KPFK’s Problems
Congrats to the self-selected KPFK Local Advisory Board for its successful campaign to win back control of the station (“Pacifica Network Knows No Peace,” by Steve Carney, Feb. 1). Now they can return it to the flight path toward irrelevance and insolvency it was on prior to Mark Schubb’s appointment as general manager.
In just a few years, Schubb managed to double contributions and triple listenership at the station without accepting a dime of corporate money or altering its basic progressive political stance. He simply allowed a wider range of debate and reflection than his ideologically pure critics could abide.
DOUG WEIHNACHT
San Francisco
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That changes were/are needed to Pacifica Foundation’s National Board and its governing structure is not disputed, but it really needs to be done after a governing national board has been elected by all of Pacifica’s subscriber base, not by a small set of people who represent themselves as the spokespeople for the subscribers.
M.G. PEARCY
West Hills
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I found most of the article to contain a recognizable relationship to the happenings in the attempted corporate raid of Pacifica radio stations by the board of directors that has been removed by order of the court. However, the characterization of the legal battle as a “family brawl” is totally misleading.
The majority members of the removed board was constitutionally opposed to Pacifica’s progressive, populist mission and charter. The ruling majority of that board was a distinctly anti-union, right-wing corporate group with an agenda to silence the only progressive and truly publicly sponsored radio stations in the country and convert their assets into mainstream, revenue-driven, commercial programming. There is no “family” relationship between such diametrically opposed forces.
FRANK KOLWICZ
Newbury Park
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Juan Gonzalez, pacifica campaign.org, Amy Goodman, democracynow.org and countless, selfless others who are modern-day Edward R. Murrows who value journalistic honesty over salary will be historic figures. If it wasn’t for their incredible efforts, this $200-million-plus network would simply have become one more “asset” for some investors and internal charlatans. Its preservation is no “jihad”; it’s democracy.
LARRY MARTEL
Los Angeles