We the People, in a posting to the freekpfa list suggested that Pacifica had to expand its audience, to reach out beyond the converted. I believe that the folks at We the People may not be aware of the following regarding Pacifica Radio nationally and KPFA, locally :

1. In December, 1992, the KPFA management under then General Manager Pat Scott attempted to get rid of Flashpoints and all the political and social programming in the post 7 pm slot. This was averted due to a mass protest by staff in conjunction with a listeners' movement, Save KPFA that emerged at the time.

2. On August 1, 1995, Scott, now Pacifica's Executive Secretary, acting through her appointee, KPFA GM Marci Lockwood, succeeded in eliminating all the political and social programming that they had tried to do in 1992. They replaced it with music during the week and NPR-style entertainment shows on the weekend, e.g a trivia quiz show and now Bob and Ray re-runs.

3. What this means, is that for those who work at a 9-5, there is no political or social programming. They cannot hear Jerry Brown's "We the People" in California, they cannot hear Democracy Now in Northern California, the two new good programs that are on the air.

4. KPFA has made no effort whatsoever to expand its audience in those areas which are most in need of an "alternative voice," i.e, the African-American and Latino flatlands of the Bay Area. All of KPFA's events continue to be held in North Berkeley and are addressed to a largely white, liberal, upscale audience. he three and a half hour mini-marathon program on astrology).

5. KPFA News and Public Affairs Dept. for many years, has shielded the liberal Democratic politicians of the Bay Area from any form of criticism. Consequently, news of their political shenanigans and corruption which regularly appears in the Bay Guardian and from time to time in the mainstream dailies, almost never is reported on KPFA. Moreover, the Public Affairs Dept., unlike the more mainstream KQED, NEVER invites our local Congresspeople on the air where they may be questioned and criticized by listeners. (Ron Dellums, in fact, has only been interviewed once live on the Morning Show and once, live on Flashpoints!)

If KPFA genuinely wanted to build an audience that crossed political lines they would stop trying to protect their friends. A notorious example is the sycophantic reporting on the Oakland City Council's deal to bring the Oakland Raiders back to Oakland. Not only were the Raider posters visible and available at the station, the legitimate warnings that were being made against accepting the deal-- which next year will force Oakland into bankruptcy with a $14.3 million debt -- were hardly mentioned during the Council's deliberations since good friends of the station on the City Council were behind it. In fact, the KPFA News Dept.was an accessory to the deception, and still the story is not being reported!

6. Considerable mention has been made on this list about Pat Scott's paying the American Consulting Group, a hired gun of some of America's major corporations, to 1) write a new contract for Pacifica's three unionized stations which will effectively decimate those unions and 2) represent KPFK/Pacifica in Los Angeles in a claim against KPFK for the firing of union steward Lyn Gerry. Last year alone, the Lafayette Park Hotel in Lafayette, paid the American Consulting Group, over $160,000, for its efforts to prevent the hotel staff from being unionised. Pat Scott and KPFA GM Marci Lockwood are aware of this and yet neither of them have uttered a word of criticism against ACG. All Lockwood will say is that Pacifica is not renewing their contract, and Scott won't show her face at a meeting nor will she open Pacifica's books to show how much money from listeners donations were given to ACG.

7. Once again, we are going to get the "Full Cleveland," wall- to-wall reporting on the political conventions by Pacifica, which, along with the mainstream media, would like us to believe are important news events in the body politic and worth the amount of time and money that will be devoted to bringing them to the airways. What new information are we likely to get that we don't know already?

It would far better for Pacifica to report on what Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's, describes in the July issue as the "permanent government," the one composed, in brief, of the corporations and their hirelings who, in fact, determine, the key policies in this country, as opposed to the "provisional government" of elected officials, who are essentially only distinguished from one another by their names, shirt and shoe sizes.

These conventions are nothing more than circuses designed, with an increasing lack of success, to convince the public that what is coming in November is anything more than a "demonstration election," just a little more costly and slightly more sophisticated (although that may be questionable) than the kind the US arranges in Latin America. One day, what passes for an intellectual presence at Pacifica, may come to understand this, but I am not holding my breath. Aside from Jerry Brown, no-one on Pacifica has spent as much time talking about the implications of NAFTA and GATT, as did Pat Buchanan during his brief electoral adventure.

8. Finally, since embarking on their National Programming strategy, Pacifica has become increasingly secretive. Since Scott took over as Exec. Director, its board meetings have been almost entirely behind closed doors and the minutes of their proceedings, which used to be public, no longer are. A review of the board membership does not indicate that these folks are capable, let alone have any right, to direct Pacifica away from its historic mission as a genuine alternative to the mainstream media and a "voice for the voiceless," which it no longer is.

9. We have never been comfy.

Jeffrey Blankfort