| Anchor: | Veteran Pacifica radio correspondent Larry Bensky has
been dismissed after nearly thirty years of broadcasting
at KPFA and Pacifica. Bensky was handed a two-sentence
termination letter after he got off the air Monday afternoon.
An action Bensky calls "cruel" and "arbitrary..." |
|
Bensky: | "As of last Monday when I got off the air from doing the
first 'Impeachment Watch' program I found out...with a note
handed me as I left the announcing booth...that I was no
longer the anchor of either 'Living Room" or any impeachment
programs, and that I was terminated as a paid programmer
for Pacifica radio. So my current status is terminated." |
| Anchor: | I understand however that you've been offered a new position? |
| Bensky: | "I was offered a half-time job as 'National Affairs Correspondent'
which as long-time Pacifica listeners will know was what I was
doing before I began to host 'Living Room' a year and half ago.
And the reason why I don't do it any more and couldn't do it
any more and didn't WANT to do it any more is that I wasn't ABLE
to do it any more. I am now the father of a wonderful 22-month
old daughter...I knew that was about to happen...we had negotiated
a different status for me so that I wouldn't have to travel so
much, be in Washington etc. Offering me a job which requires
me to put in endless overtime and a lot of travel is a way of
offering me a job that they know I can't accept. So I was
offered this half-time job with the full knowledge on the
part of Pacifica management, I believe, that I couldn't accept
it. Especially since...since the time we first negotiated this...
regular listeners will remember that earlier this year I had
severe health problems - pneumonia, which has now become sort
of a chronic asthma. And I'm less than ever willing and able to
go travelling into all kinds of climates all times of year
and jeopardize my health. So that offer I don't believe was
a serious one." |
| Anchor: | The termination letter was issued after Bensky first agreed,
and then declined, to continue hosting the one-hour long
new Pacifica program called "Impeachment Watch," which aired
daily this week at 4 p.m. and reported on the House Judiciary
Committee proceeding. Bensky had said he would not work the
extensive overtime hours required for the "Impeachment Watch"
program, unless he had a commitment that Pacifica would air
a weekly Sunday morning talk program which has been under
discussion for many months. The Sunday morning program was
to replace the daily noon program "Living Room" for which
Bensky served as host. "Living Room" goes off the air
December 31st. Pacifica Executive Director Lynn Chadwick
at first agreed to comment for this story, then declined,
citing Pacifica's policy of not discussing internal matters
on the air, and saying there are personnel issues involved
that she cannot talk about. Chadwick did provide KPFA with
a draft of a letter to Pacifica board members with the draft
of a letter to Pacifica board members. The letter says that
"regrettably funds were not identified for the weekly Sunday
morning talk show, and that Bensky had informed Pacifica that
he did not wish to continue serving as National Affairs
Correspondent." Bensky says he has raised hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of dollars for Pacifica, and that the small
amount of money needed for the weekly program could have been
raised easily. According to a Pacifica memo dated November 24, the
shortfall of money was indeed small, just fifteen thousand
dollars out of a budget of forty-one thousand dollars for the
rest of the fiscal year. Pacifica's total annual budget is
now almost eight million dollars. Bensky says he has a message
for Chadwick and other top Pacifica managers. |
| Bensky: | "You people really have to understand what radio is about, what
national radio is about, and how human beings need to be treated.
I'm not the first person who's been treated in a very arbitrary
and unfair and cruel way by this network. We go on the air and
we talk about things like human rights in Nigeria, and the excesses
of brutality against people in this country and all over the world,
and yet when it comes to how we treat our own people, should they
perhaps have become a little less energetic over the years, and
not able to do what they were once able to do, to take somebody
at that point and kick him down the stairs and tell him when he's
sixty-one years old, well, you're not going to have health insurance
any more, you're not going to be able to tell listeners who have
to some extent come to depend on you and identify with you as
the voice of Pacifica what happened to you and your program, you're not
going to be able to do any of that. And after almost thirty years
they say, 'here's a two sentence letter, get the hell out.' I
tell them that I think that sucks." |
| Anchor: | Your letter draws a distinction between what Pacifica has done and
what KPFA has done. |
| Bensky: | "Yes, it's very important for KPFA listeners to understand that, first
of all, as you can tell because you're hearing this news story on
KPFA, KPFA is very different from the rest of Pacifica. What has
been done to me has been done by Pacifica management, however that's
evolved and has been defined. The general manager of KPFA, Nicole
Sawaya, the head of the KPFA local advisory board, Sherry Gendelman,
and many people on the KPFA staff have indicated that they think
this is as outrageous as I think it is, and they would like to
see it reversed." |
| Anchor: | KPFA has been inundated with calls about Bensky's status. Bensky
says he feels particularly sorry that he's unable to be a part
of Pacifica's coverage of one of the major political stories of
this decade...the impeachment of President Clinton. |
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