The New York Times, May 12, 1997

Pacifica Radio Dances Clamorously Toward Mainstream

By IVER PETERSON

Its name means "peaceful" in Spanish and its stated mission is to promote understanding among different groups of people. But financial pressure to reach a wider audience has supporters of Pacifica Radio, the left-oriented network based in Berkeley, Calif., in a rancorous argument over what goes on the air and who should decide.

In a way, the argument about programming and control -- at the network's founding station, KPFA in Berkeley, and others -- is part of the wider debate about the purity or popularity of public broadcasting. But Pacifica's long tradition of advocacy and of anything-goes programming has made the adjustment all the harder to make.

As federal funds have stagnated and much of Pacifica's old radical audience has moved to mainstream fare, friction between professional managers and staff volunteers has grown. The network has moved to take power away from local advisory boards and give it to station managers, and to redraw program schedules to discard some of the more arcane, narrowly focused material.

"People were not listening," said Pat Scott, executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, which governs the network, with its five affiliated stations. In addition to KPFA, they are WBAI in New York, KPFK in Los Angeles, KPFT in Houston and WPFW in Washington. Some Pacifica programming can also be heard on other stations.

"The mission and vision of Pacifica is to promote peace and understanding," Ms. Scott said, "and my position as executive director, and the position of the board of directors, is that we cannot fulfill our mission if people are not listening."

Last month, however, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which gives Pacifica about $1 million a year, issued the results of an audit sought by opponents of the changes. The report accuses the Pacifica Foundation of, among other things, failing to comply with federal open-meeting laws and of undermining the autonomy of each station's local advisory boards.

The audit was requested by a group called Take Back KPFA, which opposes the programming and management changes at the Berkeley station, a place where studio clocks were once banned as a way of freeing radio from time itself.

Inspector General Armando Arvizu recommended on April 9 that Pacifica be given six months to comply with the audit's findings for open meetings and public notification or risk its funds.

Ms. Scott called the audit "completely false." She and Take Back KPFA will appear before the corporation in Washington next Monday.

Ms. Scott said that local Pacifica stations had wide production freedom, and that the only network program they were required to broadcast was a daily newscast from Washington.

At the same time, she insisted that KPFA's small audience made a more regular program schedule a necessity. "We had a lot of balkanizing in our programming," Ms. Scott said. "We had one program on Palestinians and one on Israelis and one on black Americans and so on, and we are moving away from that, and because this had been the tenor of the station for a long time, people are upset about it."

Jeffrey Blankfort, a leader in Take Back KPFA, argued that some program changes might have been necessary, but that the Pacifica Foundation had been high-handed in cutting the authority of local advisers, volunteer programmers and technicians.

"The positive thing about Pacifica Radio has always been that it was community-based and community-oriented and basically staffed by volunteers," said Blankfort, a teacher. "Pat Scott has tried to eliminate volunteers and to impose mainstream block programming, and this stands in contradiction to the long history of Pacifica."

Other Places of Interest on the Web

Pacifica Radio http://www.pacifica.org/

Corporation for Public Broadcasting http://www.cpb.org/

KPFA http://www.KPFA.org/

Copyright 1997 The New York Times