:  Well, I've gotta say one thing, Mark.  We're gonna take phone calls now.  I've gotta say..a personal title as the person as the person who does this program.  I'm glad we're doing this program today, because this is a bunch of...There's a lot of rumors out here that have to be dealt with.  But I must say, if we had to spend our time at four o'clock to five o'clock semi-regularly talking about this kind of stuff...

MS:  Mm, hm.

MC:  ...and the internal business of KPFK, I would blow my brains out.  I mean....

[talking over]

MS:  Well, you have...

MC:  ...I would just quit..

MS:  ...You'd have sixty, or a hundred, or maybe six hundred people who would intimately engaged...

MC:  Totally engaged.

MS:  ...and interested...

MC:  ...and the other hundred thousand I don't know about..

MS:  ...forget the rest of the listeners...

MC:  All right.  Mark, are you ready to face the firing squad here, of your own lisenters?

MS:  Sure.  I always enjoy...

[talking over]

MC:  ...this...

MS:  The only ground rule I tend to have is that I ask people not to attack people who aren't here to...

[talking over]

MC:  Well, I want to...Let me just say...

MS:  ...to defend themselves.

MC:  ...to the listeners that I am going to be very quick on the buttons here, because...I'm not going to censor you, but we're not going to allow personal attacks on anybody who can't answer to them, because that's just unfair.  So, we want to hear your well-intentioned and fair questions, and any brief comments, and we're gonna keep 'em brief, 'cause we don't have that much time.  Robert in Mission Viejo, you're on the air.

Robert:  Yeah.  How you doing?

MC:  Hi.

Robert:  Yeah, you know.  I got called a communist on another radio station the other day for suggesting that a minimum that was a living wage might be a good, so I'm not real enthused, you know, about name calling, and I prefer to deal with issues too.  The thing is, I know that sometimes, you know, when we divide these lines up, it becomes a personal matter.  And I notice that, you know, in the group that is critical of some of the stuff that's going on in KPFK and KPFA, there are people who rational, who do not name call, who do not get involved in that, and who are dealing with the issues, and I think they're..and making legitimate points. At the same time, you know..You know, there's always a crowd -- right?

MC:  Sure.

Robert:  Well, the thing is...Last time I talked with you, Mark...I don't know if you'd remember this or not, but I asked if we could get Clare Sparks on the air.  And you said that yes you would work on that.

MC:  Mm, hm.

Robert:  And I would appreciate it if you'd tell me what you've done or what's come up that maybe that could happen. Because I think that Clare is way smarter than Ariana Huffington and just as entertaining.

MC:  Well, that's a good question, we'll have...

MS:  Well, Clare's been on quite a...

MC:  Clare's been on quite a bit...

MS:  ...number of times.

MC:  ...She hasn't been on my program, but she's been on...Clare's an old friend of mine.  One of the reasons I was fired here from KPFK in 1983 is that Clare and I worked together.  Clare was program director.  She was fired six months before me, and I was the next to go.  So, there's no problem there.  We'll definitely have her on.  Robert, thank you.  Let's take another call from Bea in West Los Angeles.  Bea, you're on the air.

Bea:  Hi, am I on?

MS:  Yes, you are.

MC:  Hi, Bea.

Bea:  OK to both Marks.  I have to tell you, Marc Cooper, that I live my life around listening to your program...

MS:  Uh-oh.

MC:  Whoops.

Bea:  ...so you know I'm totally on your side.  But the two of you are coming across so defensive.  The hackles are standing up on the back of my neck.  I'm saying "What the hell are they covering up?"...

MC:  Well, I don't know.  What are we covering up?

MS:  That's...that's....

Bea:  I don't know, but you...[Cooper chuckling]...The two of you are talking rapidly over each other, trying to distort something, and I don't know what it is.  What I would like to know is why can't we hear what the other side is?  I mean, this is...I subscribe to the station because I want to hear all points of view, and certainly against authority.  And I haven't heard anything except about the Larry Bensky.  And there was no mention of the fact that he had an ideological position as well as a personal position...

MC:  Well, I have to interrupt you there, Bea.  I'm not aware of any ideological difference...

Bea:  OK, well then...

MC:  ...that is at the basis of any conflict of Larry and this network.

Bea:  OK.  Well, then, perhaps I'm wrong.  But then on the other hand, when management in any of the bureaucratic capitalistic structures that we know of want to get rid of somebody, they always pull out the old expense account, and they always pull out all those things...

MC:  That's right.

Bea:  ...So, that's...Again, that makes my hackles come up.I say "What the hell are they covering up?"

MS:  Well, I was just making jokes....

Bea:  I wish you would get somebody else on there to let us know what the other side is saying.  And one quick thing.  I'll say this very quickly....

MC:  We're running out of time.

Bea:  I do think the volunteers should have a voice in this kind of radio and this kind of political discussion.  This is the whole point of what KPFK stands for, and I have listened to it for a hundred years, since the beginning...

MC:  OK, Bea.  We're gonna move on.  Thank you very much.

MS:  I would be willing to bet, Bea, that some caller will lay out the position and challenge us.  I'm sure somebody will.

MC:  Well, but there's also a problem.  I think we should address this more directly.  I think there's also a problem, not only of editorial control, but of legal responsibility...

MS:  Mm, hm.

MC:  ...and the management of the radio station has the legal responsibility to control the air for the sake of retaining the license.  And you can't...Unfortunately you cannot just open the microphone and say "Come on on and attack anybody you like", because...

MS:  But I truly do not know any more about the dismissal of Larry Bensky or Nicole Sawaya than what I've said on the air.

MC:  But I'm also...

MS:  People assume....

MC:  I appreciate Bea...But I also appreciate Bea's words, but I also have to say I'm uncomfortable with a discussion that says "You must be covering something up.  We don't know what it is, but there must be something."  I thought that's why people didn't like Kenneth Starr...

MS:  Now, he'd sound defensive.

MC:  Let's talk to Maggie in Hawthorne.  Maggie, you're on the air.

Maggie:  Hi there.  I have to say I agree with Bea...

MC:  Uh-huh.

Maggie:  I'm suspicious too, because I'm just hearing one point of view, and no one else is allowed to talk about it.  Yet you can come on and talk about it...

MC:  Well, come on and tell us about it.

Maggie:  What am I gonna tell you?  It's...

MC:  I don't know.

Maggie:  ..They're your issues.  You should be telling..You're the one.  This is your show...

MC:  All right, Maggie, but what is the debate?  I want..I'm not playing games with you.  I want to know what issue is it that you want to hear about that you're not hearing?

Maggie:  I'm not hearing the other side...

MC:  Well...

Maggie:  In other words, I am so ignorant I don't even know what the issues are!....

MC:  All right.  That's why, that's why, that's why, that's why, that's why....

Maggie:  ...except for the few things that I've heard on the internet too....

MC:  All right.  Let me explain then.  Then let me answer your question, which is that these things are...

Maggie:  I don't think I asked one.

MC:  Would like to to respond?  Or do you want me...I'll just sit here.

Maggie:  I don't think I even got to finish.

MC:  Go ahead, Maggie, finish.

Maggie:  I just wanted to say that I'm surprised at you and what you're saying about editorial control, because I'm telling you it sounded just like something else I heard earlier today when somebody was talking about losing Fourth Amendment rights and that it was OK to lose those rights, because, you know, everyone would be safer...

MC:  Well, Maggie, do you believe that should...

Maggie:  ..So I'm saying that there's...

MC:  ...no editorial control.  Do you believe there should be no editorial control over what's the air at KPFK?

Maggie:  I'm saying it should be community controlled...

MC:  OK.

MC/MS:  All right, Maggie [they really said this in unison].

Maggie:  ...And I don't see that the community's really involved in it, because if it was maybe I would know more about these issues.

MC:  OK.  Thank you, Maggie.  I'm gonna respond by saying this.  One of the reasons that these issues are not debated is that they can't be debated on both sides, 'cause they're personnel issues.  And the people involved cannot argue on the air.  And other parties cannot argue on the air, because it infringes on their own privacy rights and exposes both sides to all sorts of legal liabilities.  What you can talk about is the general drift of the station and what the policies of the station are.  And the person who sets the policies is the manager.  And that's why we're hearing his view of it right now.  If you disagree, that's fine.  But again, I'm gonna say, I'm very concerned about people being suspicious without facts, and I'm not...I understand the counter argument, but it doesn't...

MS:  Maybe as we move through calls, maybe somebody can really give us a rough time and....

MC:  Well.

[talking over each other -- both untelligible]

MC:  Let's here from Gene in Ojai.  Gene, you're on the air.Hello, Gene.

Gene:  Yeah.  Hi.  Just a simple statement...

MC:  Sure.

Gene:  ...and perhaps a very question.  I'm someone who's wanted to support the station for years, but every time I kind of relax over a long period of time while listening to programs, all of a sudden I would hear voices of hate and automatically turned off the station...

MC:  Sure.

Gene:  ...and then later on would turn it on again and relax, and then experience that hate.  And recently, fortunately, I've been able to consistently relax and would like to, at some point, hopefully subscribe.  I'm just waiting for the point at which I believe I'm not gonna hear any more hate off the air once and for all.  I enjoy the controversy..civil controversy, and not the hate speech.  So I just wanted to make that point.

MC:  OK, Gene.  Thank you.

Gene:  And then the question I'm hearing -- this debate -- I'm curious why Mark does not know why the station manager was fired.  And he says that she is or was his friend...

MC:  OK, Gene, let's get Mark to respond to that.  Thank you very much for the call.

MS:  I know what Nicole has to say about the situation. And as a friend, or as the manager of another station, I'm not gonna repeat what she said.  But I was not included in any discussion about why she was let go.  Nobody sent me a memo...

MC:  Well, it's your superiors who fired her.

MS:  Right.  And they..Managers serve at the pleasure of the executive director and the national board.  I assume that there were clashes over vision.  I mean, some of them were public, some of them weren't, and that's maybe what led to it, but I don't know.

MC:  Well, I've written publicly.  I mean, I can speak on my own title.  I think that no matter what the reasons were, this manager was clearly so popular that it was a mistake to fire her.  If there was some dark reason that she had to be fired....

MS:  I don't believe there was.

MC:  ...and I don't believe there was.  I think that Pacifica made a gigantic booboo in not immediately dealing with this and letting it drag itself out.  And I think Pacifica is to blame for this.  I've said that in print, and I've said it publicly.  And that is my opinion.  But, you know, Pacifica is made up of human beings.  They make the same mistakes as everybody else.  What bothers me is the hyper rhetoric.  I'm not defending Pacifica, because I think they were completely wrong.  But to blow this up
into some crime against humanity really is of concern to me.  I think we have bigger fish to fry.  Let's hear from Mark in...I'm trying to get on line here, Mark.  Mark in Winnetka.  You're on the air.

Mark:  Good afternoon.

MC:  Hi.

MS:  Three Marks, all together.

Mark:  We ought to do the markathon, I guess.

MC:  Go ahead, Mark.

Mark:  Yeah.  Basically I'm calling about the programming. I know you can't address some of the rumors I've heard about the removal of, you know, one hostess in particular. But...

MS:  Well, well, who would that be?

Mark:  Well, Pam Reyes, when she had a wonderful program on Belizian and Carribean issues in general..

MS:  I think I could...

Mark:  ...Belize, Carribean folks.  And I never really got a straight answer.  Now, I've emailed both Dr. Berry and Earl Hutchinson and spoke to Earl once when I happened to see him on Leimert Park, but..And the guy went pasty when I tried to get a, you know, just offer the record kind of comment from him on it.  You know, she provided a springboard, basically, for him, in some respects.You know, his commentaries, and guess probably his show. But I never really got a good answer on why her pro..although I think it kind of was because of some of her participation with commercial interests and whatnot.  But I know you may not be able to address that, but..

MS:  Well, I wouldn't comment...

Mark:  ...But maybe we can get a program that just doesn't, you know, play reggae music and something that addresses not just the Belizian community in particular, but the Carribean bain in general and...You see, her program..Now, I was probably one of her biggest critics, calling in and whatnot, but I do appreciate that format.  In fact, on foreign policy I'm probably decidedly right of center and libertarian on social issues.  But, you know, I did appreciate the forum.  Also, why was Wirewaist, Ms. Wirewaste, removed from Voice of Jamaica?  I came back from vacation and found that her program had gone...

MC:  Well, let me let Mark answer those quickly.  Thank you, Mark, for calling in.  We're just running out of time.  Mark, very quickly.

MS:  Regardless of any other issues you may have about. Regardless of any other issues that may or may not exist, both of those programs had been on the air for a long time and really weren't serving as large an audience as they should.  And you gotta make changes.  And we're trying new stuff.  And it seems to be doing better than what was there before in terms of audience...

MC:  Any program...

MS:  ...support....

MC:  Any program that's on the air attracts an audience...

MS:  Right.

MC:  ...small or large.  And when it's changed, the people who like it are gonna get angry...

MS:  Yeah.

MC:  ...And the people who like the program that replaces it are gonna be pleased.  Unfortunately there's only a hundred and sixty-eight hours in the week.  Let's take Robin in Los Angeles.  Robin, you're on the air.

Robin:  Hello?

MC:  Hello.

Robin:  Hi.  Yes.  I've been curious to know why Julianne Malvaux's (sp?) show was cancelled a while back, and if it's possible to bring that show back, because I thought she was just really excellent, as good as Marc Cooper and Amy Goodman, the two shows..my two favorite shows on KPFK.

MS:  Yeah, I really....

MC:  Thank you, Robin.

MS:  ...I really like Julianne too.  That was our first attempt at a national show, and it just wasn't well funded enough...

MC:  It wasn't cancelled.  It ran out of money.

MS:  ...It just ran out of money, and, you know, people were frustrated with lack of resources.  But she was very good, and....

MC:  It ran its course.  There was no decision to cancel that program...

MS:  You know, I don't remember exactly how it happened. It was right when I was getting here.  But it was clear there wasn't enough funding to continue at the level...

MC:  Yeah, it wasn't....

MS:  ...Julianne wanted more resources and there weren't...

MC:  It was..

MS:  ...enough resources to do it....

MC:  ...an experimental program in national programming and....

MS:  ....which is a very interesting voice.  Thank you.

MC:  Interesting.  Theresa in Los Angeles, you're on the air.  Hello.

Theresa:  Mark, this is Theresa Bonpane.

MC:  Hi, Theresa.

Theresa Bonpane:  And I'm glad at least that I have thirty years of credibility in the community to not let this sound like sour grapes..

MC:  Sure.

MS:  Right.

TB:  ...because it isn't that.  I was reading Gil Contreras's letter this morning about why he's resigning, and I was amazed at the similarities between what has happened to him and what happened to Blase.  And I know...

MS:  Resigning from where?

TB:  Pardon me?

MS:  Gil resigning from where?

TB:  Oh.

MC:  Gil Contreras?

MS:  He was filling in as the host for many months on Mondays Beneath the Surface.  Resigning as in that?

TB:  Well, I heard that...I have something...

MS:  That's a couple of months ago.

TB:  ...and I assumed it was already out, so I hope I'm not...

MC:  No.  That's all right.

MS:  No.  He hasn't....

TB:  I guess it's on its way.  At any rate, there's something that I received today from Gil saying that he was resigning, and talked about the things that brought this out, and said the pattern of harassment against its nonpaid, volunteers and paid staff, you know, creating a hostile work environment...

MS:  I've never heard any of these charges from Gil.

TB:  Oh.  Well, I think you probably will, then, if you haven't, because I'm reading from his letter.

MC:  Well, let me just clarify this for a minute.  Gil Contreras wasn't an employee.  He was a volunteer programmer...

MS:  No, no....

TB:  No.  He makes that clear.

MC:  My understanding....

TB:  Mark, could I just finish, 'cause there's not a lot of time.  I just want to say, then..Forget Gil for a moment, then. That there is this pattern of people there treating the volunteers..whether or not...When people aren't paid, at least in our organization, we treat them even better than the paid workers, because we know they're giving their lives to this, and to -- again, not to sound like sour grapes -- but Blase was with KPFK for thirty years and was never treated as horribly as he was...Mark Schubb would not even answer letters, phone calls and whatever.  We get responses from people like Ed Asner in three hours, [heavy sigh in the background from one of the Marks] and Mark Schubb doesn't time for the courtesy...

MS:  Actually...

TB:  ...of returning calls and letters and trying to clarify issues.  People call Blase constantly: "Why are you off the air?  They didn't even announce that you weren't on any more. They never announced that you were moved from one station to another.  What is going on?"  I believe that the personal is political, and I'm glad so many people are dealing with the content, because I have some feelings about that as well..

MS:  Well, Theresa, I do have to respond.

MC:  We need to have Mark respond, Theresa, 'cause we're almost out of time.

MS:  I've spoke to Blase on several occasions.  Kathy Lo has met with him many times, even came to your office to meet to discuss it, and Blase is always welcome to do his commentaries here.  The disagreement was over whether you would use your phone number for your organization -- which we support as individuals here -- during the newscast, attached to the commentary -- practice that had been going on for a while. And we felt that the news should stand alone and commentary should stand alone of promoting a specific organization, even though I personally have supported your organization, and I support your work.  I think you're both wonderful people. But we disagree about this matter, and he's always welcome to do commentary here.  It just needs to be commentary that stands alone without the phone number for the organization during our newscast.

MC:  Well, I need to say something, because I was the person, in 1981 or so, as news and public affairs director here, who put Blase Bonpane on the air.  That was my decision along with Clare Sparks.  But it was directly my decision.  And my own comment would be is that I understand the current conflict to be more or less the way that it's just been described by Mark Schubb, and I would tell Theresa Bonpane on the air, as I told her in person, that I would be delighted to act as any
kind of intermediary to try and negotiate a deal.  If I were news director right now at KPFK, I would think that I would have to take the current position and insist that commentaries not carry telephone numbers on them.  I just don't think it's appropriate to be in the middle of a newscast.  In some other kind of program, OK, but not the newscast.  That's my personal opinion.  But I don't think that should be a deal breaker. Let's try and get one more call in, if we can.  Very quickly. Sarah.  I can't read that far.  Sarah in Los Angeles, you're on the air.

[this caller is actually Farah Davari, an Iranian woman now living in Los Angeles]

Farah Davari:  Hello?

MC:  Hello.

FD:  It's not Sarah, it's Farah.

MC:  OK.

MS:  Hi.

FD:  Yeah.  You know, I have a couple of problems with your comments.  One..The first thing is, you keep saying that there's no..Who is the opposition?  And what are they opposing to you?  What you are discussing if there is no opposition and no other discussion involved -- it's just employees...

MC:  Well, that's not quite what I said, but I...

FD:  Yeah.  Well, that's what keeps coming up...

MC:  I see.

FD:  ...but let's -- wait, wait....

MC:  So what is the problem?

FD:  OK.  The problem is..The whole point is that the management, or the governing board, is not letting community into these discussions, and this is supposed to be a community radio, and that's what it was based on when it started.  Now it's changing, and I think the whole discussion is about those who want to change in a different..to a different system, which is more of a coporation system, than those who want it to be community-based and with community openly participating...

MC:  Farah...

FD:  Wait, 'cause....

MC:  You have ten seconds, 'cause we're gonna lose..we're gonna go to a computer break, so...

FD:  I know, but let me comment on one more thing...

MC:  Go ahead, quickly.

FD:  ...because the whole thing about KPFK is quality and not quantity...

MC:  Mm, hm.

FD:  We don't go after quantity -- how many people listen to it -- because..I was giving $600 a year to KPFK.  I stopped giving it this February, because the governing board choose to choose themselves.  And tell me what's different between Pinochet and the governing board of this radio station...

MC:  [chuckling]  OK.  Farah, I'm gonna have to stop you right there, because as somebody who lived through the military coup in Chile and had friends and people very close to me murdered by General Pinochet, I'm afraid that I can't countenance that sort of...I think that that's an outrage.  And if you have...You know, to compare the people who volunteer their time to the board of KPFK to General Pinochet I think robs you of a certain amount of credibility. There is an issue around the incredibly arcane and bureaucratic nature of KPFK's bureaucracy that is interesting, that we should deal with, but we don't have time right now, 'cause we're out of time.  Clearly, Mark Schubb, the listeners are engaged and interested.  There's a lot of suspicion and lots of dark rumors that persist among some, and we should do this again soon and take some more phone calls.

MS:  The thing that strikes me, in my time here, is that when you make programming decisions, especially when it means making decisions as who's gonna be on the air and who's not gonna be on the air, there's gonna be a huge number of people who are gonna have a different opinion about it, who're gonna feel that whatever standard we're trying to impose...There are people...The guy who said he was waiting to be sure that he's not gonna hear hate on the air.  There're people who feel that it was censorship not to let the people who were spewing hate continue on the air.  I will not let them continue.  Blase and Theresa made it clear they think it's arbitrary to say we can't put the Office of the Americas phone number in the commentary. We think it's an important style for raising the credibility of our news and making it sound more appealing to more listeners to bring them this radical content and these great ideas that Blase....So these differences of opinion happen. The question is, you know, how do you debate them and how do you...How do you survive in this milieu where the invective becomes so personal.  And I know we've probably sounded def...I've probably sounded defensive in this hour. But sometimes these emails come my way and leaflet come my way that are just so patently insulting.  It's as if you have a difference of opinion about how to achieve an end.  You must be on the other side and, you know...

MC:  Well, also there's a...

MS:  ...to the dark side.

MC:  I've gotta say we're taking an extra minute or two.

MS:  ...It's unfortunate.

MC:  I have to say also that..You know, I've worked for many progressive organizations.  I'm not aware of any organization that spends a lot of its time broadcasting its internal disputes.  That's not a question of defensiveness.  It's a question of that that's not why people are there.  People don't join FAIR, for example, or subscribe....

MS:  There's plenty of internal issues.

MC:  ...or subscribe to The Nation magazine to find out who and why is being fired -- other than on a dramatic basis.  To suspect that there is some kind of...One of the problems that came out in the discussion with the audience today was the suspicion that something's being covered, because we're on the air talking about it.  We're on the air talking about it because a lot of suspicous allegations have been raised, and I'm sorry that we can't provide substantiation to those rumors.  The fact is that people have the perfect right to believe that there is a rightward drift, a corporate crackdown, a quashing of democracy at KPFK.  These all might be very comforting notions for some. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, they're not true.

MS:  Well, we've made changes, and change is scary...

MC:  Yeah.

MS:  ...and people just hope it's for the best.

MC:  Well, we want to thank Frank Scarpelli, who is our technical director and engineer.  We also want to thank Brittany Martinez for her assistance today.  Heidi Pickman is producer.  Mark Schubb, general manager of KPFK, thanks for sitting on the hot seat.

MS:  My pressure.  I mean pleasure.

MC:  I'm Marc Cooper, and I have to go now to continue organizing the corporate takeover of KPFK.  However, I will be back tomorrow at four.  See you then.