On December 29, 1996 Jeffrey Blankfort of Take Back KPFA wrote

Maria Gilardin received the following letter from Jeff Cohen, director of FAIR and passed it on to me since it contains several references to my activities although curiously enough,I am not mentioned by name and Cohen has made no attempt either to communicate with me directly or respond to my request to speak with him by telephone. She has given me permission to post his letter since while it is addressed to her, its accusations reflect on all of Pacifica's critics. My comments in response to his statements follow at the end of his letter. Maria has not yet written her response, but when she does it will be posted.- Jeffrey Blankfort

COHEN'S LETTER:

FAIR 130 W. 25th St.
NY, NY 10001.
Tel: (212) 633-6700 Fax: 727- 7668

Dec. 13, 1996

Maria Gilardin
c/o Take Back KPFA
P.O. Box 13557
Berkeley, CA 94712

Dear Maria Gilardin:

I noticed in your Take Back KPFA Materials a misinformed and misleading reference to FAIR: "...other groups either openly criticized the NPRization of Pacifica or are remaining silent, like FAIR."

FAIR has not been silent about Pacifica.

In the ten years that I've headed FAIR, I have loudly praised Pacifica - and continue to - as one of the most important alternative media outlets in the country, and the most important daily alternative news source that I'm aware of.

On the other hand, FAIR is appalled that Pacifica would have anything to do with a consulting firm associated with union busting. We support union rights and believe public interest organizations should function in a democratic and accountable manner.

As for "NPRization of Pacifica," I have heard such critiques from some Pacifica listners - mostly in the Bay Area - for over six years now. Given our long-standing, well-documented criticism of the biases ("Beltway Bias," pro-Gulf War, pro-corporate, etc.) of NPR's national news, if FAIR had found a serious trend toward "NPRization" in the content of Pacifica news and public affairs, we'd certainly be critiquing it. But we haven't.

While I've voiced concerns a few times at hearing Pacifica national news lapse into inaccurate or imprecise AP-style lingo, FAIR has never found anything resembling an "NPRization" of Pacifica's news content. Specific complaints to FAIR from listeners about on-air content have often been unfounded, empty or isolated examples. Recently, for instance, I checked out the innuendo that KPFK was somehow suppressing a Ralph Nader speech taped by David Barsamiam - and found that the accuser had his facts all wrong and that KPFK was readying the speech for special high-profile promotion. If you expect FAIR to take seriously the diatribes I've seen about "Pathetica" news, you misunderstand FAIR's function as a media watch group that chooses well- researched content analysis over name-calling.

On a leaflet referring to KQED-TV's plan to have a program on Robert Mondavi be partly funded by Mondavi interests, you ask: "What are going to do about public media?"

Frankly, FAIR doesn't see any connection between the problems of PBS, for example, and Pacifica. I'm sure you're familiar with our studies of PBS. Our last published survey of who speaks and who doesn't on PBS public affairs programs found a domination by those in the economic, governing and pundit elites -- and invisibility for others: advocates for racial minorities (only 1.6%); labor (0.9%); environmentalists (0.6%); feminists (0.2%); gays and lesbians (0.0%). Our study of PBS's "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" showed a bias toward white, male elite experts; while analysts from right-wing think tanks were the most frequently-seen, progressive think tanks were virtually censored. If you have statistical research showing anything approaching such bias at Pacifica, please send it to me.

FAIR's main concern with Pacifica over the years has been that it remains an underutilized resource with too few listners. In this era whe one right-wing talk show host speaks to 20 million people per week, Pacifica needs to work on attracting new listeners, including those that aren't already progressive activists.

One final note: FAIR continues to receive lengthy, repitious e- mail transmissions from at least one of the signers of your letter - despite repeated polite requests that we no longer be sent them. As we primarily use e-mail to communicate between staff and associates, these transmissions interfere with our work. Please do what you can to get these e-mail communications stopped.

Sincerely,

Jeff Cohen

JEFFREY BLANKFORT'S COMMENTS:

Cohen writes:

In the ten years that I've headed FAIR, I have loudly praised Pacifica - and continue to - as one of the most important alternative media outlets in the country, and the most important daily alternative news source that I'm aware of.

Blankfort responds:

I agree that Pacifica is one of "the most important alternative media outlets in the country,etc." but I and others who either have been directly involved with Pacifica as programmers, staff or as listener/supporters have observed in recent years that what Pacifica considers to be "alternative" is being more narrowly and more "safely" defined. As for the reference to "daily alternative news source," I assume Cohen is referring to the usually excellent "Democracy Now" and not to the Pacifica Network News, which is not only undistinguished but is often indistinguishable in its reporting and its selection of sources from NPR.

Cohen writes:

On the other hand, FAIR is appalled that Pacifica would have anything to do with a consulting firm associated with union busting. We support union rights and believe public interest organizations should function in a democratic and accountable manner.

Blankfort's response:

I am pleased and I am sure others will be to note that Cohen/FAIR is "appalled" by Pacifica's use of the American Consulting Group. We had hoped that FAIR would have made its opinion known in a form more public than a private letter and at a time when such a statement would have been particularly useful. Perhaps, we have we missed some public statement regarding this on Cohen's part or on the part of some other FAIR associate.

Cohen and the staff at FAIR have been made aware that over the past year and a half Pacifica has held all but a few hours of its national board meetings behind closed doors. In so doing Pacifica clearly violated CPB regulations and federal "open meeting" laws required of all stations that receive public funding. This has led to public criticism of Pacifica's actions by the California Coalition for the First Amendment and a complaint, on our part, filed with the CPB. Where does FAIR stand on this issue?

Cohen writes:

As for "NPRization of Pacifica," I have heard such critiques from some Pacifica listeners - mostly in the Bay Area - for over six years now. Given our long-standing, well-documented criticism of the biases ("Beltway Bias," pro-Gulf War, pro-corporate, etc.) of NPR's national news, if FAIR had found a serious trend toward "NPRization" in the content of Pacifica news and public affairs, we'd certainly be critiquing it. But we haven't.

Blankfort replies:

I don't quite know another way to describe it, other than NPRization, when I (and others) heard the right-wing Heritage Foundation being used as a regular source for comments on the day's news last year. It was only when I raised this issue through e-mail to Pacifica Network News (with a copy to Cohen and to EXTRA!) and when Maria Gilardin publicly challenged PNN News Director Julie Drizen at the Media and Democracy Congress in San Francisco last March, that the flow of Heritage comments was reduced to a dribble.

It was unfortunately replaced by almost daily comments by State Department spokespersons on almost every issue imaginable and this, too, was only reduced by publicizing such inexplicable usage by a self-styled "alternative news" program on the internet. On one occasion, I pointed out that the voice of State Dept. spokesperson Nicholas Burns was heard commenting on three successive stories!

Cohen writes:

While I've voiced concerns a few times at hearing Pacifica National news lapse into inaccurate or imprecise AP-style lingo, FAIR has never found anything resembling an "NPRization" of Pacifica's news content. Specific complaints to FAIR from listeners about on-air content have often been unfounded, empty or isolated examples. Recently, for instance, I checked out the innuendo that KPFK was somehow suppressing a Ralph Nader speech taped by David Barsamian - and found that the accuser had his facts all wrong and that KPFK was readying the speech for special high-profile promotion. If you expect FAIR to take seriously the diatribes I've seen about "Pathetica" news, you misunderstand FAIR's function as a media watch group that chooses well- researched content analysis over name-calling.

Blankfort responds:

Does Cohen consider the allegations concerning PNN's use of the Heritage Foundation (with no other description to the listener than "conservative") and that of the State Dept. to be "unfounded, empty or isolated."? If Macneil-Lehrer had used them half as much as PNN has, I am sure Cohen & Co. would be hot on their case. Pacifica Network News's repeated use of the Heritage Fndn., by the way, is what led me to refer to it as the Pathetica National News.

As for his description of what happened vis a vis the Nader speech and KPFK, instead of "well-researched content analysis" Cohen has obviously swallowed the version put out by his former FAIR colleague Mark Schubb, who is now managing KPFK and his present crony at FAIR Jim Horwitz, who sits on KPFK's Advisory Board. Hmmm, am I paranoid in perceving a conflict of interest here?

While I am sure Cohen will hear the truth from folks in LA, I have seen a transcript of the memo sent by Schubb to the station's programmers, telling them not to use the Nader speech (during a critical period in the election campaign) because Schubb wanted it saved so it could be given as a premium during a future marathon fundraiser. So much for Cohen's "high profile."

Cohen writes:

On a leaflet referring to KQED-TV's plan to have a program on Robert Mondavi be partly funded by Mondavi interests, you ask: "What are going to do about public media?"

Frankly, FAIR doesn't see any connection between the problems of PBS, for example, and Pacifica. I'm sure you're familiar with our studies of PBS. Our last published survey of who speaks and who doesn't on PBS public affairs programs found a domination by those in the economic, governing and pundit elites -- and invisibility for others: advocates for racial minorities (only <1.6%); labor (0.9%); environmentalists (0.6%); feminists (0.2%); gays and lesbians (0.0%). Our study of PBS's "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" showed a bias toward white, male elite experts; while analysts from right-wing think tanks were the most frequently- seen, progressive think tanks were virtually censored. If you have statistical research showing anything approaching such bias at Pacifica, please send it to me.

Blankfort replies:

Pacifica's critics, whether they be Take Back KPFA, Pacifica Accountability Committee in LA or the folks at WBAI, do not have the personnel or the facilities to do the statistical research that Cohen suggests concerning Pacifica Network News. We thought, obviously inocrrectly, that was his job. However, as a frequent listener to PNN, I would suggest that the categories in which PBS is faulted have not fared significantly better on PNN.

In fact, what is more important than any single one of those categories is that PNN has an obvious policy of NOT seeking out any genuine radical comments on the news of the day from any of those in the progressive community such as Noam Chomsky, Alex Cockburn, Michael Parenti, Helen Caldicott, AND yes, Ralph Nader, whose speeches are used as "cash cows" during fundraising time at the individual Pacifica stations.

Since PNN goes to 70 stations outside of the Pacifica network, the thoughts of those individuals and others like them, are effectively being censored by PNN as much as they are by NPR. In fact, when a recent major story broke on East Timor, PRI-BBC's "The World" actually interviewed Noam Chomsky, who was writing and speaking on the subject well before anyone on the left became aware of it.

As for the use of "right-wing think tanks," I would wager with Mr. Cohen that between, let us say, July 1995 and July 1996, that Pacifica Network News broadcast, without criticism, more comments from the Heritage Foundation, the daddy of such think tanks, than did any program on National Public Radio. PNN's Julie Drizen's public explanation for using the Heritage Foundation was that "our listeners need to know what they are saying." Since Norman Solomon did an excellent piece for FAIR on the Heritage Foundation its pervasive influence on the media, I should not have to point out to Cohen how ridiculous was her reply under the circumstances.

Cohen writes:

FAIR'S main concern with Pacifica over the years has been that it remains an underutilized resource with too few listeners. In this era when one right-wing talk show host speaks to 20 million people per week, pacifica needs to work on attracting new listeners, including those that aren't already progressive activists.

Blankfort's response:

While I am sure it is pure coincidence, this paragraph could have been lifted directly from the excuses (excuse me, reasons) presented by Pacifica CEO Pat Scott and her underlings such as KPFA's Marci Lockwood and KPFK's Schubb to justify the mainstream direction in which Pacifica is moving, exemplified by a National Programming Strategy approved by the Pacifica Board in 1993 and the 5-year Strategic Plan which the Pacifica staff and its rubber stamp board have been putting together over the past year and which it will approve at its meeting in Houston in January, a plan in which neither staff nor listener/supporters have been allowed to have any input.

A key part of this plan has been to move away from grassroots- based programming and toward national programming, to abandon Pacifica's long history of involving volunteers in favor of a smaller, more "professional" paid staff whose livelihood depends on the whims of management.

We also believe that Pacifica has to enlarge its audience, but what audience and at what costs? KPFA management decided more than a year ago to have only one half hour of labor programming each week yet in September it began airing a show that devotes one hour a week to astrological interpretations of the news provided by a New Ager calling from her phone in Washington DC? Is that what Cohen means? To supplant discussion of national health care with hours of self-medication for New Age yuppies? By canceling all the public affairs programs after 7 pm and replacing them with music such has KPFA has done for the past year and a half? Is that what he means?

Now, we have learned that KPFA (read Pacifica) management is planning to eliminate Flashpoints, the hard-hitting (to use the broadest vernacular) investigative show that has given KPFA its greatest claim to be an alternative to the mainstream media since it came on the air during the Gulf War crisis in 1991. This show and its driving force, Dennis Bernstein, have been a target of Pacifica CEO Pat Scott since she was the station general manager.

It might have been removed from the air in 1993 had not other staff and listeners protested massive changes that were in the works at that time, changes which eventually were implemented in the great purge of August, 1995, a purge which incidentally included Norman Solomon's "Making Contact," one of the best news half-hours on the air.

If Pacifica is going to have national programs, Flashpoints should have been the first considered. And what does KPFA plan to put in that time slot? I understand it will be "national" talk show featuring that "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil about Pacifica," loyal team player, Larry Bensky who still pretends that behind the criticism of Pacifica "there is a small number of former programmers and wanna-bes who will never be satisfied unless their show is restored or instituted" (SF Bay Guardian, 12/25).

This is, of course, pure bullshit and Bensky knows it. It is only by letting Pat Scott write his lines, however, that what one TBKer described as Pacifica's "National Correspondent for Life" will get his national show.

As for reaching a larger audience, suggestions made, at least locally, that KPFA actually reach out into those communities who have no voice (part of Pacifica's stated mission), that KPFA break through its love affair with the local liberal political establishment and actually do some critical investigative reporting on what that establishment is up to, to report on issues that directly concern the day-to-day lives of more than a select group of listeners in its signal area, have fallen on deaf ears.

Cohen concludes:

One final note: FAIR continues to receive lengthy, repetitious e-mail transmissions from at least one of the signers of your letter - despite repeated polite requests that we no longer be sent them. As we primarily use e-mail to communicate between staff and associates, these transmissions interfere with our work. Please do what you can to get these e-mail communications stopped.

Blankfort responds:

When Cohen uses the term "one of the signers" he is referring to me. I was regularly sending Cohen and the editors of FAIR's magazine, EXTRA! pertinent information on what was happening with Pacifica and KPFA and in the belief that as a media watchdog, it was important for FAIR to be informed and to if not to take a position, at least to inform its reading public that a conflict between Pacifica and a significant number of former programmers. Evidently, I was mistaken. I had not realized at the time that there exists a left-liberal media establishment that is as protective of its own as the mainstream media is of its own, and FAIR is a charter member of that establishment.

In fact, however, I only received one direct request from FAIR to stop the e-mail (which was, basically, key documents related to KPFA and Pacifica) It followed by a few days, and e-mail to Cohen asking him to call me on the phone to discuss the Pacifica issue. In return, I received an unsigned request to stop sending FAIR e- mail on Pacifica. Here was my reply on July 10 of this year:

I have read the unsigned request from FAIR to stop ccing their office and magazine, EXTRA! with information about what is happening with Pacifica.

I have been sending material to both the FAIR office and to EXTRA! with the hope that, FAIR, as the primary media watchdog of the left, would report to its readers what is happening within Pacifica.

After the first request to stop, I complied, but then I learned that at a recent meeting of FAIR's "central committee," it was decided to do nothing, i.e., that the Pacifica story was "not fit to print."

I am now willing to give up in my efforts to persuade FAIR to see where its responsibilities lie, and restrict my fingers from forwarding FAIR and EXTRA! any more updates on the Pacifica situation. it is apparently a waste of my time and theirs. I only insist on one thing. When you make a request to me, please sign your name. When you do so I will stop. Okay?

Receiving no reply, I continued to e-mail Cohen and EXTRA! with factual information that has been posted to this list regarding Pacifica. On December 19, six days after Cohen sent this letter, EXTRA! editor Jim Naureckas e-mailed me a request to stop sending him more e-mail. A copy of this letter will be my last communication with him and to Cohen by this means.

Jeffrey Blankfort .