IN THIS MESSAGE: Broken Locks Delay KPFA Live Broadcasts; 10,000 Rally for KPFA
Confusion Over Locks Snarls KPFA's Return to Live Broadcasts
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 3, 1999
The official return to work at Berkeley's embattled KPFA radio hit a snag
yesterday when most employees found themselves stranded on the sidewalk by
broken door locks.
Anger at KPFA's governing Pacifica Foundation was running high as staff
members estimated that necessary repairs to the doors, windows and studio
equipment would delay resumption of regular broadcasting until Thursday or
Friday.
Pacifica closed and padlocked the 50-year-old listener-sponsored station
July 13 in a battle with the staff over local control. Pacifica agreed to
reopen the station last week after extensive protests around the country.
Emotions flared yesterday afternoon when about half a dozen KPFA staffers
and supporters confronted Pacifica's executive director, Lynn Chadwick, as
she had lunch with Pacifica consultant Gene Edwards at the nearby Au
Coquelet cafe. Many KPFA partisans have demanded Chadwick's resignation.
With reporters and TV cameras in tow, KPFA broadcaster Dennis Bernstein,
whose July 13 suspension by Pacifica caused a protest occupation of the
station and mass arrests that immediately preceded the lock- out, demanded
to know why employees could not have access to the station's transmitter in
the Berkeley Hills. Chadwick and Edwards departed without comment, leaving
their meals half-uneaten.
Pacifica is using the transmitter to broadcast tapes from an undisclosed
location via a high-speed ISDN data line. Chadwick has told the staff that
the transmitter would be switched back to its local signal as soon as KPFA
is ready to resume broadcasting.
Bernstein said that the transmitter needs to be inspected and possibly
repaired and that delaying access to it could push back the resumption of
local programming even further. Chadwick said she consulted with engineers
and promised that the transmitter would not create extra delay.
Access to the station itself was restricted because of an apparent
misunderstanding yesterday as KPFA staff members limited the number of
people in the station's studios to 10. The Fire Department had imposed the
limit on Friday when the front doors were locked shut. Even though the
doors could be opened yesterday, KPFA staff apparently interpreted the rule
to mean that the occupancy restriction continued to apply until either the
door had working locks or the Fire Department gave a green light.
But Assistant Fire Chief David Orth said the station did not need any
authorization and was permitted to resume normal occupancy whenever the
doors could be used for escaping during an emergency.
On Saturday, about 10,000 people marched in Berkeley in support of KPFA in
a demonstration said to have been the largest protest in the city since the
Vietnam War days.
Both sides of the dispute have been in mediation, but the 11-member KPFA
steering committee met last night to discuss whether it would continue on
present terms.
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle Page A13
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Huge Berkeley rally calls for local autonomy at KPFA
Venise Wagner
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
Aug. 1, 1999
10,000 march in support of demands, assurances from Pacifica Foundation
BERKELEY - An estimated 10,000 supporters of radio station KPFA marched
through Berkeley Saturday and called for the return of control to the
community.
But KPFA Executive Director Lynn Chadwick said the staff already has won
that control.
"What has changed is that we have said the staff will be in charge of
programming," Chadwick said.
Even though Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the Pacifica Foundation board
of directors, turned over the keys to the building housing KPFA on Friday,
after a 17-day lockout, staff say there is a host of concerns, namely the
rumor of the proposed sale of the station.
"There is no sale at the station," Chadwick said Saturday. "There has not
been any talk about it." Staff, she said, planned to resume programming as
early as Tuesday. But KPFA staff and supporters remain skeptical.
"I know they're talking about selling," said J. Imani, a local KPFA
advisory board member who also sits on the 11-member steering committee
negotiating with Pacifica management.
Trouble at the 50-year-old listener-sponsored KPFA began in April when
station manager Nicole Sawaya was dismissed. A subsequent management edict
prohibiting discussion of the issue on the air set the stage for a series
of showdowns. A talk show host and music programmer were fired, Dennis
Bernstein was yanked off the air in mid-July for talking about the
controversy. Scores were arrested, all staffers were put on leave and the
station was locked up.
The fracas has drawn hundreds of protesters who marched, rallied and, in
some cases, camped out in front of KPFA.
KPFA backers say they also want Pacifica Foundation to restructure its
board, shifting power from the national network to each of its five local
stations.
"We want to change the running of Pacifica so this doesn't happen again,"
said Medea Benjamin, an advisor to KPFA staff who is also founding director
of Global Exchange, a human rights and educational group. "We see the board
as a top-down autocratic body that needs to be reformed. People on the
board should be selected by local stations."
Imani said a negotiating meeting was scheduled for this coming week, but he
declined to be specific.
Not about diversity
"I think we're going to win," said Imani. "This makes me hopeful," he said
pointing to the crowd that had assembled for the rally at Martin Luther
King Park. "Look at this crowd. All the young people. All the queer people.
All the people of color."
Berry, according to Imani, had mistakenly identified this battle as one
over diversity. But it's not just about that, Imani said.
"She thought this was about old white folks who didn't want to change. Then
Dolores Huerta (United Farm Workers leader) is an old white man who doesn't
want to change," he said facetiously. "June Jordan is an old white man who
doesn't want to change. Alice Walker is my favorite old white man who
doesn't want to change.
"That they (management) want to build Pacifica is not a bad thing," he
continued. "That they want to build it up for themselves, that's a bad thing."
The jovial and confident crowd gathered at UC-Berkeley's Sproul Plaza,
birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, and marched 16 blocks along
Channing Way, Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley Way and Milvia Street to
Martin Luther King Park. Police estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 marched to
the park and about 3,500 stayed for the rally. Organizers said 15,000
marched through the streets.
People carried signs asking Mary Frances Berry to step down. Others
questioned the veracity of her statements. Still another likened her to
Bull Connor, the Birmingham police commissioner who in the 1950s led
attacks against civil rights protesters. The mass of people walked down
blocked-off streets chanting "Whose station? Our station" and "Free KPFA."
Unifying crisis
Keith and Luella McFarland, 78 and 79, respectively, both regular KPFA
listeners, came from Palo Alto with a contingent from the Peninsula Peace
and Justice Center.
"We believe in free speech and free travel," said Luella McFarland, adding
that they went to Cuba in 1995 in defiance of the government's ban on
travel to the country.
Keith McFarland was pleased with the turnout.
"I think this will bring enough pressure on the board that they open up and
keep free speech."
Harvey Robb, 57, a clarinetist with the Musicians' Action Group, was fired
up for the march. He and the group played rhythm-popping tunes that kept
the crowd charged.
"Mary Frances Berry did the impossible. She brought together a group that
never was unified for anything," Robb said, referring to KPFA supporters.
"Nothing has brought people together as much as this has."
©1999 San Francisco Examiner Page D 1
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PACIFICA RADIO, Matthew Lasar (Temple University ; 320 pages; $20):
An uneven but irresistible history of embattled KPFA by a local scholar and
former KPFA newscaster.
