Radio Survivor

Bonnie Simmons and Tom Donahue from the KSAN days (source: jive95.com)

Every Thursday night I drive home from Santa Cruz, where I teach at the University of California campus situated in that fair city. Soon as 8 pm comes around, I tune into KPFA to listen to the Bonnie Simmons / Derk Richardson music show, which I absolutely love.

To be accurate, they’re actually two separate shows, but I experience them as one. Folk rock, hard rock, classic rock, R&B, lesbo-womyn’s-punk-crossover-wuddever rock, just folk, ethnic,  plus wuddever by itself—they play it all. Or, to be more accurate, they play the good stuff. And it is so good. Trust me on this. I don’t even listen to rock and roll and I listen to them religiously, because they’ve got that mysterious, unexplainable thing called great taste in music.

First comes Bonnie Simmons. Here’s the first five songs of a recent Bonnie playlist:

I mean, who can argue with this? For two hours it’s like an alternate universe where nothing ever sucks. How does Simmons do it? Years of experience in the music biz, going back to the free form radio days: music director at KSAN, promoter for Prince and Dire Straights, deejay at KFOG, LIVE 105, and KOFY. Plus she managed Cake for eight years and currently hustles for Noe Venable and Etienne de Rocher. (more…)

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez’s radio/TV program Democracy Now! is, without question, the most successful media vehicle in the history of the United States Left. Launched at Pacifica station WBAI-FM in New York City in the mid-1990s, it is now an independent venture, subscribed to by over 800 radio, TV, and Internet stations around the world. From the perspective of this media historian, Democracy Now! exceeds all previous attempts to spread an explicitly social justice oriented message via broadcast and/or print. No prior effort, starting with the The Masses at the beginning of the  20th century,  has ever come so far in terms of influence and reach.

I listen to Democracy Now!’s one hour broadcast on a regular basis because it is fast paced and timely, racing to wherever the action is—Haiti, Copenhagen, Washington, D.C, or Honduras. I don’t always agree with the program’s perspective, but I appreciate the effort DN makes to host debates and discussions within the Left about how to move forward, such as its recent debate about how to respond to the Obama adminstration’s health care initiative. The vast majority of community radio style public affairs programs, within and beyond Pacifica, simply ignore these disagreements and tout one line or another, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. DN has far outpaced those efforts in part because of its willingness to embrace a broader perspective.

Here is some of what I wrote about Democracy Now! in my second book on Pacifica, Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio’s Civil War.

When she chanced upon WBAI in New York, Amy Goodman had just graduated from Harvard College and returned to the city. She had been raised in Bay Shore, Long Island, by a family of activists; her mother had spent much of the 1980s working for the Nuclear Weapons Freeze. Her father, an ophthalmologist, had been a civil rights advocate in the 1960s, taking a stand for school integration in a predominantly white suburb.

“I would go to the night meetings,” Goodman later recalled. “A thousand people would be screaming, and I would watch him stand his ground. There were death threats, but he just went on. I think that very much shaped my feeling about what was just in the world.” Now out of school and on her own, she had just finished a series of articles for Ralph Nader and Alan Nairn’s Multinational Monitor on Depo-Provera, the controversial birth-control shot. Goodman was about to enroll in Hunter College for graduate classes in biochemistry when a course on radio production caught her eye. WBAI’s Andrew Phillips taught the class. At the time Phillips hosted a show called “Investigations,” a program dedicated to what radio producers call “actuality” – the sounds of people talking and doing things on tape, speeches, demonstrations, street interviews. Goodman sat in on the first lecture, then talked with Phillips afterwards. The latter knew a true believer when he saw one. He asked her if she wanted to apprentice for him at WBAI. She protested that she had no radio experience. “That’s fine,” Phillips replied. That evening the two walked the mile from Hunter on the East Side to WBAI’s West Side headquarters. Phillips put his new student to work editing tapes for an upcoming program on the fortieth anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. “And I never left,” Goodman later explained. (more…)

#14 in our series on radio trends of the decade

One fine day in March of 1999, the Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation’s five license network fired the general manager of its flagship listener supported radio station: KPFA-FM in Berkeley, California. When staff and subscribers revolted against the move, Pacifica shut the station down, triggering a march of 10,000 furious supporters through the city. Powered by the Internet and tired of top down decision making in public broadcasting, listener subscribers at Pacifica’s non-commercial outlets in New York, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Houston, and Washington, D.C. demanded the right to elect their local station boards.

Almost four years of lawsuits, demonstrations, sit-ins, shut-downs, and walk-outs later, they won, creating the most small-d democratic radio network in the United States. Every year thousands of KPFA, WBAI, KPFK, WPFW, and KPFT subscribers receive ballots in the mail for listener board delegates. Some of them even vote.

What was striking about the conflict was the extent to which it spread far beyond the frog pond atmosphere of community radio. The New York City Council and California’s state assembly held hearings on the battle. California’s Attorney General even endorsed a class action lawsuit against the Pacifica board, which was chaired by Mary Frances Berry, then head of the United States Civil Rights Commission. Hundreds of prominent activists, intellectuals, politicians, and artists signed statements on behalf of the rebellion, including Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Ralph Nader, Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, and Joan Baez. And dozens of newspapers covered the conflict, among them the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times.

Not everybody is crazy about the results of this democratic revolution, which has done nothing to alleviate Pacifica’s famously contentious internal atmosphere. But it has redefined the possibilities for how to structure broadcasting in the U.S., and so it deserves a place in our list of significant radio trends of the decade.

Further reading: Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio’s Civil War

Alas, my favorite listener supported radio station is not immune to this awful economic slump. KPFA-FM in Berkeley, California has announced across-the-board staff cuts. Looks like everything’s getting sliced. Even the General Manager, Lemlem Rijio, has taken a pay hit.

“These cuts to KPFA staff have been the most difficult thing I have had to do during my tenure at station manager,” Rijio said in a press release sent around to station supporters (see below).

Everything is being retrenched by 20 percent it seems, including programming, operations, development, and administration. It’s all mandated by the Pacifica National Board, which owns KPFA’s license.

“The good news is because of the generosity of our listeners, KPFA is going to survive this difficult financial crisis,” Rijio’s statement continued. “The bad news is in order to survive KPFA will be continuing to cut cost across the boardover the next three to six months. These cuts will impact all programs and operations at KPFA.”

KPFA is America’s first listener supported station, founded by pacifists in 1949. Last time I checked the signal was programmed and run by about 200 people. My favorite public affairs program at KPFA is The Morning Show. My favorite music program is The Bonnie Simmons Show on Thursday nights.

I just renewed my subscription this evening. If you are lucky enough to have some money to spare in these lousy times, the secure online support page is here. (more…)

Andrea Lewis

It was a hard thing for me to learn today that Andrea Lewis, long time public affairs programmer at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, is dead. The statement from KPFA’s Amelia Gonzalez (see below) says that it may have been a heart attack. Whatever did her in, it’s a huge tragedy. She was 52 years young.

Andrea was a vibrant, intelligent and credible voice at KPFA, a spirited interviewer interested in everything and anything related to human (and even non-human) affairs. I was privileged to be interviewed by her on many occasions, and enjoyed myself thoroughly every time.

My heart goes out to Andrea’s parents and to all her loved ones, friends, and colleagues everywhere as we come to terms with this awful loss.

“It is we deep sadness that we bring you the news of the death of our own Andrea Lewis this weekend of an apparent heart attack at her San Francisco home. She was just 52. Andrea’s parents are on their way from Florida. We are planning a memorial service and will let you know as soon as we have details. Andrea came to KPFA in 1999 as a co-host of the Morning Show. She later became host of Sunday Sedition and an Evening News Co-Anchor. Andrea was a true Renaissance woman with an interest in politics, world affairs, sports, science, music and the arts. She was dedicated to discussing on and off the air the issues of social justice, especially in regards to racial and gender equity. Her booming laugh filled the hallways of the station. Andrea occasionally hosted Pacifica National broadcasts; she was an early host for Free Speech Radio News. Andrea wrote for the Progressive Magazine, sang with the S.F. Community Chorus, was a former Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University — and was an avid golfer. We — and the listeners — will all miss her tremendously.”

While we’re on the subject of public radio station fundraiser marathons, there’s a related event in progress: board elections at the Pacifica radio network. Subscribers and staff at all five Pacifica stations in New York City, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Houston are voting for members of their respective local station boards. There are a slew of candidates for each of these listener-supported non-commercial signals. If you regularly subscribe to one of these stations, you’ve probably gotten or will get your ballot in the mail soon. Make sure it’s in the hands of the election team by October 14 via that enclosed, addressed envelope you’ll receive.

It should be noted that, unlike the local advisory boards at many public radio stations, the boards at Pacifica really matter. They have a host of responsibilities, including reviewing the station’s budget and screening and selecting the pool of candidates for the station’s Program Director and General Manager. They also choose from among themselves delegates to the governing board of the Pacifica Foundation, which owns the network’s five broadcast licenses.

Not a whole lot of news about this event so far, at least not at KPFA, the station to which I subscribe. But an interesting endorsement caught my eye. It came from the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, and I’ve got to say that its editors, Willie and Mary Ratcliff, deserve credit for their openness. The two disclose that they’re supporting various contenders on the following criterion: (more…)

Ten years ago this Friday, one of the most remarkable events in the annals of United States broadcasting took place. Looking back on it now, I can hardly believe that it happened, even though I was there and saw it myself. On a very sunny Saturday July 31, 1999, about ten thousand people gathered in a park to demand the reopening of listener-supported radio station KPFA-FM in Berkeley, California. Ten thousand was the police estimate. It looked like more to me at the time.

The front of the demo as it marched past KPFA on July 31, 1999; photo: Susan Druding

Why would anyone want to silence that nice little station, you ask? You know, the non-commercial one that was started by pacifists after World War II, and plays folk music, Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!, and operates almost entirely on subscriber donations? Surely this must have been the nefarious work of the FBI, you say, or the CIA, or some local rogue police operation working in cahoots with state government reactionaries.

Nope, the clampdown came from the station’s owner, the Pacifica Foundation, via its Executive Director, Lynn Chadwick, with support from its National Board and its Chair, the celebrated historian Mary Frances Berry, she also then head of the United States Civil Rights Commission. In fact, I think this little failed putsch came from the American Left.
(more…)