Date sent: Sun, 11 Jan 1998
From: Comrade <comrade@tao.ca>
Subject: Article in the Austin Chronicle
Howdy,
Tell me what y'all think about this article printed in the Austin Chronicle this week. It's full of misinformation and we are writing responses. Lee Nichols has no idea what's going on at Pacifica or within the Free Pacifica movement or at KOOP. We have a written sheet of paper signed by 75% of the programmers at KOOP voting to run an informational disclaimer before and after PNN. Also we had a second vote at the next programmer's meeting where again 75% of the programmers voted for the disclaimer.
Lee Nichols' charge that it was "some of the activists" that approved the disclaimer is totally wrong and I have offered Lee the documents to prove it and he has not returned my e-mail or phone calls.
Also Lee's charges that the infighting is at such a level that "morale among the station's volunteer staff has sunk like a rock" is also false. We have just finished the best pledge drive we've ever had with more people being active than ever before. This statement comes from people who Lee is friends with at KOOP. He chooses to listen to his friends views of KOOP (who are the same people who claim white males are underserved) rather than find out what is really happening.
Also his defence of the "excellent Pacifica Network News" is disgusting. This is the kind of views conservative people have about the UFW's grape boycott. Because the taste of grapes is not offensive should we ignore the boycott?
You can read the article at http://www.auschron.com/current/pols.index.html.
Please give the Austin Chronicle your opinion at mail@auschron.com.
C/
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KOOP infighting...
by Lee Nichols
The Austin Chronicle
KOOP radio was put on the air in 1994 by a group of visionaries
who dared to ask: Could a bunch of left-of-center music lovers and political
activists get together and operate a radio station free of an oppressive
hierarchy, sticking to idealistic, cooperative principles? Three years
later, the answer is "apparently not." Some of the station's
activists, in their zeal to be more left than thou, cost the station a
broadcasting agreement with the excellent Pacifica Network News by constantly
attacking (using a daily, on-air disclaimer) Pacifica
for its disagreements with its labor force. To hear the anti-Pacifica
faction tell it, one would think that the venerable pacifist radio network
was running a Third World sweatshop. Pacifica
finally parted ways with KOOP in October and will soon move over to
KAZI. And now, charges of racism among the staff are being flung about,
and some KOOP programmers report that morale among the station's volunteer
staff has sunk like a rock. We have seen the enemy, and it is us. Will
the left ever stop attacking itself long enough to accomplish anything?
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