Published in ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER, 10/30/93.

KPFA/Pacifica (&KZYX?) Reach for Mainstream "Market"

Critique of "A Strategy for National Programming"
by William Mandel

Issues: Principles, Facts, Language, Proposed Strategy.

    The basic principle is that we do have national programming, aiming at getting the largest possible number of stations to carry Pacifica's services. That can only be welcomed. The fact that "45-50 other community stations now use Pacifica news and special events programs" is splendid.

    The proposed strategy would be better if it were founded on more accurate knowledge. The document says: "Pacifica took its first step toward national programming in the late 70s." In fact, it happened in 1958, when the manager of KPFA, then Pacifica's only station, Harold Winkler, got my program onto five other stations within six months of the time it went on the air. When he was authorized to expand our network, and KPFK and WBAI were, respectively, founded and acquired, my program was carried on all three from the week they went on the air, and for the next ten years. I am sure other programs also were. Incidentally, it is amazing how much was done, organizationally, in fund-raising and in programming, with a national staff of only two people: Winkler and his secretary.

    The national mood of opposition to central authority among young people in the 60s was reflected, in Pacifica, by demands for independence by KPFK and WBAI. This was the underlying reason for the fact that a decade elapsed before national programming was resumed. In addition, individual programmers, including myself, made personal arrangements with some of our own stations and others to carry programs.

    The document says that the purpose of founding the national news bureau "was to cut down on the cost and duplication involved with each station covering national and international news on its own." But a Berkeley slant on that news is as different from one out of Washington as Ron Dellums' is from that of the rest of Congress. That is why KPFA's News Department wants only a national news feed, out of which it can use just what it wants, rather than compulsory use of the national newscast, which is the new Pacifica policy.

    The document is permeated with language that is at odds with the spirit of Pacifica, and reflects the terminology of commercial radio. Over and over one sees the words "markets," "marketplace," "market share," "packaged." Shit can be prettily packaged, perfumed and in smell-proof plastic. A market is a place one enters to sell goods and services for profit. Ours is a non-profit organization. We engage in activities that seek to make money not with that as an end in itself, but to fund our continued existence, improve our services, and expand our audience share. I would substitute the word "audience" for "market" except in the rare instances in which "market" in the narrow sense is what is meant.

    The document is full of a cost-benefit psychology. By that standard we should cut out avant-garde music and literature and whatever else does not pay for itself at marathon time. No, we do not want snob stations. But we have every right to be proud of our position at the cutting edge. We have a long list of programming firsts that did not initially bring us much money, and some of which may never have. But our reputation for pioneering has been the basis for listener support, and in that sense an overall financial asset.

    I am also disturbed by the linking of "growth" and "survival": "Pacifica stations must reach out to larger audiences both within and beyond their own markets" (! no: "range") "in order to experience the kind of growth that will assure their survival into the next century." That's a non-sequitur. KPFA existed for a decade when it was our only station. The existence of our other stations has always been a financial drain on KPFA.
That does not mean they should be abandoned. It does mean that growth, while absolutely desirable, is not a requirement for survival.

    Likewise: "Most community stations' current market" (ugh!) "share, including Pacifica's, is too small to provide the financial basis needed to operate soundly." KPFA has operated soundly for 43 years, as recognized by the fact that a bank extended the loan for the new building without collateral. Cheers to our executives who swung that, whatever our disagreements with them on other matters.

    Turning to strategy. The proposal for the national news-oriented programs calls for "anchors and contributors" who will be "well-known." What does that mean? As "radio personalities"? Or as people with something to say: Manning Marable, who has dozens of Black, plus community and university stations carrying his broadcasts; Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, who bring us money with their lectures, subsequently broadcast. I don't know that any of them would want to be an anchor, and I don't know a well-known anchor we would want, or a person we would want who is today a well-known anchor.

    This relates to the proposed salary schedule. Why the hell should the program "host" get $40,000 a year, as proposed, when so many of us have hosted programs for years and decades free of charge not because of a vow of poverty or lack of skill, but to enable stations to exist free of advertising revenue and therefore free of all censorship not ordered by the FCC? The issue is not whether $40,000 is less than PBS pays, if that is the case. Working for Pacifica is a higher honor, and more fulfilling. People need pay adequate to live on. But when you get too far above the national average, it is impossible to go on thinking from the standpoint of the ordinary Jane or Joe. That is said with all respect for the talents and hard work of our present executives.

    My strongest disagreement is with the notion that the national production center should be in Washington. My reasoning is founded on the document's assumption that we have a "white suburban West Coast audience." Was Gus Newport, ultra-radical mayor of Berkeley, white suburban? Is Ron Dellums, who came out of Berkeley's City Council? Neither of them would have been elected without the airing of their views on KPFA. This is not a matter of political partisanship, but (1) that our view of news differs from that of commercial radio, and (2) that so many of our unpaid broadcasters and guests sympathized with their views, and publicized their names, in a manner that was and is entirely legitimate.

    The same sentence in the document says our news should become "more urban-oriented." Are Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley villages? Reagan had 101 people shot in Berkeley in a single day over People's Park, which brought out a protest parade of 50,000. Find that in suburbia. Were the Black Panthers suburbia? KPFA was the first station in the country to give them air time. When the Symbionese Liberation Army chose KPFA to release its communiques to, was that suburbia? (This is no endorsement of their tactics.) When Steve Zeltzer brings labor people to discuss issues on KPFA, is that suburbia? Or our news department's coverage of the Summit Hospital strike, which inspired unions nationally with the conviction that it is possible to win even in these times? Yes, the Peace and Freedom Party did particularly well in Sonoma County, where we have lots of listeners. Is that Westchester or Chevy Chase or the Virginia side of the Potomac? The movement against the Vietnam War originated in Berkeley, not in Washington or anywhere else. And the first truly mass demonstrations were in San Francisco.

    Pacific came into being in Berkeley fundamentally because the San Francisco area was the last stronghold of the spirit of frontier democracy, and because it was the one place in the country where the New Deal alliance between labor and professionals and intellectuals was never smashed by the witch-hunt (I lived in New York til 1957, was a congressional candidate and a witch-hunt houndee there and in Washington, and lectured nationally; I know whereof I speak.) Essentially, it is that spirit of freedom which attracted the very large gay population that has come in recent decades. The gay movement did not start in Washington, but in New York and San Francisco.

    The only thing that ever originates in Washington is laws, but good laws are imposed upon Washington by national movements. Pacifica suffered badly when, for years, its national headquarters was shifted from Berkeley to Los Angeles. The spirit there was totally different, as reflected today and for several years past by the troubles at KPFK.

    There should be national programming, and it should come out of Berkeley, where those doing it will be affected by the spirit of the area -- where the probable new head of the House Armed Services Committee is not a scary unknown, but someone who draws strength from us and from whom we draw strength in turn.

    There must be no required broadcasting of national programs by any Pacifica station. To force the present weak-tea viewpoint of our present national news upon Berkeley is to antagonize much of our listenership, which thinks differently. And to force Berkeley's point of view upon our other stations, operating in communities with different atmospheres, would be just as bad. Our national news service and our Berkeley news programming should continue to be separate. The national programming should, of course, keep the national mood in mind. But it should give leadership. And that is what the spirit of the Bay Area encourages. ___