ARTS & FARCES internet

“Those are my personal papers. Don’t go into my desk!”

Chances are that workplace utterance is more common than most of us would like to believe. What made this instance different is that those words constituted the last live broadcast to emanate from Berkeley, California radio station KPFA-FM. On July 13, 1999 KPFA journalist Dennis Bernstein was forcibly removed from the air for airing grievances about the station’s dispute with its corporate parent.

KPFA, America’s first listener-supported, non-commercial radio station—is a Berkeley institution, reaching most of the Northern California region. In celebratory Berkeley fashion, KPFA acknowledged its 50^th anniversary by airing tapes from its vast archive. Highlights included Patty Hearst issuing a polemic rant about her capitalist pig parents, Che Guevara’s rousing calls for rebellion, and some mighty fine Grateful Dead tunes.

Unfortunately, it looks as though KPFA will likely not see its 51^st anniversary because of an unbridled attempt by station management to wrest local community control in order to consolidate its corporate power and make the property appealing to a broader audience. In other words, KPFA’s corporate parent wants to homogenize the product so it can be sold for a healthy profit in a market that thinks Wonder is bread and amazon.com is a bookstore.

Owned by Pacifica Foundation, KPFA pre-dated National Public Radio by a wide margin. Eschewing corporate underwriting, KPFA is truly the peoples’ radio, and enjoys a remarkably unfettered approach to disseminating information that is usually not palatable to corporate radio tastes. KPFA subscribers foot 80 percent of the station’s annual budget of US$2.3 million.

KPFA began broadcasting on April 15, 1949 when Lewis Hall and a group of World War II conscientious objectors in Berkeley hijacked 94.1 on the FM band. From that day forward, the station has aired a diversified mix of news, public affairs, music, and educational programming. The radio station is as infamous for its long history of regular internal squabbles and general grumpiness as it is for its progressive politics. Station politics aside, KPFA is widely recognized for the exceptionally high level of quality inherent in the programs it airs. Allen Ginsberg first read “Howl” on KPFA and film critic Pauline Kael started her career at the Berkeley station. The musical explorations of the Grateful Dead were first (and are still) heard on KPFA.

On March 31, corporate parent Pacifica refused to renew the contract of KPFA general manager Nicole Sawaya and the KPFA staff—including all on-air talent—was immediately subject to a blanket gag rule on the issue. Shortly after, Larry Bensky, a longtime KPFA on-air personality, was fired for speaking about the Sawaya situation on the air. KPFA staffers, their union, and the station’s subscribers formed an organization, Take Back KPFA, to demand Sawaya and Bensky be reinstated. Even the Berkeley City Council got in on the act, passing a resolution in support of the KPFA staffers.

The battle for control of KPFA continued with the predictable ebb and flow that occurs when progressive politics clash with corporate culture, even a more progressive corporation like Pacifica Foundation. On June 21, fourteen KPFA sympathizers were arrested when they blocked the Pacifica Foundation entrance next door to the KPFA studio and offices in Berkeley. They were protesting the firing of volunteer Robbie Osman because he violated the Pacifica gag order by talking about the dispute on the air.

Later that evening a few hundred protesters picketed in front of the building and sent a delegation—including Berkeley city council member Maudelle Shirek—to confront Pacifica executive director Lynn Chadwick. A uniformed officer escorted Chadwick from the building to a waiting police car.

At the same time, board members representing Pacifica’s three largest radio stations in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and New York announced their intent to file a lawsuit against Pacifica Foundation alleging the corporation had illegally removed the local boards’ power to appoint members to the national board.

While the firing of KPFA general manager Nicole Sawaya appears to have precipitated the discord, KPFA employees and their supporters insist that the real issue is Pacifica’s move to wrest local, community-based control of the radio station. Most feel Pacifica is attempting to consolidate its power and perhaps trying to make the radio properties more attractive for potential sale.

For its part, Pacifica said that it had to stop allowing each local board to name its own members to the national board because it violates the dual membership rules of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Pacifica representatives also maintained that labor laws forbid it from disclosing why Sawaya’s contract was not renewed.

To no one’s surprise, the KPFA issue pot continued to boil. On July 13, longtime KPFA journalist Dennis Bernstein was forcibly removed from the KPFA studios during his “Flashpoints” show for airing grievances about the station’s dispute with Pacifica. Bernstein could be heard on-air struggling with armed guards shortly after his program ended, shouting, “Those are my personal papers. Don’t go into my desk!” KPFA staffers and supporters engaged in an impromptu protest and more than twenty demonstrators—including some station employees—were arrested inside the building for trespassing.

Pacifica representatives claimed that Bernstein violated the gag rule for an entire hour. Bernstein told the San Francisco Chronicle that he didn’t say anything about the dispute during his news show, instead he merely played portions of a taped public press conference toward the end of his hour-long show.

In a particularly bizarre twist in this surrealistic chain of events, radio station supporters released a misrouted email between Pacifica board members discussing the possible sale of KPFA at a news conference the same day Bernstein was fired. Pacifica spokeswoman Elan Fabbri confirmed the validity of the email but stated that the email author, a Houston real estate broker who sits on the Pacifica board, is in the minority and none of the other board members support a sale of KPFA.

Station management—or Pacifica, reports differ—cancelled all live KPFA broadcasts and station managers played taped material over the air. No scriptwriter could have penned a more appropriate climax to the day: the KPFA evening news was replaced with a taped Marxist-Maoist analysis of the 1960s.

The next morning, KPFA staffers—including on-air talent—were locked out of the radio station. “Everyone at KPFA has been placed on administrative leave until we’re able to cool things off,” Fabbri told Associated Press writer Michelle Locke. Berkeley city council member Maudelle Shirek announced she would introduce an emergency resolution forcing Pacifica to mediate its dispute with KPFA staff and the community. Berkeley police chief Dash Butler also supported mediation.

That evening several hundred demonstrators continued the protest watch outside the KPFA office. Author Alice Walker addressed the crowd: “Freedom is such a constant struggle, but I have to say that I never expected to be standing here in front of KPFA talking about trying to save KPFA. This is the place that we consider ours. This is our station.”

Within days, the dispute escalated to the California legislature. President pro-tem of the state Senate, John Burton (D-San Francisco), Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), and fourteen other legislators signed a letter criticizing Pacifica for the KPFA lockout and ending local control of the foundation’s national board. The letter requested a hearing before the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

Pacifica spokeswoman Elan Fabbri denied that the KPFA staff were locked-out of the station, reiterating her earlier statement that the entire staff had been placed on “administrative leave.” KPFA’s front doors were padlocked with a chain, windows were boarded up, and an armed private security force occupied the building. KPFA staffers consistently claim that the lockout is a violation of their contract, which might explain why Fabbri continues to call the lockout “administrative leave.” Days earlier Fabbri went on the record insisting “there is no attempt to ‘corporatize’” KPFA, going so far as to say that it was a “nice little buzz word that’s been thrown into this.” Now she was referring to the situation as a “labor dispute” and adamant in claiming that KPFA must change in order to increase its audience size.

While steadfastly maintaining that the KPFA staffer gag order was legitimate and in keeping with the corporation’s policy, Pacifica broadcast its version of the dispute on its New York station WBAI. The program, “Democracy Now,” was yanked from the air during its Washington, DC broadcast and blocked in Berkeley and Los Angeles.

On July 17, KPFA staffers and supporters began camping out at the radio station. Under the banner of “Camp KPFA,” the community pledged to hold their ground until they regain control of KPFA. On July 20, CAMP KPFA was ordered vacated by the Berkeley police and eleven more individuals were arrested for trespassing. As of July 20, a total of ninety-five KPFA staffers and supporters had been arrested. The demonstrations at the radio station continue and KPFA staffers began broadcasting on a microtransmitter (accessible as streaming MP3 on the Net at live.freekpfa.net:5732).

On July 19, KPFA staffers charged that the armed private security force occupying the KPFA building, IPSA International, has ties to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. KPFA staffers worry that the security force has access to confidential records kept by KPFA journalists in the building’s offices. Pacifica Foundation managers refused to let KPFA employees and volunteers retrieve their files from the radio station, claiming that the material is company property.

KPFA has repeatedly exposed alleged law enforcement abuses and some employees are worried about the obvious ramifications of the exposure of their confidential records and source notes to law enforcement agencies.

On July 21, Pacifica connected the KPFA transmitter to the signal from KPFK in Los Angeles via ISDN. No longer was there any doubt about Pacifica’s intention to consolidate its radio holdings and subvert local community control of its stations.

If you don’t think this is an important issue, or if you don’t think it could happen to community-supported media in your hometown, consider this: A few years ago CBS television anchor Dan Rather was mugged in New York. The story was headline copy and lead broadcast items for days after the incident. How much about the KPFA issue have you heard in your local media outlets? If a similar corporate coup took place in your hometown, would you even know? What is the frequency, Kenneth?

Regular updates about the KPFA situation are available at the savepacifica web site. An MP3 streaming audio feed broadcasting live from Camp KPFA is available by pointing your favorite streaming MP3 player (WinAmp for MS Windows; SoundJam for Mac; and mpg123 for UNIX are recommended) at live.freekpfa.net:5732.