For those who don't know already know, Pacifica Radio is a network of progressive stations that broadcasts to NY City (WBAI), Los Angeles (KPFK), Berkeley/SF (KPFA), Houston (KPFT), and Washington DC (WPFW), plus numerous syndicated offerings that play on many other stations throughout the country. It is arguably the most important U.S. progressive media resource and it is currently wracked by internal dissension and struggle.

Pacifica was founded just after World War II to create an independent, noncommercial radio network in the service of peace, social and racial justice, and the arts. In their own words: "Pacifica's KPFK in Los Angeles has the strongest FM signal anywhere in the United States. KPFA is the strongest FM signal in Northern California. WBAI in New York transmits from the premier location in its metro area, the Empire State Building. The market value of these five licenses alone exceeds $100 million dollars. Pacifica owns the land and studio and office facilities in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Houston, and its transmission tower and property in Berkeley." More, "Pacifica's five owned and operated stations' signals reach 22 percent of American radio homes. Pacifica programming draws an audience of 708,300 listeners each week, and the 55 affiliate stations broadcasting Pacifica national programming add an estimated 500,000 - 1,000,000."

The current Pacifica conflict rages at a time when U.S. media exhibits an immense tilt, even relative to the grossly biased past, toward corporate and state domination. Like all public media, Pacifica has been under attack in Congress and they anticipate that that their foundation and government funding are at risk.

In response, Pacifica's management has been undertaking major changes to increase fiscal responsibility, broaden outreach, and strengthen listener allegiance. Among many critical reforms, two are particularly controversial: (1) To increase national and repeat programming (that is, shows that occur daily all week in every venue) thus dramatically reducing the total number of on-air personnel, and (2) to change the union so it represents only paid staff and not volunteers as well, while highly centralizing most decision-making power. Debate and turmoil have grown within Pacifica not only because of hot disagreement about these policies, but also about how they are being implemented, and about what may be new motives behind them.

As an indication of the state things have reached, in September, UE held its national convention in Pittsburgh. The following petition to Pacifica chair Jack O'Dell, Pat Scott and three station managers, was signed by 189 delegates: "We....reject and deplore the union-busting and other bad-faith bargaining tactics engaged in by the Pacifica Foundation.....Since Pacifica Foundation represents itself as an institution dedicated to `Peace and Social Justice,' we urge and demand that Pacifica Foundation bargain in good faith with the UE units as they are now constituted...so they can continue to engage in the struggle `for Peace and Social Justice' through the medium of community radio..."

Also, WBAI's union, United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, Local 404, has filed unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Pacifica and WBAI management for their refusal to bargain in good faith over the past several months.

In reaction to these and other complaints, Pacifica's public response has been largely dismissive and curt, as in the following comment quoted in a highly critical SF Bay Guardian article: "There is a small number of former programmers and wanna-bes who will never be satisfied unless their show is restored or instituted. This is not new. _ The issues change, the times change, and we have been as open and as free a voice presenting as many points of view as ever_. Input was solicited and people were talked to and changes were made. I don't agree with all of them myself, but I do agree that someone at some point needs to make a decision. When you make changes in a place like that, it's impossible to please everybody."

The active antagonists in the developing struggle are the management of Pacifica on one side and a growing number of ex-programmers and staff on the other. Management's allies include, from all reports, the station's board of directors, while the ex-programmers have as allies a number of listener groups and friends of Pacifica concerned about developments. Caught in the middle are most listeners, largely ignorant of what is going on (not least because a gag order prevents any discussion of Pacifica's conflicts on any Pacifica station), as well as many paid programmers and staff still working at Pacific with no capacity to enter the fray effectively. Indicative of the norms of the exchange, here is a letter from Mark Schubb, the KPFK General Manager, addressed to Programmers and Board Ops:

"We need your help in honoring KPFK's long-standing policy against airing `dirty laundry,' including `event' announcements for that purpose. Even if the offense is by a guest or caller, please remember that it is your responsibility to cut it off immediately and to move on.

"This is one of the few rules we have at KPFK that will absolutely lead to permanently being removed from the station. I appreciate the respect you have for our audience and for the professionalism that you bring to your work here. Thanks for your help in this matter."

Everyone at the stations I spoke with agrees that the day-to-day mood there is deplorable. Employees will not comment publicly because they believe that to do so would mean the loss of their jobs. Indeed, there have been firings and the new contract that management is offering expressly forbids public discussion of in-house issues at threat of job termination.

Management claims it wants only to increase the size of the network's audience and the quality of its programming. Regrettably, says management, this requires some house-cleaning. Over the years many shows not able to reach out and retain audience have been given regular slots on the stations. Programmers have been given tenure based on longevity, but not on the program's continuing relevance or quality. However much it may hurt folks to lose their programs, says management, we need innovate if programming is to keep pace with audience needs and reach new constituencies. Among other priorities management seeks to reduce chaotic content and develop daily national programming that can build devoted audience and impact national discussion and debate. To accomplish these ends, they add, lots of volunteers who have served with passion and intelligence and have been the backbone of the station, have to lose their prominent on-air positions. More, they can not enjoy full union representation as their involvement with the station doesn't warrant it.

From outside, management's rationale seems compelling. I can easily envision the emergence, over the years, of presumed tenure for shows whose quality may never have been top notch, or which may have declined as times changed. And I can well imagine that the task of weeding out such shows would lead to painful recriminations. I can even imagine some people who work with those shows misreading termination notices as indicators of suppression or censorship, rather than as an effort to get better programming. Management claims this is precisely what is happening and thus urges outsiders to be patient and recognize that the turmoil is a necessary though burdensome price to pay for improved programming.

But dissidents say that events contradict management's stated motives, and, even if the motives were pure, the enactment is horribly reactionary. Pacifica management discounts this as sour grapes by self-interested ex-staff, but investigation suggests otherwise. There are lots of indicators. Management hired a union- busting firm which had representatives at many negotiating sessions and helped develop the new contract. It is hard to conceive of any possible justification for this. Pacifica board meetings have become secret behind-closed-door operations, hardly a sign of socially-conscious confidence. Program terminations have been brutal, and a culture of fear has developed.

Are these just typical problems arising from a difficult situation? A few blunders perhaps gone a bit awry? This is management's claim.

But dissidents feel that Pacifica is on a road to mediocrity and placidity, or worse. They point out that while Pacifica happily utilizes leftist commentators on their local stations to raise money during fund raising drives, they do not use these same commentators on their news feeds that go out to dozens of other stations. Instead the feeds are culled largely from mainstream sources like AP and government think tanks. The dissidents name for this: Pathetica News.

Dissidents also point out that shows already being erased or at risk or denigrated by management are, ironically, those that raise the most money, have the most devoted audience, and are most leftist, such as " Flashpoints" and "Democracy Now." Ex- and current programmers and volunteers alike all decry an internal culture of corporate authoritarianism foisted in the name of "professionalism" that vastly exceeds what is needed to enact responsible changes in new times.

The common denominator that dissidents see for the shows and commentators under attack by management is their serious journalistic bite. These Pacifica dissidents, all of them past employees or supporters of the station with years of active involvement, feel that the programming drift is steadily away from serious journalism, particularly left commentary and content, even at the risk of losing income.

The situation is profoundly complicated on many levels. The attack on the policy of station volunteers belonging to the union could be motivated by a desire to remove excessive power from 10-hour-a-week "employees" and to improve representation for the full-time staff, or it could be a first step toward dissolving the union per se. In each station the ratio of volunteers to paid employees in the union is over ten to one and the union, so overwhelmingly volunteer in membership, often does an inadequate job of representing paid employees. On the other hand, these volunteers, in most cases work long hours and make major contributions to Pacifica at every level. Surely they shouldn't be entirely disenfranchised.

Or take the debate over programming. Management's assault on programming could be a sincere attempt to provide more continuity to build audience and strengthen audience allegiance, something I certainly feel makes very good sense. Or, ominously, it could be that management wishes ultimately to reduce or eliminate dependence on listener sponsorship. Then the goal would be to grow audience, but with no concern about the level of commitment or involvement of each listener. With this goal it can make sense to jettison a show with devoted audience willing to pay plenty at fund raising time to instead air a show with a larger but far less devoted audience who won't give any funds. The aim becomes to gain large donor support, foundation support, or even corporate support, by steadily reducing radical content (even at the cost of listener allegiance and political impact). Why would rich organizations or individuals take up Pacifica's budget deficit in such a scenario? To effectively own the station, of course, and thereby control policy and make Pacifica what they wish it to be. Having a defining fiscal hold on an apparatus capable of reaching 22 percent of the U.S. population is not a bad investment. Wresting it from progressives is good strategy for elites.

This is what many dissidents fear. Is Pacifica on a road to political subordination to big foundation, donor, or corporate interests? Or can Pacifica rebound, seeking out larger audiences via more hard hitting journalistic content that builds a listener base so strong that it will defend the station and make up for lost federal funding? And how does this all get resolved? It seems, at this point, that there is so much hostility that constructive debate is virtually precluded even though it is relatively easy to envision some positive possibilities.

• Some national programming makes good sense, as part of Pacifica's agenda. Such daily shows can impact and build huge audiences, and " Democracy Now" is good evidence for it. But local programming is also key to developing community and addressing the life circumstances of those most responsible for and devoted to each station. In any event, faithful and hardworking volunteers shouldn't be summarily dismissed but should instead be incorporated, as possible, in the teams of researchers and other support staff needed for good journalistic programming.
  
• Volunteers and paid employees aren't the same thing and do, in fact, have different interests at various times. They should have two different contracts and perhaps even two support organizations as well, each of which can function in the interests of its members, hopefully often in alliance. But the purpose of this can't be to reduce the power and influence of those who do the work. Quite the contrary, the way forward is to have serious standards, yes, but also serious democracy at work, with each employee able to defend and improve work conditions and also to impact on the direction of overall operations.
  
• At the top, national and local boards beholden to no one and self chosen are, in a public institution, autocratic, pure and simple. So another needed improvement is to have elections of boards by dues paying listeners, and to have open and public meetings, open planning, etc. The only reason for a board in the first place is to facilitate listener input over policy and programming and, depending on the mandate of a station, input by specifically affected target constituencies, which, in the case of Pacifica, ought to include the progressive movement most broadly.
  
• Obviously, gag laws such as are now being used, are a travesty that must be eliminated. Is the goal of the station to raise numbers of listeners per se or to enlarge political and social impact of programming? Is the commitment to fiscal independence to be turned into an excuse to disempower the listenership by eliminating grass roots fund-raising and turning to large donors only, or is it to be transformed into an opportunity to strengthen listener allegiance so that content is made subservient to the public interest, not to private wealth? These issues must be addressed openly.

The problem is, how can a positive outcome be attained amidst the current rancor. If those at Pacifica other than the highest management can't even express their feelings for fear of being fired, clearly constructive discussion is precluded. I hope someone can come up with a resolution other than a circular firing squad. My suggestion is this: Convene a national board of progressive leaders with unimpeachable records. Hire for that board researchers to gather and provide guidance in reading all relevant documentation, to prepare questions for hearings, etc. After preparations are complete, hold hearings for a few days, inviting everyone with relevant experience at every level within Pacifica to testify. Do the whole thing publicly, but allow private closed testimony for those wanting anonymity. Publish the results, including recommendations by the commission.

It seems to me that if such a commission were properly constituted, it would be hard for Pacifica management and Pacifica dissidents to ignore the resulting recommendations. Progress could then be made. On the other hand, it would be a horrible loss if recent trends were to continue unchecked and Pacifica were to spiral into mainstream mediocrity. It doesn't matter whether the cause of dissolution is by management design or error, recalcitrant old-line programmers, reactionary labor policies or avoidable labor strife, politically meaningless personal friction, or any other reason. Pacifica is too important an institution for its audience and the broad progressive community to leave exclusively to a relatively few unelected and essentially unaccountable individuals.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz