Pacifica Radio: Elections & Civic Media

Before returning to Pacifica Radio’s business office in Berkeley, after weeks on the road visiting stations as I relocated across the country, a few more stops needed to be made. First, a briefing with some Los Angeles volunteers who explained the intricacies of Pacifica’s election process. The meet was arranged by Lydia Brazon, a national board member representing KPFK.

For some people elections are the heart of what has been achieved by the Save Pacifica movement – more than a hundred elected local board members for the five sister stations, chosen by Pacifica members through a complex form of proportion voting. Each listener-member, volunteer and staff member can support multiple candidates by ranking their choices. A computer program calculates the results, making it possible for various constituencies to be represented.

But the process takes months, what with determining eligibility, nominations, public forums and public service announcements designed to level the playing field, the mailing of more than 80,000 ballots and booklets with candidate appeals, and the tabulation and certification of each station’s results. According to the new bylaws, at least 10 percent of members must vote in each local election for the outcome to be valid, and it has been getting more difficult each year to legitimately achieve quorum.

Within a month I would have to select a National Election Supervisor to manage the entire process (In April 2006 I picked Les Radke, over the objections of some), someone who understood this unusual approach to elections and had enough patience to handle the inevitable complaints. That overseer would in turn recruit Local Election Supervisors for each station. It might also be necessary to contract with an outside firm specializing in this type of computer-based voting. The whole shebang would cost more than $200,000 (slightly less in 2006) and require the cooperation of managers and staff at every station. The latter certainly wasn’t assured. For many staff members the elections were a time-consuming nuisance and ended up producing boards that demanded far too much involvement in day-to-day decisions for their taste.

That evening I was the main speaker at a community meeting. After explaining how it happened that a Vermont editor had become the CEO of a radio network, I took questions for about two hours. People seemed surprised that I had a decent grasp of the myriad challenges. After that I drove downtown for a late-night talk with Dave Adelson, the new chair of the national board.

Dave was neurophysiologist, former chair of the KPFK board, and, during the Save Pacifica movement, lead plaintiff in a key lawsuit. He had supported Eva Georgia’s candidacy for ED, as he explained it mainly because she was tough and wouldn’t “take shit” from people. On the other hand, he advised me not to act too fast but rather to watch the dynamics before making any strong moves. His analysis centered on the notion that Pacifica had been “privatized” by people who thought of airtime as their personal real estate. The idea that the network was supposed to foster a civic community had been lost along the way. It would be difficult to change that, he believed. But he had a big idea.

Dave’s idea involved the growth of digital media and the Internet. Increasing numbers of people, especially the young, were already getting their media via devices like iPods. They didn’t see the point of making an appointment to hear a show when they could download it at their convenience. If Pacifica provided major online platforms for content – and encouraged people to use them as a viable alternative to terrestrial radio – it could foster a new form of civic media. Over time it wouldn’t matter as much who had the 8 a.m. time slot. An unlimited number of shows could be distributed. Listeners could even become their own program directors, assisted by Pacifica in setting up virtual channels.

But making all content, including existing shows, available online meant that questions of ownership and copyright had to be resolved. The stations owned any shows produced by staff members, and the CPB provided a blanket agreement that allowed non-commercial stations to air commercially-owned music. But most Pacifica shows weren’t produced by staff; they were created and hosted by individual volunteers and collectives. And music distributed digitally wasn’t covered by the CPB’s deal with the recording industry. As soon as possible Pacifica needed to work out an arrangement with its volunteers, resolving the ownership issue and winning support for licensing agreements that would allow the network to distribute hundreds of programs to a vast new and much younger audience.

It was a lot to absorb, and I didn’t completely get it the first time he tried to explain. Dave had a scientist’s fascination with subtle details and tended to rhapsodize about his vision of the future. But it was clear that he had a plan and had taken on a leadership role within the board to make something very specific happen. He too wanted to know if he could count on my support.

Part Twelve of Pacifica Radio: A Listening Tour

Next: Following the Money

Pacifica's Archives: A Preservation Oasis

Pacificans often call it The Archives or just PRA, an astonishing resource, virtually the only audio collection of its kind, more than 50,000 recordings that chronicle the social, cultural and political movements of the second half of the 20th century.

The McCarthy hearings, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War; the voices of Dorothy Dandridge, Allen Ginsberg, Malcolm X, Margaret Mead, Alan Watts, Rachel Carson, Bertolt Brecht, Che Guevara, and countless others; rare musical performances from Coltrane to Dylan; documentaries, debates, poetry, drama, and historic moments – it’s all there in a climate-controlled Los Angeles vault.

After more than two decades on the air, Pacifica decided to begin formal preservation efforts in 1972. The idea was to save, transfer and distribute key broadcasts to schools, libraries, other radio stations, and to individuals who wanted to own a small piece of history. The decision was made to keep the library at KPFK in Los Angeles. In 1986, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters added its own archives to the collection, and by the end of the decade about 7,000 unique recordings had been restored. By the 1990s, however, the project had become enormous and the Board wasn’t devoting sufficient funds to keep rare material from deteriorating. Preservation is a costly, labor-intensive process and some tapes are so brittle that they disintegrate when handled.

The determination of PRA Director Brian DeShazor, along with the realization that both irreplaceable history and a potential income stream were being neglected, produced a change of priorities. The archives staff grew, grants were obtained, and the Board decided to devote at least two percent of the annual budget to preservation. Today many historians and scholars consider the Pacifica Radio Archives one of the most important audio collections in the world. With a line item budget of its own and status as a formal department, PRA is sometimes described as Pacifica's "sixth station."

Brian greeted me on the second floor of the KPFK building in North Hollywood the day after my first visit to the station. A precise, fair-skinned man with a deep passion for historic preservation, he was eager to explain the importance and urgency of PRA’s work. Even though Pacifica’s annual budget included more than $500,000 a year for preservation, it wasn’t enough, he said. In truth, it would take millions to rescue the thousands of tapes still sitting on long rows in the vault. Many hadn’t even been reviewed yet. And PRA’s job went far beyond that.

Once an audio jewel is identified, it must be digitally transferred and then duplicated. The archives also handle production of CDs sold as premiums during station fund drives, provide producers with access to relevant excerpts for their shows, give program directors material to enhance coverage of major events like Black History Month, make the collection – including more recent shows – available to affiliate stations for broadcast, and work with outside organizations that have nowhere else to turn for specific rare recordings.

PRA also has to raise a major portion of its budget, mainly by organizing an annual fundraising marathon broadcast on the sister stations. To supplement this income, it licenses material to publishers and the film industry, creates premium packages on specific themes, and encourages individual listeners to “adopt” tapes, which basically means underwriting the cost of restoration.

The Board didn’t seem sufficiently committed to what was, after all, a time-sensitive project, Brian felt. And station managers balked at giving up even one day of local programming for PRA’s annual on-air drive. This was the soul of Pacifica, its legacy on tape, he insisted, yet many “profoundly irreplaceable sonic documents” might still be lost unless preservation became a much higher priority. Like almost everyone I was meeting, he felt that he (and the archives) was unappreciated, and gently probed to see how committed I was to supporting the work.

Meeting with the seven person staff I was struck by the calm, upbeat atmosphere. In contrast to staff I’d encountered at some stations these people seemed to truly enjoy their jobs. Reinforcing that perception, there was little turnover or discussion of internal politics. On the other hand, they sounded detached, as if PRA was a separate organization, more like an audio library or museum than part of a national broadcasting operation.

How did they get along with the KPFK staff just downstairs? I asked. Brian flashed an ironic smile and said that contact with minimal. In fact, Eva Georgia, the station’s General Manager, rarely visited the second floor.

That was disappointing – but not a surprise. Each unit or station operated without much interest in what the others were doing. If anything, they viewed other parts of the organization as competitors for limited resources. Words like “fiefdoms” and “balkanization” were used frequently to describe the dynamic. Everyone wanted respect, but most people stressed the unresponsiveness and limitations of others rather than how they might collaborate.

Part Eleven of Pacifica Radio: A Listening Tour

Next: Electronic Democracy & Civic Media

Pacifica Live: Sawaya Goes On The Record

In a live “coast to coast” report to Pacifica Radio listeners on June 27, 2008, Nicole Sawaya, Executive Director since March, said that the biggest challenge facing the 59-year-old progressive media organization is deciding whether it is five stations or a network. Admitting that Pacifica currently faces “hard times,” marked by flat income and shrinking audiences, the self-proclaimed “reluctant ED” – an apt, familiar description, by the way – argued that the solution is to act like a network, embrace the digital future, and “create programming that makes Pacifica essential.”

The broadcast was unusual, the first time a Pacifica top manager has been able to address a national audience live – through all five sister stations – in many years. With station managers empowered to make programming decisions locally, simultaneous broadcast by Pacifica’s owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Berkeley, and Washington, DC has been rare in recent years. The one-hour show, which included calls from listeners, gave Sawaya the chance to candidly discuss the organization’s accomplishments, potential, and difficulties. Although avoiding some hot topics – a 25 percent cut in funding for Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) and a financial crunch so serious that money for a national board meeting is hard to find, for example – she did acknowledge at one point that letters have gone out about possible staff cuts.

Looking at Pacifica as an ecosystem, she remarked that it’s “not sustainable,” but promised that “no asset will be sold.” The pledge is significant, since the rumor that the National Board was considering the sale of a station helped fuel large protests in the late 1990s. Although Pacifica is “not a movement,” she argued, it is “a public trust and should not be leveraged.”

On the other hand, Sawaya said, “I prefer a network” to a “low bar of entry.” Since Pacifica’s reorganization in 2002, it has become “so flat it’s concave,” she continued, and this has raised the question of “where does leadership belong?” Later, she joked that “in the lexicon of Pacifica, management is a dirty word.”

Despite financial pressures, Sawaya is determined to produce more national broadcasts. During the report, she pointed to coverage of Gay Pride events, hearings on torture covered via KPFA by Larry Bensky, and the recent Winter Soldiers hearings, which were ignored by most commercial media. Later in the summer, she noted, Pacifica will provide its own national coverage of the Democratic, Republican and Green Party conventions.

Looking further into the future, she spoke of a “generational hand off” linked to the shift toward digital distribution and the need to “connect the country together” through new programs such as an “environmental watch” show. In recent years, she noted, “our discourse has declined.” But she feels that the blogosphere provides a new model and pointed to Pacifica founder Lew Hill’s on-air roundtable discussions, noting that they didn’t become “a food fight” or “dumbed down.”

Her conclusion is that the organization needs to be “more inclusive, and not afraid.” However, she added, “I don’t have a vision. I’m just a worker trying to knit together the best programs.”

Sawaya fielded more than a dozen calls during the broadcast, with questions and comments on transparency, moving WBAI from its expensive Wall Street location, editorial priorities, tenure limits for producers, international coverage, and whether she feels emotional and embattled. Though she shrugged off the latter concern, saying “I’m just wired that way,” she admitted that the financial problems are serious and she’s anxious to provide “economies,” efficiency, and better service.

In response to the question about New York station WBAI’s location and budget troubles, she noted that moving the station, as well as WPFW – whose lease in Washington, DC runs out soon – raises the question of whether stations should focus on “bricks and mortar” or “scale it down.”

Sawaya – who served as flagship station KPFA’s General Manager briefly in the late 1990s before being abruptly dismissed – returned as Pacifica’s top executive last September. The vote was unanimous, but she was the only candidate interviewed in person. Although given a five-year contract, she unexpectedly resigned in early December – to widespread surprise and disappointment. In the three months that followed, however, she negotiated privately with the board and agreed to return in early March. The details of the negotiations are confidential, but one of her first public struggles was to assert more oversight of finances, including over Chief Financial Officer Lonnie Hicks and his staff. After a series of meetings the board basically backed her position.

That success was followed closely by the public admission that Pacifica is being forced to cut back on spending. As Sawaya searched for a way to pay for national programming, FSRN received word that funding for its daily half-hour international newscast would be cut by more than $13,500 a month – effective immediately. According to an FSRN press release, “The reduction represents about a 25% cut in income for the grassroots news collective. Since FSRN is barred from on-air fundraising, it must seek to offset the cut with income from affiliates, foundations and individuals.” As of late June, an on-line petition to the Pacifica National Board had been signed by almost 400 people. It says:

“Free Speech Radio News has long been a vital part of the global media justice movement that highlights the voices of marginalized communities most affected by social and economic policy changes. I understand that Pacifica is facing a budget crisis, but FSRN is indispensable to Pacifica's mission and I encourage sustained funding to ensure FSRN's survival.”

In June, the board also got word from CFO Hicks that “it will be tough” to come up with enough money for a meeting of the National Board in July and August, even if the usual spending is cut by more than 50 percent. “All stations have failed to meet drive goals,” Hicks stated, “some of the worst I’ve seen.” Pointing to mounting expenses and unexpected legal costs, he concluded, “We are working from payroll to payroll. Our reserves have been used up over the last couple of years.”

A Board committee was established to consider options, and subsequently recommended that the meeting be held anyway. The Board itself chose July 25-27 (an effort to rescind that decision failed) and instructed the committee and management to select one of three Washington, DC locations. The choices include Howard University or Gallaudet University (a school for the deaf and hard of hearing), both in Washington, or the National Labor College in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland.

At the end of the broadcast, Sawaya remained optimistic, pointing to the potential of launching “multiple streams” through the Internet and high definition radio (already in use at Houston station KPFT). When the last caller argued that Pacifica isn’t typical and operates in an “interactive” rather than a “one way” manner, she heartily agreed. “It’s a two-way street,” she replied.

Michael Parenti: Dubious Design, Part Two

An adapted excerpt from God and His Demons, a forthcoming book by Michael Parenti

Since scientific theories in all fields contain some unanswered questions, why is evolution singled out by the intelligent designers as the one gap-ridden speculative theory? The answer is glaringly evident: evolution is in direct collision with Genesis. If evolution is true, then the Bible’s description of how God fashioned the world in six days and created humans in their present form seems much the fairy tale. And if Genesis is a fairy tale, then of what validity is the remainder of the divinely dictated tome that serves as the unerring fundament of Judaic-Christian belief?

The response offered by the scientific defenders of evolution is predictable and somewhat incomplete: “We have no way of testing and demonstrating the truth or falsity of non-natural spirit forces that are presumed to be acting in nature.” It would be nice if someday someone would add, “and neither do the intelligent designers.” That is the real problem. Of course, scientists cannot move outside their fundamental paradigm and demonstrate divine causation, but neither can the designing creationists.

This is a crucial point because the burden of proof for intelligent design is on the designers. Where is their field work, their laboratory experiments, their observational reports and accumulated evidence measuring the effects of ID vectors on various natural forces and entities, all the things we would expect from a scientific inquiry interested in “hard facts”?

This is the problem with teaching ID: what would you actually teach? How could you judge the reliability of what you teach? How do we determine what is or isn’t evidentiary if one can postulate a priori an unseen supreme designer lurking behind everything? In the two decades since ID has emerged, it has generated no important experiments or insights into biology, and looks less and less like a science and increasingly like a theological polemic.

Advocates of ID seem untroubled by their own scientific illiteracy. One of them asserts that there is no evidence of a protracted evolution because “all the vertebrate groups, from fish to mammals appear [in the fossil record] at one time.” Not true, George Monbiot responds; the first fish fossils and the first mammal fossils are separated from each other by some 300 million years.

ID proponents make much of the human eye. Given the intricacy and delicate precision that enables it to perform its marvelous function, and “the purposeful arrangement of parts,” the eye could never have developed from hit-and-miss mutation and natural selection, the argument goes. If evolution were true, there would be fossils of particular animals without vision and others with varying degrees of eye development strung out across the ages, but “such fossils do not exist,” the intelligent designers maintain. But such fossils do exist, Monbiot reminds us; the fossil record does indeed stretch across the ages with countless eyes “in all stages of development.”

As for the creationists, it is not that they have questions about particular aspects of evolution, as might we all. Rather they deny that it ever happened. They believe the book of Genesis is literally true. Possessed of the absolute truth as they see it, they are not prone to tolerate alternative perspectives. They are not interested in a pluralism of views. They do not want to supplement evolutionary theory but to replace it. , even as they call for more tolerance in secular schools and increasingly greater exposure for their own “explanation.”

Its proponents insist that ID is not religiously anchored; it requires neither miracles nor a creator. They avoid mention of the six-day jiffy creation and other biblical narratives. But if ID is not supernatural, then how does it act as a first and perfect universalistic template for all this imperfect unfinished world? How can it create the natural world in all its wondrous and presumably irreducible complexity if it is itself merely a component of that complexity? Here is a designer that is the source of all creation’s form and content but which itself cannot be subjected to any kind of scientific study, a designer that supposedly is fixed in nature yet transcends ordinary materiality.

The designers centered at the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle, revealed their religiously motivated hand in their now infamous and strikingly candid, in-house document, “The Wedge Strategy,” written in 1999 and leaked to the public some time later. According to “The Wedge Strategy,” the ultimate goal of intelligent design is “nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies” replacing scientific materialism “with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.”

The authors of this document blame evolutionary theory and materialistic science for most of the world’s evils. They write, “Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.” In sum, ID is not a field of study; it is a refined fundamentalist preachment in service to a reactionary political agenda.

The creationists and ID designers appear to be championing free speech and diversity of ideas when they urge that students be taught more than just Darwinism. In fact they themselves are not interested in a pluralism of views. They do not favor the teaching of every theory of creation.

There are as many stories of how the world began and how it is held together as there are tribal mythologies and tales. The fundamentalist Jesus worshippers are concerned only about the Genesis narrative, the one they want accorded exclusive standing in the schools.

Thus in 1999, creationists on the Kansas state board of education removed nearly all references to evolution from the curriculum. Such references were restored only after Kansas voters ousted the creationist bloc in 2001. In short, the creationists do not want to supplement evolutionary theory but to replace it, which – as demonstrated in Kansas – is exactly what they do when afforded the opportunity.

* Michael Parenti’s lastest books are Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (2007), Democracy for the Few, 8th ed. (2007), and The Culture Struggle (2006). The above is adapted from his forthcoming book God and His Demons. For further information about the author, visit www.michaelparenti.org.

Gore Vidal: “US Isn’t a Republic Anymore”

The Bush regime has killed the constitutional links that made the US a republic, said Gore Vidal, renowned US historian, novelist and social critic in an interview with Tehran-based Press TV. President Bush has rid the country of the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus and the entire legacy of the Magna Carta in the name of “war on terror,” Vidal charged.

Press TV is the first Iranian international news network to broadcast in English on a round-the-clock basis. Speaking over the phone with Afshin Rattansi, Vidal also criticized the US House of Representatives for not impeaching President Bush for many high crimes, such as the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's covert status. But he praised Rep. Dennis Kuchinich for at least drawing up articles of impeachment against the president.

Vidal has long said the administration has both an explicit and covert expansionist agenda. Bush and his associates are magnets in the oil and gas industry, he says, and have had clear aims to control the oil of Central Asia – after gaining effective control of the oil of the Persian Gulf, a project that took a new twist with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.

Regarding 9/11, Vidal has written the US intelligence community clearly warned that it was coming but the event provided political cover and a pretext for plans that the administration already had in place for invading Iraq – plans that can be traced to the waning days of the first Bush family presidency.

Here is a transcript of that June 28, 2008 interview:

Press TV: We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of the President's Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his conversations with Bush and Cheney. Does this show that Congress is serious about calling the executive to account? Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that's end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is Dennis Kucinich, who brought the article of impeachment into the well of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives must then try the president, and then after that it goes to the Senate for judgment. However, none of these things will happen because there's nobody there except for Mr. Kucinich, who has the courage to take on a sitting president who is kind of a Mafioso. Press TV: How can it just be one person among so many hundreds of Congressmen who wants the impeachment of George W. Bush in these circumstances? Vidal: Well it's because we no longer have a country. We don't have a republic any more. During the last 7 or 8 years of the Bush regime, they've got rid of the Bill of Rights, they've got rid of habeas corpus. They have got rid of one of the nicest gifts that England ever left us when they went away and we ceased to be colonies - the Magna Carta - from the 12th century. All of our law and due process of law is based on that. And the Bush people got rid of it. The president and little Mr. Gonzales, who for a few minutes was his Attorney General. They managed to get rid of all of the constitutional links that made us literally a republic. Press TV: You have often written about the US's superpower status in terms of the history of previous superpowers. Do you think we're witnessing the end of US power, as some suggest. Will the White House be seen like Persepolis? Vidal: Well it won't make such good ruins, no. It'll be more like the tomb of Cyrus nearby. They managed to destroy the United States. Why? Because they're oil and gas people and they're essentially criminals. I repeat that this is a criminal group that's seized control of the country through what looked like an ordinary election. But there's some very nice films and documentaries about what happened in the year 2000 when Albert Gore won the election for president and they saw to it that he couldn't serve. They got the Supreme Court – which is the Holy of Holies ordinarily in our system – to investigate and then accuse the thieves of being absolutely correct and the winners and Mr. Gore and the Democrats of being the cheaters. It's the first law of Machiavelli, whatever your opponent's faults are, you pick his virtues and you deny he has them. That's what they did when Senator Kerry ran a few years ago for president. He's a famous hero from the Vietnam War. They said he was a coward and not a hero. That's how it's done. When you have a bunch of liars in charge of your government you can't expect to get much history out of that. But later on we'll dig and dig… and we will dig up Persepolis. Press TV: Senator Obama talks about change but of course he has courting Wall Street as well as the Israeli lobby. Do you see any prospect of change with him as president? Vidal: Not really. I don't doubt his good faith, just as I do not doubt the bad faith of Cheney and Bush. They are such dreadful people that we've never had in government before. They would never have risen unless they were buying elections as they did in Florida in 2000, as they did in the State of Ohio in 2004. These are two open thefts of the Presidency. When I discovered that this did not interest the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the press of the country I realized our day was done. We are no longer a country, we are a framework for crooks to go in and steal money – knowing that they'll never be caught and they'll be admired for it. Americans always take everybody on his own evaluation. You say I'm a state and they say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a state, isn't that great." And you accuse the other people of your crimes before you commit them. It's an old trick which was known to Machiavelli who wrote about it in his handbook, The Prince. Press TV: Finally, that issue which is exercising so many minds in the Middle East and beyond. You, yourself have written about so many Imperial wars of the United States. Do you think Bush and Cheney would risk another war in what Mohammad El Baradei of the IAEA calls a fireball? Vidal: They are longing to but they have spent all of the money. They have got it in their own private companies like the Vice President and a company called Halliburton which is stealing more money and should be on trial sooner or later before Congress. But perhaps not, who knows? But it's well known in Washington, these people are leaking away the money of the country. Well, there's no more money. They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies. The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don't stop. When the public is lied to 30 times a day it's apt to believe the lies, is not it?