Pubished in the SF Bay Guardian's Letters Section
July 2, 1997

Letters to the Editor

KPFA's time warp

Sasha Futran, elected member of the KQED board, is also an active member of Take Back KPFA. She exploded in outrage during the hour of public comment at the recent Oakland meeting of the board of Pacifica, which owns KPFA: How dare the board schedule the comment period after the entire meeting, when all business had been completed? What greater display of contempt for listeners could be imagined? [See "Cracks in the Armour," 6/18/97.]

They gave us two minutes each to express our views. Having been a broadcaster on KPFA from 1958 to 1995, I have a knowledge of the station's history that enables me to make comparisons others cannot. So I used my 120 seconds to say the following:

It was nice to see that young people are being trained. It will not mean much to KPFA's programming until, as happened after the 1960 HUAC hearing and the Free Speech Movement of 1964-65, these young people account for the majority of our broadcasting time. That will hardly be possible so long as four programs preempt 20 hours a week. Cutting them in half would enable each of the kids we heard today to have a weekly half-hour program.

The board did not discuss why the revolutionary -- or counterrevolutionary -- strategy for national programming aimed at doubling listenership in two years has been a total failure.

The board did not discuss why so mildly liberal a publication as Z Magazine has taken a position of direct opposition to its present practices.

The board did not discuss why, in the one listening area -- KPFA's -- where the print media has published ongoing criticism of station and Pacifica policies, the most recent fund-raising drive was a resounding failure, seeking $500,000 and obtaining only $370,000, a 36 percent shortfall, despite the fact that Take Back KPFA did not campaign against the drive.

The board took absolutely no notice of the current situation in the country, in which, for the first time in the 140 years since John Brown, people have been moved to engage in utmost violence against the government as such.

In a word, the board lives in a time warp. Except for some of the technical information in executive director Pat Scott's report, the discussions at this meeting could have occurred at any time in the 20 years since the end of the Vietnam War.

The stations will not move ahead until they once again become leaders in people's movements.

WILLIAM M. MANDEL Berkeley