Pacifica Radio

From Free net encyclopedia

Pacifica Radio is a network of five independent owned and operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations, one associated station, and 90 affiliated radio stations in the United States that is known for its leftist and pacifist political views. Some other U.S. and Canadian community radio stations also carry some Pacifica programming. Pacifica was the first public radio network in the U.S. The network is run by the Pacifica Foundation (a.k.a. Pacifica Radio Foundation).

Pacifica Radio's audio archive is the nation's oldest public radio archive, documenting 50 years of grassroots political and performing arts history. The Pacifica Radio Archive houses original recordings of interviews with John Coltrane, Lorraine Hansberry, and Langston Hughes, among many others.

1 History
2 Programs
3 Stations
4 See also
5 External links
6 Further reading

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History

Pacifica was founded in 1946 by pacifist Lewis Hill who was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1919. During World War II he filed as a conscientious objector. After the war he and a small group of ex-conscientious objectors created the Pacifica Foundation. The foundation's first project, KPFA in Berkeley, California, was inaugurated in 1949.

For most of its history, Pacifica gave each of its stations independent control of programming. Then during the 1990s, a major controversy arose over rumors that the national Pacifica board was attempting to centralize control of content, in order to increase listenership. The rumors also included accusations that the board also proposed changing the network's funding model away from reliance on listener donations and toward corporate foundation funding. There were also accusations that the Board was considering selling both KPFA and WBAI, which operate on commercial broadcast channels. The frequencies were and are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. All of this led to years of conflict, including court cases, firings and strikes of station staff, and public demonstrations. Many listeners to the individual stations—especially KPFA in Berkeley, California and WBAI in New York City—objected to what they saw as an attempt to tone down the overtly political content on Pacifica stations. The controversy included highly publicized disputes between listener organizations and Mary Frances Berry, the radio network's chairman.

The board eventually was embroiled in counter lawsuits by boardmembers and listener-sponsors, and after global settlement of the lawsuits in November, 2001, an interim board was formed to craft new bylaws, which it did in two tumultuous years of national debates among thousands of listener-sponsors and activists, finally giving listener-sponsors the right and responsibility to elect new local boards at each of the five Pacific stations, whose boards in turn elect the national board, all of which are now subject to accountability and recall by the listener sponsors.

Pacifica National News Director Dan Coughlin was voted Interim Executive Director of the network in 2002. But the years of internal legal battles and financial mismanagement had taken a toll. As of late 2005, the network was still on somewhat shaky financial ground, and was operating with an interim executive director. In early 2006, Pacifica hired Greg Guma as the new executive director of the Pacifica Foundation.

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Programs

A show which has for years been considered the flagship of Pacifica Radio's national programming is Democracy Now!, a left wing oriented talk show that covers democracy, human rights and justice issues, and questions the motives of U.S. foreign and domestic policy, most recently the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, this program is a compilation of news, interviews, and documentaries. Democracy Now! is heard and seen on more than 400 radio and TV stations across the U.S., on satellite television networks, and on the left-leaning networks Free Speech TV and Link TV.

In 2002, further to the process of Pacifica's implementation of the new listener-sponsored-accountability structure begun that year, and in settlement of disputes between "Democracy Now" and the prior (then-ousted) national board of Pacifica, "Democracy Now" was spun off with substantial funding by Pacifica, and is now an independent production.

The Pacifica network, in addition to extensive community-based productions at its various stations around the United States, also features a daily newscast Free speech radio news. FSRN is an independent, worker run collective, founded by Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship, a group of reporters who went on strike against the Pacifica board policies of the late 1990s. The newscast is available for individuals and non-commercial radio stations at http://www.fsrn.org/.

Additional programming available to network stations and affiliates includes Explorations in Science with Dr. Michio Kaku, an hour long radio program on science, technology, politics, and the environment;FlashPoints a progressive drive-time public affairs program; Pacifica Headline News 5-minute news breaks throughout the afternoon; and coverage of special U.S. Congressional hearings and other events of national interest such as Anti-War Rallies; and programs in the Pacifica Radio Archives.

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