Report and News Analysis by David Landau
July 20, 1999
The staff of KPFA-FM in Berkeley California, which last month made major broadcasts about the protest fast at Tamarindo 34, have been locked out of their workplace by national bosses who are seeking to impose permanent changes on the station's structure.
A July 15, 1999 memo to the KPFA staff from Lynn Chadwick, executive director of the Pacifica Foundation which oversees the radio station, states that all employees are "on paid administrative leave until further notice. Leave has been extended due to security and safety concerns at the
station."
This dispute between KPFA and its governing board is shaping up as a major First Amendment controversy. In a situation full of ironies, KPFA-the oldest public radio station and possibly the freest mass medium in the U.S.-has fallen victim to a kind of physical censorship that authoritarian
governments are wont to impose. A further irony is that the staffs of KPFA and of Pacifica both identify as 'progressive'-which makes this conflict a civil war inside the American Left.
The corporate official wielding the hatchet against KPFA is no less than the head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Mary Frances Berry, Board Chairman of the Pacifica Foundation, is an attorney, author and university professor who successfully sued for reinstatement to the Civil Rights
Commission after President Reagan fired her for criticizing his policies. Berry's prominent role in this matter, and her position in the Clinton Administration, could turn out as an embarrassment to the Democratic national leadership who are ipso facto implicated in a campaign against free speech at
the Berkeley radio station.
The dispute at KPFA is also of interest to those who follow Cuban matters because of the station's recent broadcasts about the protest fast in Havana. Those broadcasts scrutinized the Castro government in a manner highly unusual for American media which are Left-oriented.
KPFA or 'Radio Pacifica' was founded in April 1949 by pacifists (whence the name) who declared they were forming an alternative to America's commercially-driven mass media. The station's founders accepted financial support from individuals only-meaning no corporate contributions as well as no
advertisements. This rule has set Pacifica radio apart from National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which are heavily based on corporate sponsorships.
At its inception KPFA received a broadcast location at 94.1 in the FM band, which in 1949 was far removed from the mainstream of listeners. Against odds, the station flourished and spawned a chain of stations abiding by the same practices. After acquiring station WBAI in New York, KPFA
established a separate not-for-profit entity, the Pacifica Foundation, to manage both stations. In time Pacifica also acquired stations in Los Angeles, Washington and Houston. Legal arrangements have conferred ownership of all five stations on the Pacifica Foundation.
In recent years KPFA-Pacifica's most prosperous and arguably most independent member-has been in constant conflict with its national governors. Meanwhile, KPFA's once-remote position in the FM band has become a prime location valued at between 65 and 100 million dollars-a fact that makes KPFA a
likely target for takeover maneuvers that now seem to be afoot by its own Pacifica overseers.
The lockout at KPFA brought to a head the most recent dispute which began last March 31 when Pacifica dismissed KPFA's general manager, Nicole Sawaya. The station staff had earlier sent Pacifica a message of unanimous support for Sawaya. When KPFA, which has strong ties to its community of
listeners, broadcast news of Sawaya's dismissal, Pacifica imposed a so-called 'gag rule' prohibiting the station's broadcasters from discussing this matter on the air.
When KPFA staffers defied the gag order, Pacifica fired one popular broadcaster and removed two others. In the midst of these troubles, Pacifica's Executive Director Lynn Chadwick-who had assumed the position of KPFA station manager-ordered the arrest of 14 community members who questioned her
outside the station and blocked her from entering. Pacifica then placed armed security guards in and around the station as well as at KPFA's nearby transmitter, a 59,000-watt giant that carries KPFA broadcasts to a listening area encompassing one-third of California's 35 million inhabitants.
The dispute boiled over on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 13, when Pacifica brought the manager of its Houston station, Garland Ganter, to oversee operations in Berkeley. Several hours later, just after KPFA broadcaster Dennis Bernstein had criticized Pacifica's policy on his show, Pacifica's
guards ordered Bernstein out of the building and a vocal dispute erupted in the station's hallways. The engineer for KPFA's evening news program, which at that moment was being broadcast from an upstairs studio, turned the microphones on the altercation, giving tens of thousands of listeners a live
slice of the conflict that had been wracking KPFA for nearly four months.
Pacifica's manager then pulled the plug on the news broadcast and began to air music-but not before listeners converged on the station from nearby offices and homes. Pacifica ordered the building cleared. Staffers refused to leave and community members blocked the station in a protest vigil.
After a five-hour standoff, riot-equipped Berkeley police took control of the building and staged a mass arrest, carting the station's news directors and 50 other people off to jail.
As of this writing, a week after the lockout, KPFA's regular programming remains in suspension, with Pacifica employees broadcasting taped interviews and music from inside the heavily guarded station. Community support for KPFA has been huge. Several massive rallies took place in front of the
station after its closing. Folk singer Joan Baez and other popular music luminaries gave a benefit concert for the KPFA staff. Statements in favor of the station have come from, among others, the Berkeley city government and the California state legislature. Lawyers representing KPFA have filed a
procedural motion against the Pacifica board in an Oakland, California Superior Court.
Since last April, KPFA's staff has repeatedly called on Pacifica to enter into mediation. The station's representatives repeated that call after the lockout. Pacifica has publicly endorsed mediation, but as of this writing talks have not begun. On Monday, July 19, Pacifica engineers began the
work of adapting KPFA's transmitter to take broadcast feed from Pacifica's radio station in Los Angeles, KPFK-FM, a move that would bypass the Berkeley station completely. The management of KPFK is siding with Pacifica against its older and stronger sibling. KPFA staffers are maintaining a daily
picket line and vigil at KPFA's transmitter in the Oakland hills, while community members have set up a 'tent city' on the sidewalks around KPFA's building in downtown Berkeley.
The displaced staff of KPFA have vowed to continue their fight to reinstate what they call "this vital social-justice institution." Questions or comments, whether in English or in Spanish, can be addressed to the author of this article at <daveland@igc.apc.org>. |