The Oakland Tribune
April 16, 1997

BERKELEY - Amid apparently unfounded rumors that Berkeley alternative FM station KPFA may be for sale, dissident listeners are rallying the troops to attend a station public advisory board meeting tonight.

KPFA emphatically denies the "for sale" report, which was published by a San Francisco television columnist and has circulated widely on the Internet.

"Opponents of KPFA have a pattern of throwing out allegations with no facts and seeing what sticks," said Bert Glass, a spokesman for the Pacifica Foundation, which owns the nonprofit listener-supported station. "KPFA is absolutely not for sale."

Offers do come in, but they are always turned down, Glass said.

Even Bob Bergstresser, a leader in the dissident movement Take Back KPFA, admits the reports may amount to nothing more than an attempt by a broker specializing in radio license sales to drum up business.

But the rumor points up a central complaint of Take Back KPFA, Bergstresser said.

The Berkeley-based Pacifica Foundation, which owns and controls KPFA, WBAI and FM stations KPFK Los Angeles, KPFT Houston and WPFW Washington, has become increasingly secretive and that KPFA has lost its hard, political edge, he said. And new proposals on selection of Pacifica board members promise even more centralized control, he said.

One proposal would cut the local KPFA advisory board's right to select board members for the Pacifica national board to one member from two. The second KPFA representative would be named by management.

Dissidents complained to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year that Pacifica is violating nonprofit rules by holding board meetings mostly closed to the public.

Pacifica replies that parts of board meetings are open.

The dissident movement began in 1995, when KPFA purged a number of longtime commentators and embarked on a new format that the furor has not eased.

In the past KPFA and Pacifica managers have characterized the group as a small band of former staff members and their friends.

But Bergstresser and other dissidents, including Sasha Futran, who is an elected board member of KQED, Channel 9, says it's much larger and they're concerned with things like Pacifica's decision to hire an advisory company with a history of union busting.

There's a core steering group of less than 15, but the last public dissident meeting drew over 400 listeners, dissidents said.

"My personal motivation is reform." Bergstresser said, "You do a content analysis of KPFA's programming and you can chart movement toward softness. It's soft, very soft."

However, Glass, who was recently hired as Pacifica's communications director, said audience ratings and listener contributions are up.

Tonight's meeting of the KPFA Advisory Board will be at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Hearst Avenue.

4/16/97

Letter to the Editor
Oakland Tribune
FAX - 208-6477

Editor:

William Brand's article on KPFA (Sale rumors excite, rally KPFA critics - 4/16/97) brought out four important points of concern for supporters of KPFA and its parent, Pacifica Foundation -- the whittling down of community and staff representation on the Pacifica national board, the increasing secrecy in which the Foundation does its public business, the use of a known "union-busting" labor-negotiating firm, and the "dumbing down" and political softening of content within the Pacifica stations to reach a lowest common denominator in order to grow the Pacifica audience at any cost.

It also illumined the kind of deliberately misleading, often false, labeling KPFA and Pacifica management have used for several years when describing the "dissidents". Newly hired Pacifica spokesperson, Bert Glass (formerly with the Justice Department), speaks of "opponents of KPFA", when he surely understands that the "dissident" group members are specifically strong supporters of the station and of Pacifica. It is current management and the current direction we oppose, and the secrecy in which they are making major changes that have already negatively affected the very fabric of the Foundation and the public stations it owns.

The dissident group is not composed of disaffected programmers, as Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott is also well aware. It is composed of strong supporters (including some present and former programmers), of the Pacifica stations, and is not limited to Take Back KPFA in the Bay Area. It is a loosely organized nation-wide group working under the rubric of FreePacifica, bringing to the public the information you will not hear from Pacifica Network News - that we are fast losing the best source of honest news, alternative viewpoints, incisive political analysis and cultural programming.

Marianne Torres
Take Back KPFA