Static Hits High at KPFA
API staffers call for reconciliation
By Joyce Nishioka

When Mike Yoshida went to pick up his mail at KPFA’s studio in Berkeley yesterday morning, he was “denied access by the goons,” he said. The security guards posted at the station, he said, told him to wait outside and that they’d check his mail for him. But Yoshida says he never saw the men again.

The 22-year KPFA veteran, however, wasn’t the only one shut out of the studio. Pacifica Foundation, a nonprofit organization which runs the Berkeley station and four others, on Tuesday told paid and unpaid staff not to come to work the next day, according to veteran radio programmer Gina Hotta.

Yoshida said that as of yesterday, Chief Operator Jim Bennett was the only KPFA staffer allowed in the building. Pacifica has brought in replacements for KPFA staffers and archivist Mark Torres, who arrived at the station with three days’ worth of programming. So far Pacifica is not calling the situation a “lockout,” which would be a violation of their union contract, Yoshida said. “They need [Bennett] to seem legal,” he explained.

Ironically, KPFA -- America’s first listener-supported radio station -- was founded in 1949 by a group of World-War-II conscientious objectors with a mission of spreading the word of world peace and justice, said Phil Osegueda, the station’s assistant to the general manager.

But this year has been anything but filled with peace. The on-air removal of co-producer and Flashpoints host Dennis Bernstein when he addressed the conflicts brought out dozens of protesters Tuesday night. That ended in the arrest of at least eight KPFA staffers and about 40 others, according to Yoshida.

“I’m flabbergasted that I would be pulled from the air...by people who founded the station to stand as a bastion of free speech,” Bernstein said. “This is absolute censorship.”

Yoshida alleges that Pacifica had been planning its heavy-handed takeover of the station’s programming for at least a week. He said he talked with several local radio engineers who told him that Pacifica administrators asked them to come into KPFA studios as “scab engineers” or to set up a remote studio.

A week before the latest brouhaha, Asian Pacific Islander staff this month united to issue demands to resolve the conflicts that have been raging over the past four months.

When Hotta stopped by KPFA’s studio in Berkeley earlier this month, she had to sign in with guards. And when she sat in on the radio tapings, security watchmen sat in front of the booth.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Hotta said. “When there are armed guards, the situation has gotten out of hand. Staffers and guests have to sign in. Even if you work there, you can only bring in one guest at a time. If you’ve booked five people, you can only let in one.”

The group sent a letter to Pacifica Foundation, demanding “immediate arrangements for mediation” and the removal of any armed guards, saying the security staff has created an atmosphere in which workers feel as if they are “under siege and under scrutiny at all times.”

On March 31, station manager Nicole Sawaya’s contract wasn’t renewed. “It was a shock,” said Yoshida, a 22-year veteran of the radio station. “It was totally unexpected. We were starting to do well bringing unity to sectors of the community. Because of her strength, disparate sectors were uniting.”

“Everything seemed to be moving ahead. Morale at the station was better. We are a dysfunctional group with huge egos, but things were finally productive,” said KPFA volunteer programmer Weyland Southon.

Sawaya, a Palestinian American, is largely credited for not only bringing unity to a factionalized staff, but also for turning the budget deficit into a surplus. Osegueda said strife escalated with her firing. “I don’t think the network understood the ramifications of that move,” he added. “It spiraled out of control after that. They didn’t think the community and the staff would be as together.”

As part of the organization’s policy not to speak about internal disputes, Pacifica administrators instructed KPFA staffers not to talk about the termination. But some radio hosts, including Bernstein, Larry Bensky and Robby Osman, addressed the controversy anyway -- and were pulled from the airwaves.

Jim Yee, executive director of the Independent Television Service and former Pacifica Foundation and KPFA board member, defended Pacifica’s policy. “Personnel matters should not be open for public discussion,” said Yee, who has called for negotiation without “grandstanding in the streets,”

“It is a matter between the individual and administration.”

On June 21, less than a week after Osman’s dismissal, a protest demanding answers from Pacifica’s executive director Lynn Chadwick resulted in the arrest of 14 people. KPFA Supporters have viewed her as largely responsible for the terminations. On the same day, 16 members of local boards from Pacifica’s three largest stations announced were taking steps to sue Pacifica Foundation.

Previously, each station sent two members to sit on the foundation’s national board. But in February, Pacifica took away that power, creating a “self-perpetuating board with the power to chose future board members,” said Dan Siegel, an attorney representing the members of the local boards. The suit is scheduled to be filed this week in Alameda County Superior Court, said the lawyer.

“Obviously leadership at the Pacifica Foundation has chosen to take actions controversial in the community, the firings, the changes in programming,” said Siegel. “Changing the structure of the national board makes it impossible to do anything about these decisions. There is no longer a democratic process.”

At the center of the controversies has been a suspicion that Pacifica is trying to make KPFA more palatable to mainstream corporate interests, for instance by replacing hard-edge political programs with ones that cover lighter topics such as health, spiritual and social issues. “Before everything was about what was wrong with the world,” said one insider who requested anonymity.

Southon contends new programs are not supported or promoted, and that investment is concentrated in the shows that air during prime money-making slots in the morning and early evening. Describing himself as the “only radical Samoan” on radio, Southon says he has also been disciplined -- including in May when he aired an “anti-pledge drive” during the station’s fund-raising drive, telling listeners to pledge “one-dollar hollars.” In protest of management, a stream of listeners called in to pledge $1.

“It opened a can of worms,” Southon said. “Shows that don’t get supported -- cultural, youth, women of color shows -- have value, though not monetary value. Pacifica doesn’t recognize that.”

But Yee says what some people have termed as “mainstreaming” has actually allowed for more innovative programming with more diverse viewpoints. And an insider in spoke on condition of anonymity said that prior to Pacifica Foundation’s implementation of its five-year-plan in 1995, there was no mechanism for change.

“In extreme cases, when people died they left their program to a person of their choice,” said the insider. “They station had no control. They couldn’t regulate change.”

Pacifica Foundation spokesperson Elan Fabbri could not be reached for comment.

Yoshida and others, though, say Pacifica’s plan has been detrimental to minorities. “Ironically, people who have been leaving in recent weeks have been women of color,” he said. “Sawaya was a woman of color who was bringing diversity - a state the station hadn’t seen. She was starting to build trust in many sectors of the community.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.