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Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 20:07:32 -0500
To: [log in to unmask]
From: Eileen Sutton <[log in to unmask]
Subject: PACIFICA REPORTERS THREATEN STRIKE


Dear Free-Speech Lovers,

As many of you know, censorship at Pacifica Radio has, since the 
KPFA crisis last Spring, become a way of life.  And the 
"reassignment" of Pacifica Network News director Dan Coughlin 
this past November was, for many, the last straw.  Pacifica 
Foundation chair Mary Frances Berry also heads the U.S. Civil 
Rights Commission, though it's clear her vision of civil rights does 
not extend to press freedoms.  Pacifica has a cancer of censorship 
growing within that we intend to purge.  

To fight Pacifica's rightward and authoritarian drift, the national and 
international stringers and contributors to Pacifica Network News--
PNN--have decided to act, and are threatening to strike the national 
news on January 31st for 3 months if several demands are not met. 
 Dozens of reporters have already signed on from across the 
Americas, Asia and Europe, and our current strike list comprises 
the majority of regular contributors to the national-news broadcast. 
(This action in no way affects the local-news division at each sister 
station.)  

Tomorrow, we are sending our demands to management.  This will 
be ganged with a massive media push.  Hundreds of press 
releases are going out across the country to print and radio 
reporters, web sites, community groups, academics, free-speech 
institutions, progressive writers, unions, etc.  We are asking for 
support at every level, and we are asking those who give interviews 
to Pacifica to consider boycotting the network news as well.  

We've set up an on-line press kit at "www.savepacific.net" for 
reporters and anyone interested in learning more about the action. 
There you'll find our press release, our letter to management, a 
Chronology of Censorship, several salient articles including an 
outstanding Salon piece on Mary Frances Berry, artwork, etc.  
Most recently Frank Ahrens of the Washington Post described 
Pacifica sister-station WPFW in Washington as the most 
censorious in the network, and his comments could not have come 
at a better time.  

We are trying desperately to save Pacifica.  Opinions vary about 
the fate, and the state, of the network.  Some feel the forces within 
Pacifica who seek to neuter it's progressive voice have the upper 
hand and will ultimately prevail.  Others feel Pacifica management 
is, despite its bravado, vulnerable, and that this strike action 
comes at an excellent time, and will give activists and journalists 
who are fighting for the network a place to focus their energies.  

If we can educate the mainstream press about what's really 
happening at "free-speech radio" we believe there's a fighting 
chance.  The struggle to preserve the country's oldest community-
sponsored, non-commercial media institution is not merely a labor 
struggle, as management would have us believe.  The public needs 
to know that the fight for this network is historic, especially within 
the context of gargantuan corporate media mergers which result in 
the strangulation of free, unimpeded access to news and 
information.  We hope to build a tidal wave of support for this 
action, while renaming this crisis. Management says labor 
struggle.  We say CENSORSHIP.  Management says internal 
matters. We say CENSORSHIP.  Management tries to gag us, we 
say CENSORSHIP.  

What can you do?  Spread the word.  Check out the web site.  We 
are setting up a strike fund to support those free-lance reporters 
who earn a lot from Pacifica and who will be sacrificing that 
income. Even a $5 donation to the strike fund is appreciated.  
Please take a moment to circulate and/or send our Affinity Letter to 
Mary Frances Berry.  This will be available on the web site as of 
January 31st, when the strike is scheduled to begin.  There is also 
talk of striking reporters filing stories on-line and producing 
alternative broadcasts for Pacifica affiliates.  The possibilities are 
endless...  

A small group here in New York has begun to brainstorm as to how 
to involve the New York activist community (forums?  demos?  
parades?) and your ideas are most welcome.  Please leave us a 
voice mail at (212) 439-8087, or write to us at 
[log in to unmask]  

We are striking to fight censorship.  Front and center.  
Management has tried desperately to keep this issue out of the 
national Pacifica debate, but as of this strike action, that particular 
black-out is officially over.  

Please treat yourself to the comments of Daniel Ellsberg below.  
We thank you for your interest, and welcome your support.  

onward,
Eileen Sutton
Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship
(212) 439-8087

=================================

Daniel Ellsberg's KPFA Interview Discussing Censorship
at Pacifica

"The present management of Pacifica seems to me
entirely unsuited to running not only KPFA of all
things, but really any media outlet. They would seem
entirely inappropriate [to be running] NPR or NBC or
CBS. They should have nothing to do with journalism.

"Mary Frances Berry, I read in the papers, has a
distinguished background in connection with human
rights and civil rights and South Africa and sexism
and racism. This would seem to be an inglorious
chapter in her career. At every stage of this thing
she seems to believe in human rights so long as people
donít challenge her authority. She believes in the
rights of employees who obey orders. Nothing could be
less suited to a listener supported organ of free
expression like KPFA.

"The people at Pacifica who defy the orders to use
their own news judgment in reporting the news. and who
were fired for it, did exactly what they should have
done. The orders were wrong. The orders were absurd.
To censor from a news program on an unusually free and
reliable news service, to censor from that news what
was front page news on both San Francisco newspapers
is absurd. And that was an order that should have been
disobeyed and the people who -- in the best traditions
of journalism -- chose to defy that and to tell us
what we needed to know . . . should not suffer for
that. So long as theyíre off the air weíre suffering.
We the listeners who depend on them are suffering and
itís up to us to correct that."//




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