This is the Pacifica Update for the week ending August 5. I'm [,,,]
Free Speech Radio News, produced by the Pacifica Reporters against censorship, has announced that funding been secured for a fourth month of daily casts and they are optimistic about obtaining funding to continue the daily newscast indefinitely. FSRN now airs on 40 stations nationwide; most of those stations used to carry Pacifica Network News.
Pacifica National Program director Steve Yasko has begun a public relations initiative designed create the impression of a more understanding and less censorious managerial approach, presumably acting on the advice of its pricey new PR firm, Westhill Partners. In recent emails to affiliates, he has tried to convey the impression that a rapprochement is in progress between Pacifica and the striking reporters. Nothing could be further from the truth, the reporters say.
Last week Yasko sent a memo encouraging affiliates to come to him with programming concerns, and said that he had tapped PNN reporter Don Rush to convene discussions regarding the coverage of internal Pacifica issues by Pacifica programs.
Many in the resistance movement see this is as part of Yasko and his bosses' campaign to legitimize a crackdown on Amy Goodman that would eventually lead to her removal. Behind the scenes, he has stepped up attacks against Goodman for her Democracy Now! sign off that expresses solidarity with broadcasters banned and fired by Pacifica management .
Goodman has been ordered to include a new closing for the program which listeners began hearing last week. Included in the mandatory credit is a mention of funding by the government's corporation for public broadcasting, the CPB. According to former PNN News Director Dan Coughlin, the CPB encouraged censorship of Pacifica news by objecting to coverage critical of US military actions in Iraq and Yugoslavia. It has also assisted in the hijacking of Pacifica by the present corporate-oriented Board majority by selective enforcement of its regulations.
Steve Pierce of WRPI in Troy, New York is unconvinced by Yasko's overtures. " This newfound interest in their affiliates would be comical if it didn't underscore the tragedy of the past several years, as Pacifica celebrated a half century of courage and vision by self destructing" he said,
Affiliates played a pivotal role in the events that led to the PNN stringers strike that gave birth to the Free Speech Radio News.
On October 27, 1999, 16 of Pacifica's affiliate stations conducted a one-day boycott in order to highlight their displeasure with the actions of Pacifica's management. Dan Coughlin, then PNN's news director, included a brief report on the boycott . For this, he was removed from his position. Forty stringers who previously contributed to PNN, banded together under the name Pacifica Reporters against censorship and vowed to withhold their labor until censorship at the network ceased.
Wednesday August 8 will be a second a national day of protest against THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS (NAHB), to demand that NAHB employee and Pacifica Board member Ken Ford resign.
Ford has overstayed his legal term on the Pacifica Radio board and is named in four separate legal actions, including one backed by the California Attorney General. During his tenure, he has overseen union-busting, lockouts, censorship, group bannings, and race-baiting. When listeners complain, he threatens to turn them into the FBI.
Ken Ford is a staffer at the National Association of HomeBuilders (NAHB) in Washington, D.C. The NAHB has actively defended Ken Ford's destruction of Pacifica Radio, even going so far as to threaten legal action against free speech activists exercising their First Amendment rights to protest his presence on the Pacifica National Board
The NAHB is one of the largest lobbying organizations in the country. They seek to defeat environmental regulations like the Endangered Species and Clean Water Acts and they crush popular initiatives against unrestrained sprawl, as in Arizona and Colorado. They also oppose enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
For more information on how you can take action on August 8, contact the Pacifica Campaign at www.pacificacampaign.org
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